Hello. I'm new to the site and happy to have found it. I had some questions and they were quickly answered. That was nice. I find, in reading what I've had a chance to read so far, that this is a great site and forum and that was the deciding factor. I've told my wife about the site and hopefully she'll join as well.
About us.
We are, for now, in Southern California and just a few months ago my wife decided to raise chickens again. They are going on two months now, Rhode Island Reds and Buff Orpingtons. Wifey raised chickens about twenty years ago and we had them on the farm when I was growing up.
I have a decent side yard so I put up a gate on the end and cobbled together a small coop. I'm building an outside lay box setup so I can keep the interior of the coop as is. It's on the small side and plans are in the works to build additional roosting for them. I'm also looking into a portable run so I can get them out of the run and into the back yard where they can semi-free graze.
It's pretty hot here so the side yard works well because there's only a few hours of direct sun and the southern and south west end has a nice semi arbor of Night Blooming Jasmine and that end houses the lawn sprinkler cover so they have a roost outside on that end where there's always shade. I have a door on one side that has a door that' large enough so I can get in for clean out and on one end I cut their access hole and I have door with kitchen cabinet type hinges on it, the kind that over center a spring to self close the last few inches and stay closed. I built an additional lock to prevent feral cats from clawing it open.
I'll be cruising the forum to glean additional ideas and also, just to read about what others are doing. See you around
Dak
About us.
We are, for now, in Southern California and just a few months ago my wife decided to raise chickens again. They are going on two months now, Rhode Island Reds and Buff Orpingtons. Wifey raised chickens about twenty years ago and we had them on the farm when I was growing up.
I have a decent side yard so I put up a gate on the end and cobbled together a small coop. I'm building an outside lay box setup so I can keep the interior of the coop as is. It's on the small side and plans are in the works to build additional roosting for them. I'm also looking into a portable run so I can get them out of the run and into the back yard where they can semi-free graze.
It's pretty hot here so the side yard works well because there's only a few hours of direct sun and the southern and south west end has a nice semi arbor of Night Blooming Jasmine and that end houses the lawn sprinkler cover so they have a roost outside on that end where there's always shade. I have a door on one side that has a door that' large enough so I can get in for clean out and on one end I cut their access hole and I have door with kitchen cabinet type hinges on it, the kind that over center a spring to self close the last few inches and stay closed. I built an additional lock to prevent feral cats from clawing it open.
I'll be cruising the forum to glean additional ideas and also, just to read about what others are doing. See you around
Dak
