I don't understand

[Ol Grey Mare]

A few more thoughts - much of the use of a coop and run is about more than just bird security, it is also about human convenience -- by containing the birds you make it easy to find your birds, find their eggs, minimize your losses, etc. Also, the degree to which someone goes to add certain things to their setups have to do with why that person is keeping birds in the first place -- those that see the birds purely as pets are going to be looking at some angles from a different perspective than those who are in it for production purposes and see their flock as livestock.

Ultimately, any animal we choose to take responsibility for comes with a set of basic needs - meeting those needs is our obligation as good stewards to the animal, anything we choose to do above and beyond that is just a bonus to the animal and/or ourselves.

 

[aart]

So there's no easy way to go this, is there?

I've been pouring over all the coops, and I have more questions than answers.

Do you shut the sliding for every night? If so, why so much attention paid to enclosing the run?

Why do the nests stick out the side of the building?

I can't fathom the necessity for a walk-in building.

Must it be insulated?

I know I'm obviously wrong, but it seems like the coop itself is overkill.

I still don't understand

OGM has answered your questions with her usual efficiency and clarity but.....

I'm curious, where are you located? Climate can make a big difference in how you'd house chickens.
What is your experience/exposure with chickens?
Are you thinking of getting chickens, if so what are your goals in having them?

You said in your first post "Why can I not just put some chickens in a fenced area and be done with it?"
Short answer is......you can if you want, go for it...just remember that there are risks.

 

[iawoodchip]

Jason. Here's how I approached the same question that you're throwing around. I stalker BYC for a couple of years to make sure I had most of my answers before I ever took the plunge. There are numerous people on BYC with the right answers, and a few that think they know the answer. After I decided to get started is when I actually found the right answers for my situation, and used so many lessons I had learned. Thank you BYC

 

[Blooie]

Excellent response from Ol Grey Mare, as usual. There is a lot of information out there. If keeping chickens just within a fence was adequate or safe for them, believe me most of us would be doing that rather than building coops and runs. And remember, as far as just putting up a fence and letting them live there is concerned - chickens are birds. Birds can fly. If they want to get out they'll find a way.

I am probably going to get blasted for this, but if you want "easy" then goldfish make nice pets. I don't mean that as disrespectfully as I'm sure it comes across, but that was the advice I got when I got started with this chicken stuff, and as irritated as I got it over it that was the piece of advice that ended up making the most sense. Keeping chickens healthy and as productive as they can be does take work, and until you get a setup you can work with then no, it isn't easy. On the other hand it isn't rocket science either. Chickens are kept in all kinds of situations around the world and do just fine. My setup was built with my 8 and 9 year old grandkids in mind, because they are my chicken sitters when I have obligations out of town, which I do frequently. Mine is so easy to care for that I can safely and comfortably leave them in charge and they have no difficulty whatsoever. Clean the poop board, top off the food and water if those things need it, gather the eggs, and make sure to lock up when they are done. That's it. But that's after we did the initial work to make it work that well. If it was complicated to care for the chickens, I'd be staying home rather than trusting two little kids with everything. It's the initial work in getting your needs, wants and budget balanced against what the chickens need that takes the time and work in the beginning. After that it's just caring for the birds, maintenance and housekeeping - oh, and enjoying the fruits of your labor. You don't have to get as elaborate as some of the coops I'm sure you've seen, but shelter for chickens should meet the following:

Secure - nothing can devastate a flock faster than a weak spot in the coop, run or range allowing a predator access to your birds or allowing them to escape, never to be seen again. My run is extremely secure so I leave my pop door open all night. I ain't an early riser, and they are, so by leaving it open they can go out for a drink and a nibble while I'm still sawing logs. Some leave it open, some don't.
.
Clean - chickens kept in dirty surroundings are more prone to illnesses and parasites, and the eggs and meat aren't real appetizing either.

Dry and ventilated - this is critical. Warm, moist air must be able to escape out of upper ventilation gaps or vents. Moist air in the winter is what causes frostbite and respiratory infections, and that moist air comes from the chickens' breathing, pooping, rain or snow seeping in, and waterers in a closed up coop. Those respiratory infections can spread like wildfire. Also the ammonia from chicken droppings needs to be ventilated out. Many of us use "poop boards" under the roosts. Chickens poop a lot when they are sleeping, and by using a poop board with either sand or Sweet PDZ it's almost sinfully easy to use a cat litter type scoop in the morning and clean that board exactly like a cat's litter box. The less poop in the coop, the less fume in the room! (I made a funny!) Cold isn't as detrimental to their safety as the moisture and ammonia fumes. It's even more critical in the summer because heat kills more birds than cold does. I don't insulate, nor do I provide artificial heat and I live near Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, where we KNOW winter well.

Draft free - sounds counterproductive to advise as much ventilation as possible but advise against drafts, but they are two different things. Drafts allow cold winds to come right down onto the birds as they roost, and that ruffles their feathers, which allows all of that warm air they have trapped in their insulation to escape. Think of wearing a warm down coat in a howling blizzard, then suddenly having the zipper break - that cold wind sucks out all the warmth that the coat kept trapped next to your body - instant iceberg. And speaking of trapped warmth, flat roosts like a 2x4 with the flat side up lets them sit on their toes instead of having them exposed while they try to cling to a round perch all night.

Nest boxes - these mean cleaner eggs, less breakage and less egg eating, always. (That said, if you do have an egg eater, where the egg is laid won't matter, but if they learn young where to lay and use those areas exclusively then at least they aren't following their natural instincts to peck at anything on the ground.) You don't need one per bird - I think the recommendation is 1 box for every 4 birds, although most of them will end up using only one or two favorite ones. These don't have to be sticking out of the outside of the coop. Folks have very successfully provided their birds with everything from 5 gallon pails laid on their sides to milk crates, Rubbermaid totes, cardboard boxes, big flower pots....you name it, it can be a nest, and it can sit right on the floor if you want. You can lay them side by side, scatter them around, or attach them one on top of the other, depending on your space in the coop.

All kinds of coops meet these 5 basic requirements,whether they are small and simple or huge and elaborate. I do like being able to stand up in my coop so I can clean effectively, check on the birds, and not walk around in there hunched over, but then I'm old and not as flexible as I once was. You can accomplish all of this with a small coop geared to the size and number of your chickens. A small, A-frame structure has worked very well for lots of people. Play houses have been converted. All you are after is just what Ol Grey Mare pointed out....shelter. Period. And shelter provides a clean, dry, ventilated place for them to sleep and lay eggs, free from the threat of predators.

You are going to do just fine, Jason! I didn't intend to make it sound like I was discouraging you one bit, because this chicken keeping stuff is a lot of fun, always interesting, and very, very rewarding. But it is work to get it started at first, and I wish my eyes would have been opened before I started so I could have avoided some unpleasant surprises. If you have a family, get them involved from the beginning and it becomes less like work and more like a new family adventure. And relax! You have thousands of good people out here who have your back. We want you to succeed and enjoy the ride. There isn't a question that hasn't been asked and answered. The beauty is being able to take the bits and pieces that work for you and your situation - and then blowing off the extra stuff.

 

[Jason38]

All your answers are helpful and greatly appreciated.

Well, my son is going to show chickens. His older sister has shown a pig and is now raising a lamb for show. My wife showed lambs as a child (meh). Frankly, I'm not satisfied with the ignorance surrounding the pig and lamb experience. I'm getting involved this time, and I'd like the experience to incorporate chickens into my lifestyle.

I'm in Texas.

I've finally found a working example of the very simplest design, which makes me comfortable. I'm a reductionist by nature. I need the basic necessities with the freedom to create.

 

[21hens-incharge]

I can assure you that in town there are predators. I am in the middle of a town (city) of around 100 thousand people.
Things that I have trying for my hens are
Foxes
Hawks
Stray and under supervised neighborhood "pets" (cats mainly)
and The odd skunk

Just Thursday while I was working on my new and improved coop a hawk came in and actually landed on one of my hens. I had to bank coming around the apple tree so it was slowed down quite a bit. It was a full on attack from above. I was in my workshop and saw it happen in time to stop the hawk from taking a hen. Never the less it was here in my yard even though I had been in and out of the yard all morning. The attack happened around 10 am. The fox I see daily in the morning when I am tending the girls before work. There is an alley behind my house and it is a freeway for the fox. The cats I trap and relocate to the shelter.
The skunks I stay away from.

Honestly, I'm trying to grasp the concept of the coop. Do they ever get to come out of the caged area?

Yup. But not so much anymore. The coop is for their protection. I can and will probably still let them in the yard when I can stay out there with them.

The purpose of a coop is to keep them safe, give them a place to lay eggs, and to provide a dry and wind free place when weather is bad.

I see free dog houses on craigs list often and they can be converted fairly cheaply into a coop.

 

[Minflick]

My coop is as secure as my poor carpentry skills could make it. My run got hired out, because my skills aren't enough. I KNOW I have raccoons - they come up to the back door and say howdy every few days. They've tried to steal the suet feeder for 3 years now. I have skunks too, and I nearly had a face to face a week or so ago, we were only about 10 feet apart. There are a few random dogs that come around sometimes, and there are lots of cats that come through regularly. We may get foxes, they're in the neighborhood, I just haven't seen them IN my yard. We have ravens around, and we have hawks too. The only predator of all these I've mentioned that I did not see in the big city (suburbs, actually) where we used to live is the fox, and the skunk. All the rest live comfortably in the city and the suburbs and make occasional visits to see what they can easily grab and eat. My plan is to NOT feed them anything!

I paid good money for pullets. I didn't want to mess around with bitty chicks either in quantity, location or level of care needed to raise them, and my coop wasn't finished until the local feed store quit selling them for the year. I want some pretty birds; I want some eggs (someday....), and I NEVER want to feed my birds to the local animals. The downside of getting pullets is mine weren't hand raised, so I have to work hard to get them to be less scared of me, which means mine won't get out of the run for quite a while, because I'm not letting them out until I'm sure I can get them safely back in again.

On the other hand, about 5+ years ago, I had Toulouse geese, 2 pairs. 1 pair raised 6 goslings one year, and then the next year I had a gigantic goose egg every day from Valentines to Fathers Day. I penned them in with hog panels, which they only flew over once, when I was moving them around and they got fussed. A rottweiler followed me in the pen one morning at feeding time (strange dog, not mine) and the gander got annoyed at him, and bit him on the flank, and the dog ran howling. Those were big birds, and pretty impervious to most threats. A friend's goose chased off a bobcat. Bird lost a foot and some feathers, but lived several years after that. Chickens are 1/5th the size of my geese, so they are far more vulnerable to harm from outside.

How secure you make your bird housing is entirely up to you, and how willing you (and your kids) are to absorb losses to predators. The more you read here, the better educated you will be in their needs and vulnerabilities, and the fewer ugly surprises you will have down the road. Also, if your kids are doing livestock with 4H, there should be a chicken project in their club, and you should be able to pump that leader for a LOT of information pertinent to your immediate area.

Have fun!

 

[aart]

All your answers are helpful and greatly appreciated.

Well, my son is going to show chickens. His older sister has shown a pig and is now raising a lamb for show. My wife showed lambs as a child (meh). Frankly, I'm not satisfied with the ignorance surrounding the pig and lamb experience. I'm getting involved this time, and I'd like the experience to incorporate chickens into my lifestyle.

I'm in Texas.

I've finally found a working example of the very simplest design, which makes me comfortable. I'm a reductionist by nature. I need the basic necessities with the freedom to create.

That might work in Texas....but Texas is a big state and I imagine the climate can vary but will probably always include HOT.
So you'll need lots of shade and ventilation, chickens are very susceptible to heat stroke.
Not sure that metal would do well in the sun, could depend on prevailing winds, but you could make those panels operable to open when needed for heat and closed when stormy.

Roosts should be higher than nests so they don't roost(sleep) in nests and fill them with night poops, if clean egg production is something you're interested in.
Chicken wire keeps chickens in(or out) but will not likely deter a determined predator.
The gap at the bottom is also a red flag for predator infiltration.
Your predator load will determine how far you need to go to keep them from eating your chickens.

ETA: You might want to peruse the your state threads to find ideas pertinent to your climate.
advanced search>titles only> Texas also open air coops

 

[henless]

All your answers are helpful and greatly appreciated.

Well, my son is going to show chickens. His older sister has shown a pig and is now raising a lamb for show. My wife showed lambs as a child (meh). Frankly, I'm not satisfied with the ignorance surrounding the pig and lamb experience. I'm getting involved this time, and I'd like the experience to incorporate chickens into my lifestyle.

I'm in Texas.

I've finally found a working example of the very simplest design, which makes me comfortable. I'm a reductionist by nature. I need the basic necessities with the freedom to create.

I don't know if I would want an all tin coop in Texas. Unless you keep it in the shade, the tin will increase the heat a lot.

There are a few things I would change in this coop. First, I would take out the nesting section, and hang the nests on one side of the coop. You can hang them inside, or place them on the outside to give more room in the coop. Then I would move the roosts up higher than the nests on the opposite side of the coop from the nests. I would also take out the wooden triangle at the top of the coop back wall, and replace with hardwire cloth. Even though the front of the coop is open, you still need ventilation to allow the moisture/ammonia to escape the coop. Doing this will also take care of the half moon gaps that are at the top of the back wall, where the roof tin meets the wooden triangle. The holes are big enough to allow critters to squeeze through.

I have an open air coop/run with a tin roof, but the sides are wood/hardware cloth. Plenty of air can get in. I plan on putting up clear plastic for a wind break this winter.