I'am very upset this morning and in hopes someone can give me some

[007Dawn]

help?

My very irresonponsible husband after 2 months still has yet to build a proper chicken coupe. Our chicks have been in very large cages, where there is enough room to run, flap around and play. BUT he only puts a tarp over them and it has rained nearly every day over the past two weeks.

With this being said. The cages stay wet and thus so do the chicks. I woke this morning to two of them being dead. AND he being the really brillant male he is wants to NOW after losing a total of 8 chicks to build the coupe.

I know we have to buy chicken wire and all this mornign which is fine, but yet I told him before we go the chickens to build the coupe first. He inisted we had the wire but we don't. So now that he is going to spend money we don't have and build the coupe he wants to put them all together in one coupe today. We have them in three different cages. One set is 4.5-5 months and VERY healthy. The second group is 2.5-3 months and the third group is 2 months old. I have tried for a month now to get him to introduce them to each other.

I personally think that it is a bad idea to put them together with waking up to two dead this morning. I have an idea of what killed them, bieng the wet enviroment but if they are sick....what do you think?

Other than telling my husband off.

 

[Dorothy1324]

you might try putting them together and watching closely and seperating if needed. Also when our chicks are little untill they are almost full grown the size of our old hens we have one of those Dog igloos that they call home we put up a small makeshift pen out of chicken wire and bird netting over the top. It works out well we put hay or shavings in the igloo.

 

[Katy]

If they've never been expsed to any other chickens since being day olds they probably only died because of being in wet conditions too long.

 

[Chickenaddict]

The chicks will not mix well when they are all put together after being seperated all this time. They get chilled really easy so if they have been wet chances are they got too cold. I have been waiting 3 years for a nicer coop and still can't light a fire under my DH rear end to get it done. SO that being said this is what i did... I took over his MANCAVE

aka the 3rd stall garage which is heated and has air in the summer. I scraped up alll his wood and built (by myself in one day) a makeshift coop and run within the garage. He has now built an even better garage coop on the other side so he can reclaim his mancave but still hasn't built the 10 by 12 coop he has been promising for years. WE have a coop outside that houses 7 bantams (4ft by 6ft) costed about $100 to build, it isn't insulated and has no windows so both the pop door and the big door have to stay open during the day. Sometimes a girls just gotta git r done! You could also scout out Craigslist for dog kennels to use as a run ( we have 2 we got free) one is 10 ft wide by 15 ft long and 6 ft high the other is 6 ft long by 12 ft long by 6 ft high with panels that go on the top for the roof. It is amazing what you can find free to make stuff work.

 

[007Dawn]

Thank you chickenaddict and I will have to do what you said! He makes me so mad!