Low Spouse Impact Chickens

[greginshasta]

Hi folks,

Sunny and I have been reading your posts for a few days and are driving up to a feed supply on Friday to get our 1-day old chicks.

Researching coops, we found that www.coops4you.com are less than 2 hours from here. We drove down there yesterday and brought home a 4' x 6' x 2' unit.

We plan to house 6-8 hens in there. I'm wondering if anyone has experience with these units, and wanted to direct rwcmick's attention to it as the price is quite affordable.

 

[w8tn4fresheggs]

The henspa has a tarp that you can put under the roosts to catch the droppings.

In the winter you can use the deep litter method and add pine shavings to help with keeping them warm. Then putting the droppings in a compost pile when desired. Usually after winter is over.

I haven't used the tarp this summer and just let the droppings go to the ground and move the coop every few days. I then use the DE and cover the area where the coop was sitting. Sometimes a day or so later I water it in. The DE dries out the poo and seems to not damage the grass much.

The scratching that they do is what damages the grass.

They free range, so most of the droppings are under pine trees that they hang out under all day. They seem to know that they need to be under cover.

Just like when they were babies. They eat and then rest, eat and then rest. They always go to the pine trees to rest and feel safe.

 

[Dawn419]

We got a Chick-N-Barn & Yard for our chicks when we realized we wouldn't have the main run/yard finished before they needed to be moved outdoors (due to lack of room in their indoor brooder). DH build a frame for the barn/yard to sit up on, which made a much bigger "yard" area for them.

Pix of complete building process:http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2090717240

We found it very easy to assemble but will change a few things when we build our next one (don't like the sliding front & back door or the nest box doors, for one.).

 

[rwcmick]

thanks for the info on coops4you. i'm checking out the site now.
i'm in bay area and we travel up on I5 a few times out of the year. i think we're headed up to oregon in the first part of september.

it's functional, as for aesthetics i suppose one could gussy it up a bit.

hmmm

 

[EweSheep]

Try Royal Outdoor Buildings....vinyl sheds and they are great to wash down as well and my girls seems to like it. Its only a 4'x7' shed and it has been four years since I had it and the only thing I did to it, was to build a wooden foundation sitting on top of patio bricks and top it with horse rubber mats and put the vinyl shed on top of it. The dog run was built afterwards. Paid only $400 dollars brand new.

Now we are thinking about getting a 8' x 10' Royal Outdoor shed ARE WE CRAZY???!!! Yep!That would set us back for $800 so we are saving it up.

 

[jkm]

THIS IS A WONDERFUL THREAD, WITH ALL THE COOP LINKS, IWOULD HAVE BOUGHT ONE OF THE COOPS INTEAD OF DRIVING MYSELF CRAZY BUILDING.

COULD WE PLEASE POST THIS SOMEWHERE FOREVER?
CHEERS

 

[greginshasta]

Well, it was a long dang day. We left early this morning to do some shopping in southern Oregon and returned over 12 hours later with our stomachs full of a great Thai dinner from a place in Ashland, and 10 precious (and NOISY) chicks. It was supposed to be 7 but they were so stinking cute we grabbed a few more. Oy...

Daisy the golden retriever has been introduced to the new flock and has been officially charged with guarding them. A couple weeks ago when one of the neighbor's chickens got out of their coop, Daisy went to the neighbor's back door and scratched with her paw until she got their attention. Having never found Daisy at neighbor Ruby's back door, Ruby dutifully followed our Golden to the back yard and discovered the escapee, and restored her safely to the coop. GOod doggie...

 

[LindaN]

Greetings all. This is my first post to these message boards and I couldn't resist responding to this thread.

Many of you sound so handy and clever, but like rwcmick my husband and I are not handy people. We also don't have many hours of spare time. I spent a few hours researching on the Internet, consulted a few chicken books, and came to the conclusion that we would have to buy a henhouse.

I was quite attracted to the Egganic Industries products. While the Henspa was lovely, it would have been too large for the small flock I planned to raise on my city lot. The Henhaven looked more reasonable in size, but I was worried about the warning that it was not recommended for places with cold winters. I'm in Chicago, and we certainly do get cold winters here!

I tried emailing Egganic with a few questions. The first email that I sent to the Sales address on the site bounced back to me as an invalid email address. The second email I sent directly to the owner's address did not bounce back, but I have not received a reply yet. I sent my email on June 30, 2007. To me, that's not a sign of good customer support when emails sit for weeks without a response.

A couple days ago, I ordered an Eglu and 3 pullets. If the Eglu seems to get too cold in the winter, I've figured out a back up plan that should work to keep the hens warm enough. (Moving the house under the porch or even into the garage.)

Again, many of you on these boards likely think I'm silly for spending so much on a coop, but for those of us without the skills, tools, and time, pre-fabricated coops and henhouses are a necessity. In fact, with the amount of time it would take me to round up all the materials, rent the tools, figure out techniques and designs, and execute the design, I'll probably break even.

I'm looking forward to getting my Eglu in a couple weeks and my pullets in the middle of August. They should be about 4-5 weeks away from laying, and I'm REALLY looking forward to getting my first, "home grown" egg!

 

[greginshasta]

Quote:
I don't think you are being silly at all. I have significant building skills, but I am very busy, and was happy when I found out that I could take a 2-hour drive and pick up a completed unit. I may eventually build something (even more likely now that instead of getting 7 chicks we have 10), but I think it makes a lot of sense for some folks to purchase a kit. It sure did for me, if only to just get started with something.

 

[rwcmick]

LindaN,

I too have written to the owner at Henspa/Egganic, with no response. Combined with the feedback on Dave's Garden Watchdog, I'm very hesitant to pay a premium price for what appears to be less than premium service.

I'm interested in the Eglu, but the look isn't quite what I was after. However, a neighbor

http://myurbanchickens.blogspot.com

has an Eglu and reading his blog he seems to be pretty happy with it. Of course out here in sunny CA it's rare that we have more than a few cold days in a row but it does happen.

I spoke with the coops4you owner and he was very friendly, offering to drive half way to deliver the unit. Pretty fair offer in my book.

I've got a couple of feelers in w/ some British companies: Forsham Cottage Arks and Wells Poultry Housing. We'll see how quickly they get back to me.

So...I'm still on the fence so to speak. I do need something portable, that's for sure.

I'm working on a blog page to get all chicken pre-made chicken coops that are for sale in or ship to the USA on one page. I'm going to add prices as categories so that folks can search for "under $xxx" price range.

http://chickencoopsusa.blogspot.com

I'll keep everybody posted on what I plan to do. I have an incubator setup and eggs arriving next week, so in about a month's time I'll hopefully have a few buggers running around the brooder.