My Lg Fowl breeding pens

[Chris Herzog]

Last year I was looking around for some pics of breeding pens and had a hard time finding what I wanted. I plan on doing single matings (breeding one male to one female) and built a pen that's over all dimensions are 6' x 12' divided up into 3 separate (4' x 6') pens. Well I liked the first one so much I built a second one this week and plan on building at least one more. I still have some little detail stuff to do on the new one but this is what I ended up with.....

This is the first one that I built.


This is the one that I built this week







I hope this helps to give some of you some ideas....

Thanks for looking,
Chris

 

[Chris Herzog]

Oh one more thing....here are a few pics of the outside brooders, rooster condo, bantam pens or what ever you want to call them....while I was building them. I started off using up all my broken fence boards and old wood I had lying around. All I bought when I was making them was the wire, the wood for the doors and the metal for the roof.
















Thanks for looking,
Chris

 

[RedRidge]

Ok Chris, you have been our inspiration.
Thanks so much for sharing... I hope my breeding pens will be finished this weekend.
We used your design as our base model (hope that's ok), and modified it some.
I thought I'd share our progress...
I would also love to know what you do for nesting boxes?

The changes we made... I have 4 pens instead of 3... they are slightly smaller, but will only house pairs so that works fine.
The lower portion of the back will be hinged plywood to allow access to nesting box and a mounted feeder easily.
The middle 2' tall partitions are easily removable so that I can use 2, 3, or all 4 pens as one for use as a grow out pen in the summer.

Now that you've used your pens for a season I'd love to know if you wish you had done anything differently.

 

[NatJ]

Hi Chris it’s been a long time since you posted your breading cages ,I want to build your second pen, do you have any plans for it.if you do could I get a copy please...

Chris was last logged in back in 2016, so unlikely to see your message.

Since this is a public forum, I would suggest you not post your email address.

You could edit your post (look for an edit button at the bottom, for the first 24 hours after you posted it). It is fairly common for people to say "pm me for my email address," and then the email address itself is sent in a private message. That way only the right person gets it.

 

[Chris Herzog]

This is just the design I've been looking for! It's excellent! Do you use 4x4 posts for the corners? (Any chance you have progression pics?)

If I would have saw this post earlier I would have taken pics as I was building number 3 today. I just went out and took these pics....hope they help.







I tend to do things a little over kill but I prefer to only do it once and hope they last for a while. The bottom frame is 1 x 6 x 5/8th I think, (deck boards) the up-rights are 2 x 4's front and back. I trim the front and back of the pen with 1 x 4's and the sides with the same deck boards to give me a place to nail the wire to from the inside. I use plywood 2' high between the pens to keep the fighting to a minimum. I've had some PM asking about cost. What you see in these pics plus the one sheet of treated plywood to put between the stalls cost right at 200.00 today when I went to Home Depot. From this point forward you could change some things and save money with your choice of roof, wire and hardware. I use the 1/2" x 1/2" contractor wire throughout and a metal roof. by the time I'm done, I'm just over 400.00 to build one of these. When I move it to the location, I lay 2 rows of 2 x 4 weld wire on the ground that are 16' x 4' (over all, it's 16' x 8' because it's to rows side by side). This keeps the birds from digging to deep and predators from digging in.

If anyone has any other questions or would like to see certain pics just ask and I'll reply as soon as I can.

Thanks again for all the nice comments,
Chris

 

[RedRidge]

Hope this isn't hijacking this old thread, but I was asked to posts some pics of my finished breeding pens and what changes I made to adapt to my situation...

This first pic was right before it was complete... The plywood part of the partitions are removable to make a double wide, or even 2 doubles, a triple and a single, or just a quad wide using the entire pen. This is handy once breeding season is over as I tend to take out two of the three partitions and use each half for a grow out area.


This next pic shows the hinged lower doors on the back side... handy for egg collection.
It also show the removable vinyl I use. I keep the 2 lower side pieces on in Jan and Feb but flip up the top pieces on the sides and back most of the time except at night when temps are supposed to get below 20.



I don't have electric at these pens (maybe some day), so no I don't use lights.

 

[Folly's place]

And Welcome! @Geoffro , glad you are here! I just finally looked at this thread myself, and love it. Inspirational, for sure.
Just what I need, more coop space...
Mary

 

[WyandotteTX]

CESpeed, I would imagine that he would be able to house up to a quad(four birds, one male, three female) in pens of this size. Most people who selectively breed birds do not hatch them out under hens. We collect eggs and incubate them, then put them in a brooder until they are big enough and feathered out to maintain their own warmth in a grow out pen. Then most breeders select the birds they like then sell or butcher the rest of them.
Breeders, as I would call myself, are not so much interested in the same things as backyard chicken people. This is no knock on either just a difference of objectives and purpose for the birds. I love my birds and love spending time with them when I can. I know each and every one of them, I do not however name any of them. They do have leg bands to identify themselves. My purpose is to perpetuate the breeds I raise and enjoy to as close to the standard that I can.
Hopefully this makes sense and answers your questions.
By the way Chris, love the pens. I am in the initial stages of getting ready to build new breeder pens for my birds. My thought is to make a building that will be 8 x 32, with the individual pens being 8 x 4. Large enough to hold a maximum of six birds during breeding season. I will probably not have that many in them but that is my thought on maximum. I will most likely be building it pole barn style with posts etc. I have to make it a fortress to protect against varmits.
John

 

[CESpeed]

Do you plan to house a rooster and one hen per cage? Where will you put the roosters while the hens are hatching eggs and raising chicks? Where will the chicks go when there are old enough to forage for themsevles?

Sorry, but this design has me excited which always leads to lots of questions.

 

[CESpeed]

CESpeed, I would imagine that he would be able to house up to a quad(four birds, one male, three female) in pens of this size. Most people who selectively breed birds do not hatch them out under hens. We collect eggs and incubate them, then put them in a brooder until they are big enough and feathered out to maintain their own warmth in a grow out pen. Then most breeders select the birds they like then sell or butcher the rest of them.
Breeders, as I would call myself, are not so much interested in the same things as backyard chicken people. This is no knock on either just a difference of objectives and purpose for the birds. I love my birds and love spending time with them when I can. I know each and every one of them, I do not however name any of them. They do have leg bands to identify themselves. My purpose is to perpetuate the breeds I raise and enjoy to as close to the standard that I can.
Hopefully this makes sense and answers your questions.
By the way Chris, love the pens. I am in the initial stages of getting ready to build new breeder pens for my birds. My thought is to make a building that will be 8 x 32, with the individual pens being 8 x 4. Large enough to hold a maximum of six birds during breeding season. I will probably not have that many in them but that is my thought on maximum. I will most likely be building it pole barn style with posts etc. I have to make it a fortress to protect against varmits.
John

Hi John, thank you for your reply. I'm breeding to keep a constsnt supply of meat not to perputuate the species. And the idea of hatching them out myself is extremely uncomfortable so I'm trying really really hard to have a flock in which I have two or three mommas to do the job.