New and Need Help!

[allison001]

Hi all,

We are new to chickens as of this summer. We started out with 6 chicks but 3 ended up being roos. My neighbor replaced them with 4 more hens and a "conversation piece" roo we named Ted--He looks like he walked through a windstorm backwards! So we're up to 7 hens and a rooster. Then he brought over and put in my very small pen a mother hen with 8 chicks! My sons immediately fell in love with them. The mother hen wouldn't let any other chickens come down from the roost so we took the chicks out and brought them inside for a month. Two died within a week. The rest are fine and we finally put them back in the pen, but realized we had to separate them from the full grown ones.

Before I ramble any more, let me tell you what my problems are! The pen is way too small for them but we do not have a fenced yard. We have the occasional coyote, and we have 2 dogs. We tried putting up that green plastic fencing but 2 of the girls flew right out. What kind of fencing should I get? I really want them to have some room. The floor of the current pen/coop is total dirt and mud now, it smells to high heaven and they need more room. Besides all that, it's about 115 degrees right now and life is so tough for them. I just bought a portable mister and will bring out a fan tomorrow. We've tried freezing 2-litre bottles and that works well, but I can't bring myself to retrieve them regularly and re-freeze in my clean freezer! So we've run out. We have an acre, there's no reason they can't have more room than they have now. Please give me some good advice on keeping them safe from dogs and possible coyotes. Thanks so much!

 

[thechickenchick]

Welcome to BYC!

As far as your pen smelling we rototilled ours and that really helped. If you have a bug problem because of the smell I think a lot of folks here use DE. My husband sprays a certian chemical that works great and does not harm the chickens at all.

We used hardware cloth in 2 sections to create a fence over 5 ft tall on one side. The other side is 6 ft tall. Here is a pic of what we did. Our run and coop are in our front yard. Hope this helps some.

 

[allison001]

Thanks for posting, Chickenchick. The picture helped, too. Our coop/run is probably too small to get the rototiller into but the plan is to use that structure as the coop and build them a run, and hardware cloth we do have! I'm going out to put the mister on now, and will then head down to the feed store to look for food-grade DE. We actually use the pool DE around the house because scorpions crawl through it and get scratched up and die of dehydration. Wish I could let the chickens run loose (no fenced yard) because that would completely eliminate the scorpion problem--they love scorpions I hear. And the official temp yesterday in Phx was 115. Thanks again!

 

[b.hromada]

You got some good advice there.

and

from S. Florida.

 

[Judy]

Put the 2 liter bottles in trash bags and then put them in the freezer. Save the trash bags between freezings.

 

[allison001]

Thanks b.hromada and d.dawn. We used to live in Coral Springs FL! They would never have allowed chickens in that neighborhood I'll bet. The trash bags are a great idea--where's my creativity?!

Update: Went out and got to work cleaning out the coop, put it all in the compost. Next spread pine shavings all over, cleaned water and refilled food, washed the baby chicks and put them inside a BIG dog kennel inside the coop with their own food and water. Got the mister set up and the fan, too. At first they were avoiding the mister but now they're scratching mud puddles through it. Those pine shavings were a great idea. Now I only need to go get some food grade DE and they'll be set.

Another question: The hen the neighbor brought over with her chicks is being very broody, and sitting on OTHER chickens' eggs. Today 3 were in the same nest box being broody, and I was being pecked trying to move them. I finally squirted them with the hose! I know, mean thing to do but I wanted those eggs out--it's way too hot for them to stay in all day and the broody one(s) don't get water or food and it's the hottest part of the coop. It's okay to take the eggs from broody chickens, right? I doubt Ted the roo is up to it yet--he's still young! I don't see him being very dominant at all or mounting, etc. When a chicken goes broody, do they sit on any eggs or just their own, and when do you count 21 days to hatch--when all eggs are laid or when first one is laid and they hatch out over a few days or so? Thanks for all the help!