New Chicken Owner

[Mother of Chaos]

We bought a new house and have enough room to raise some chickens, finally. It is a brand new endeavor for us, so we are looking at where to start. We live in zone 7a. We have a pasture area that I would like to build a chicken coop and fence in so they have an area to free-range as well. Below is a picture of the area I was thinking, it's brown in the picture, but has green pasture grass most of the year. My questions are, what kind of coop would we need with the extreme weather we get (hot summers, cold winters), and is this enough space for some chickens to be able to live without a lot of maintenance?



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That’s a huge amount of space (I’m jealous!), but it’s completely without shade. If your summers are hot, your chickens will need shade, plus they will need emergency shelter from hawks and other overhead predators.

So, a suggestion: plant shade trees that are native to your area. Protect them well against the chickens, who will probably want to dig around their bases. And since it will take several years for the trees to provide a decent amount of shade, also build some open airy shade structures scattered about, where your chickens can hide from heat and predators.

If you’re willing, please consider posting your location in very general terms : rural Oklahoma, central Virginia, eastern Colorado, etc. As mentioned above, USDA plant zones are planting-oriented and don’t provide information about summer temps, rainfall, winds, etc.

Welcome to BYC!

 

[jfraz]

Man, thank you all for the responses! I appreciate all of the information; it has been incredibly helpful as we keep planning.
-Power is going to be tough; we could make it happen, but we would have to run an extension cord a few hundred feet.
-We live in Central Washington, if that helps with the climate advice. We have neighbors with chickens, too, so I figured I would pick their brains as well.
-We don't want to start with a huge flock, just enough to give us some eggs, and some added responsibility for our son as he gets older. Plus, chickens are fun! (I hope )