New coop from old 8 x 12 shed!! Ideas Please

[greenpeeps]

So I've had my chickens for almost a year now and I think they are finally growing on the rest of the family. While telling my husband that I needed to replace the two chickens that we lost last year with 4 buckeyes, tow for eggs and two for meat, he suggested that we buy some broilers and see how we like that. Quietly inside I was doing my happy dance.

Well that old shed that is used to house wild animals and pool supplies will now be recliamed for a masive renovation. We plan on making two yards, one on both sides of the coop. They will use on side for a year as a yard and the other will be a garden. The following year they will switch.


were moving the shed in between the old coop and were the shed is now.



So this means I will need a closet in the coop for garden tools, finally a place for those things. I will also have a place for the new chicks with a heat lamp, baby chicks!!

QUESTION - should I have two seperate places in the coop and yard for the broilers and the long term residents, or should they just live together?? We ordered 29 chickens the other day at the feed store, 25 broilers and 4 Buckeyes. We are sharing the broilers with a friend so were only keeping 13 of those.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Oh yes yes yes. For a variety of reasons. Actually if you can keep the broilers mostly out of the coop that would be best. Any chance of running a shed-roof extension off one side of the shed? That way the broilers could have their own place, including LOTS of fresh air and a run.

They *can* be combined, mainly if you are trying to free range your broilers (there is a limit to how much they will want to wander around once they start enlarging, though)... but it is a lot easier if you can give them their own dedicated feeders (they do best with higher protein than you'd likely want to be feeding your regular flock) and keep their sanitation issues confined to a dedicated area, and not have to worry about the regular flock pecking at them once they become more couch-potato-y. I would suggest trying to give the broilers as much space as you can, though, preferably including a run (as long as you can keep it dry and clean); they really do seem to appreciate it IME and will develop muscles in places that no confined supermarket chicken ever had muscles, and since they only get like 6-8 weeks of life it seems to me we ought to at least make them reasonably *happy* weeks.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Megs]

QUESTION - should I have two seperate places in the coop and yard for the broilers and the long term residents, or should they just live together?? We ordered 29 chickens the other day at the feed store, 25 broilers and 4 Buckeyes. We are sharing the broilers with a friend so were only keeping 13 of those.

in my experiance you do not want to shut up the two kinds together, maybe if you have a large run or free range they could go together. I raised some a few years ago and once they were feathering up (not quite sure how old, it was quite a few years ago) the layers started to peck holes in the meat birds (because the red blood contrasted so nicely with the white birds) and pulled (shutters) organs out through holes they made, we had to (obviously) seperate them immediatly when this started (it was only the brown layers pecking the white meat birds). it was very gruesome.

mine were in a 10X13 coop w/ ~15X20 run, maybe 30 birds total (hard to remember)

 

[krcote]

I will be converting about 1/2 of a shed just like this for my next coop- does anyone have pictures or suggestions about how you made your coop this way?

 

[greenpeeps]

Thanks everyone, they will have seperate living quarters and yard area's. I will post pictures as we start to remodel.

spring is in the air, really!