New Here!

[asuddencharm]

Hello, all! I am new (or going to be) a new chicken mom. I just ordered 15 bantams, Old English, Golden Sebrights, and Barred Rock. They'll be here next Friday. My whole family is excited! I am hoping these new additions will be great family pets! We own and show Quarter horses and show quite a bit as well.

I did have one question on housing chickens, is it safe to keep my chickens in a modified horse stall near my horses? My horses stay at our trainers most of the year but do come home during the winter for a few months. Any advice on that would be appreciated!

I am looking forward to learning all I can about my new additions!

 

[PearlD]

Great to have you! Congratulations on your 'incoming' flock!
As far as the horse stall issue......nothing comes to mind that might prevent you from going that route. As long as its secure from predators (Rats, weasels, snakes, coons, etc.) it should be fine! Will you have access to a plug for the brooder light?

 

[FLchook]

Welcome to BYC board...and the wonderful world of peepers! They are so fun, im sure your family will enjoy them. Ive seen several people use horse stalls for coops, I almost did, but several factors changed our minds.

As Pearl mentioned, make sure those nasty beasts cant get in. They can climb high, will chew through old brittle wood, and can dig. Our barn has a dirt floor, so we would have had to dig down to put wire fencing below the dirt to keep them beasts from crawling from under.

Good luck to you!

 

[Chirpy]

Welcome to BYC! We'll be sure to help you double your 15 chickens in less than a year... that's our job and we're good at it.

The horse stall is fine as long as it's completely predator proof as the others already said. Having them in the barn is a great idea to give you easy access, especially in bad weather. Plus, having chickens in the barn just makes it seem more .... homey.

 

[Just-Like-Hatching]

Welcome. Lots of smart folks on here to help you out. The stall should work fine after a few modifications and the chickens will love the spilled horse feed later on.

 

[can you hear me now?]

just wanted to say

 

[ibpboo]

My coop is actually built inside the corral. It is attached to one of the outside stall walls, and then 2 sides are inside the corral, where the horse can look in at them, and the 4th side is where I can go! They free range a lot and like to go into the stall with the horse and under the barn. A couple of my hens sleep in the tack room. as they do not like being picked on, so I do not make them go into the coop, I just shut them up in the tack room at night once they've settled in.

 

[asuddencharm]

Thank you all so much for your help! I will have access to an out let for lamps. My thought was to make a "doggie door" for them to come and go out into a special chicken yard behind my barn. I then thought about maybe letting them be free range chickens. My worry is losing even an adult. I can close the barn up pretty tight at night so I shouldn't have to worry too much about predators, I hope!

Again, thank you all for the welcomes and advice! I look forward to reading and learning as much as I can about these guys!

 

[spook]

Welcome to BYC, you will enjoy the people and learn a lot from the folks around these parts of the WWW .

 

[Crunchie]

Welcome! And congrats on the new chickens!

You'll probably be fine with them in your barn. But take a look high and low...you may have some unoticed gaps that a racoon or other sneaky predator could get in through. We are in the process of converting an extra stall into a coop, and we will need to run some hardware cloth around the gap between the top of the wall and the roof (about a 5-6" gap in some places), for example.