TinRoofCoop
In the Brooder
My family and I live in the upper midwest on a small ~10 acre hobby farm. We've enjoyed having our own chickens over the years. We liked the idea of free range chickens but over time realized despite our best efforts, we were losing a lot of stock to winged and four legged predators. We have a lot of hawks, eagles, owls, foxes, coyotes, raccoons, and others in the weasel variety. I built a new coop on an old hay wagon so it could be moved around the pasture to help fertilize the grass but also relocate the chickens to avoid build up of waste in one area. The coop has a 30 galloon water tank with nipple system that I can heat to keep thawed all winter and a 30 gallon 'no-waste' feeder I made using insight from this website. The floor of the coop I made with VersaPad grates which is easy on the chickens feet but allows the bulk of the chicken manure to follow through to the ground. Minimal cleaning of the coop! An added advantage has been reducing the material for flies. Being mobile, we've found that rotating the chickens every 3-4 days behind the grazing zones for the horses keeps the fly burden down. Less larvae hatching in the manure and they also scatter it better for improved grass growth. To keep them in the area we used to use electric fence and just moved it once a week or so but it did nothing to protect them from the raptors. The fence was a bit of a pain to move as well so we just built a large 'slinky' run that collapses easily and moves easily. So far, no more loss to winged predators and since our dogs keep the 4-legged predators away during the day and the chickens coop up at night under solar lock and key, we've enjoyed no more loss from the 4 legged predators as well. Since we have an automatic solar powered dawn and dusk door, we basically collect the eggs daily and move the slinky run every couple days. Takes 5 minutes.
Glad you joined.
