We had been talking about the possibility of getting chickens for a year or so when out of the blue my husband started building the coop and run. I decided we should should probably start with maybe 4 or 5 pullets but then one thing led to another and we have 12! 5 Blue Wyandotte bantams, 4 ISA Browns, 2 Easter Eggers and 1 Barred Rock. At least our coop and run are large. The run is 12'x17'x9' thanks to a cement foundation that was already in the back yard from the previous owner's greenhouse and the coop is 64 sq.ft. L shape made from multiple 4'x8' plywood boards. We still have a few things to finish up on it and then add the toys and other fun things for them. Still not sure what to use as a substrate in the run because its just dirt at the moment but I figure thats going to get pretty gross pretty quick once they move out there. So much to learn still but I LOVE this site and have referenced it for many questions I've had I decided I might as well sign up so I have someplace to show off my cuties. Of course my human children are now getting into trouble so I'll have to post some pictures later.
Welcome to BYC. Sounds like you got a lot on your hands. For the run i use pine shavings and only of course i turn the shavings every other day or two which helps a lot. I've heard that using sand is good too, easy to clean if you have a kitty litter scoop, it also provides dust baths for them, the only problem with using sand is that when it gets wet in the winter that kinda gets anoying. Straw i dont use anymore mostly because it gets pretty messy pretty fast. If you do use shavings do NOT use Ceder chips, for this is very bad your your birds
Got to love them.
