New Urban Neighborhood Chicken Owners in Northern Michigan

Pics
Date sort Score sort
Hello and welcome to BYC! :frow Glad you joined.
Your prefab is too small for the birds that remain. And the run size that you're planning for them will hold 4 full size chickens and that's all. If you're going to have to keep them confined because of the eagles, you're going to want to enclose a much larger space. Especially if you want to include ducks in there too.
 
Hiya, and welcome to BYC! :frow

As for adding on to that coop, I would peruse the coops forum for some ideas. As said above, that prefab is too small, and it isn't going to last too long. Some here I know use bird netting to cover their runs and/or electric netting. We're currently building a new breeding coop, and putting 1/2" hardware cloth on top as well as the sides of each of four 5'x10'x6 high runs, with 8" underground (12-18" is better) but we will have a 2' x 2' rock border around it too (lots of rocks around here).

For the compost idea, we use horse bedding pellets in our coop and brooders. There is zero smell, lowers humidity, and no maintenance other than in the spring, we use a grain scoop and shovel it out. We put that which is now mostly sawdust and pulverized poop in our compost bins, garden, around trees, etc. We stir the pellets every few days in the brooders, but in the coop, we've never had to as the chickens do that.

Also, watch sales for solar motion lights as they work great keeping predators away at night. We have several of those and a few giant wind spinners 8-10' tall, for day.
 
Northern-MI-Neighborhood said:
... I was trying to determine what netting material would be good to put over the run area.
Click to expand...
My first choice for keeping hawks and eagles out would be the nets made for eclosures for game birds. It is called aviary netting or pheasant netting.

Second chiice would be the netting for keeping birds off cherry trees.
Northern-MI-Neighborhood said:
...So...here are my questions:

1. I have a big roll of 48"in high chicken fencing (1-inch holes).
Click to expand...
Chicken fence will keep birds in. It will not keep anything out - dogs, cats (domestic or bob), racoons, coyotes, foxes, skunks, weasels, mice. And yes, all of these will come into towns and cities. It may devert them if they have plenty to eat (all of them) and lots of other things to do (dogs, others at times). Half inch hardware cloth will keep everything out. Uh, except bears.
Northern-MI-Neighborhood said:
I'm making a temporary gate while I build one cementing two 4x4's (6ft high) into the ground.
Click to expand...
It is actually better to set the posts without cement. The cement holds moisture against the post so it rots faster. It also makes a lot harder to pull the posts and to reuse them. The only benefit is the cement might let the post feel more solid in a shallower hole. But the shallower the hole the more the posts will tilt due to frost heave. Better to buy or rent a post hole digger (the kind that looks like two shovels hinged together just above the scoop part) and dig a three foot hole with it. If you spin that tool a quarter turn each time you drop it, it will make a hole just barely big enough for a 4x4 post. Then tamp the little bit of fill it needs as you add it arounf the post.

Apologies if you already know about post hole diggers. It is really hard to guess what people might know about.
Northern-MI-Neighborhood said:
QUESTION 1: Will 48" in high chicken fence be high enough to keep them in?
Click to expand...
Most bantams and many light-weight standard sized chickens can fly over a 4' high fence. That doesn't mean they will - they may not figure out they can, they may not have enough clearance, the flight feathers of one wing can be cut shorter (after they are done growing), etc.
Northern-MI-Neighborhood said:
5. The chickens are about 8 weeks old or so..

LAST QUESTION: Are they too old to still be using the brooder plate? ...

Will this force them to start roosting, huddling together...
Click to expand...
They don't need the heat. It is better to not have it at this point so they can adapt to cold better. They make some differences in their muscles that similar to the brown fat/white fat differences mammals make when they adapt to cold.

Chickens don't like change. They will huddle because that is what they have always done - not because they need the heat. Eventually, the instinct to roost will overcome the dislike of change. I think making the changes like taking the heater away, and the brooder box if there is still something different than their coop, will encourage roosting.

If it bothers you enough, you could move them to the roosts after dark. That will probably just take a day or two. Hm, assuming the roosts a comfortable - like have enough clearance from walls and ceiling,
 
Kenneth Zweerink said:
Welcome to BackYard Chickens, And a Big Hello from Eastern Nebraska! The Best of Luck with your Flock. So sorry for your loss to the Bald Eagle.
Click to expand...
Thank you.

After seeing photos, I now believe it was either a Golden Eagle (or possibly a juvenile bald eagle that hadn't yet grown in its white head feathers). I know that it was:
A) BIG! Standing upright, it would have come nearly up to my waist;
and
B) It would have killed the rest of the chickens if it could have gotten to them - It was about 15 feet away from the dead chicken when it was hopping around looking for the other ones - two bantams were hiding under my porch and Egger was hiding in the coop - both areas were within 5-10 feet of my front door and this all happened in a matter of a few minutes. I barely saw it before realizing that every bird in the neighborhood (blue jays, robins, sparrows, morning doves, chickadees, etc.) was freaking out within a 100-yard radius, in every tree - which is why after I went in to grab my long-sleeve shirt, I quickly came running back out.....I KNEW something was wrong. It sounded like something out of a Hitchcock film. The predator did not seem interested in just taking the dead easter egger back to it's nest for their chicks, or eating the chicken itself - it was actively looking for the rest of them.

C) While I didn't know what I was looking at initially - like I had thought my chicken grew 20x the size in mere minuntes, as looking at this massive flying predator, I could not fathom this was a possibility in the city limits in a small/mid-size Northern Michigan town. After scaring it away, I figured it HAD to be an eagle because I've seen hawks and falcons kill their prey - which is either dive-bombing for the swoop-in attack with talons or attacking mid-air. This thing was walking around on the ground - making me think it swooped in, killed the chicken, and landed all in one motion.

After seeing how this predator killed, and how it staked out the other chickens without going back for its initial kill - I can understand how they could kill many chickens before stopping or taking their prizes back to nests/chicks/eating them.
N F C said:
:welcome

Hi, sorry for your loss. Chicken wire is not going to keep a flock safe, just about any predator can rip right through it so while hardware cloth is more expensive, it saves lives. I agree with @TwoCrows about the pre-fab being too small so hope you'll be able to provide more space for the flock.

Best wishes!
Click to expand...
Yea, I agree. I bought some plywood and pine lumber to extend onto their coop. I got half of the run done already, so once I complete the other side, I'll have a temporary gate until I get my permit to fix a perm gate in there using some pressure-treated pine for a door and a mesh covering. They seem to have plenty of room in their little coop for now, along with two nesting boxes.

They kept huddling together in their nesting boxes instead of using the roosts, so I had to block them off for a little while at night. I still have yet to get a bigger feeder for them. They still are using their chick feeder - which I have to replace the feed every 3-4 days (probably not a bad thing - since I don't have to worry about insects geting into it that way).

With a larger feeder, I'll probably will put some red pepper in their feed to keep critters out of it - as well as only filling it partially.

I decided to go with two layers of 1-inch chicken wire with a bird-netting enclosure on the top to prevent aviator attacks. Then on the bottom on one side I burried 4"x4" x 4ft cement supports with 2x4s on top of those to affix the fence to.
 
For a lot of us, there is a bit of trial and error in chicken keeping and it sounds like you are looking for the best outcomes for your chickens. I hope you have fun in the process and enjoy them and the camaraderie here. What kind of bantams did you get? Welcome to BackYard Chickens; we are happy to have you!
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom