Hi,
I am new to all of this. I have 2, 4 week old chicks to start with. I will probably get a couple more but wanted to go slowly so I can hand tame them. They are in an outside cage I use to rescue animals (quail, sparrows etc) with a heat lamp on at night. When they started jumping out of their plastic tub they were in, I turned it on its side so they can still sleep in it. OK, I am probably strange but they sleep snuggled to a stuffed animal. They like it. I am not sure how I will break that one...LOL I go in the cage where I have a chair and sit with them a few times a day. They run up my legs and sit on me and sleep...LOL They have a 18x 6 totally secure cage to play in at the moment. My husband is building me a coop and run in the back corner of our yard ( deep pie shaped lot) under a large triangle shaped trellis with grapes growing on it between two big trees. It is about 100 to 120 sft total space I think. He is enclosing the whole thing so they can't get out and no one can get in. For the top of the trellis he used heavy stucco framing wire normally used on the sides of homes to attach the stucco and took a thin wire to weave in and out to bind them together. He is very cleaver. No animal will get through it! He is working on the framing now and then will wrap the whole thing with wire. Then we will figure out the coop. It gets so hot here, 115 in the summer but I hear they do well. I have a very tall chair my husband built me to sit and look over the 8 ft block wall fence inside their new area about a foot from the block wall. We are turning the bottom of it into the coop and leaving the chair on top so I can sit with them and have a view.
I have just enough room. My head almost touches the top of the trellis. I figure that we will dig under it so they have a cool place to hide from the heat also. We also thought about hooking up a small mister on our yard timer so it goes off during the hottest part of the day. I will add a fan of course. I have been using the pine bedding and hay on the ground. I hope that is OK. The pine bedding is messy though. They love to scratch in the hay and dig in it. I prefer the hay. I am excited to learn how to raise chickens! As you can tell, they will be pets...LOL
Kris
I am new to all of this. I have 2, 4 week old chicks to start with. I will probably get a couple more but wanted to go slowly so I can hand tame them. They are in an outside cage I use to rescue animals (quail, sparrows etc) with a heat lamp on at night. When they started jumping out of their plastic tub they were in, I turned it on its side so they can still sleep in it. OK, I am probably strange but they sleep snuggled to a stuffed animal. They like it. I am not sure how I will break that one...LOL I go in the cage where I have a chair and sit with them a few times a day. They run up my legs and sit on me and sleep...LOL They have a 18x 6 totally secure cage to play in at the moment. My husband is building me a coop and run in the back corner of our yard ( deep pie shaped lot) under a large triangle shaped trellis with grapes growing on it between two big trees. It is about 100 to 120 sft total space I think. He is enclosing the whole thing so they can't get out and no one can get in. For the top of the trellis he used heavy stucco framing wire normally used on the sides of homes to attach the stucco and took a thin wire to weave in and out to bind them together. He is very cleaver. No animal will get through it! He is working on the framing now and then will wrap the whole thing with wire. Then we will figure out the coop. It gets so hot here, 115 in the summer but I hear they do well. I have a very tall chair my husband built me to sit and look over the 8 ft block wall fence inside their new area about a foot from the block wall. We are turning the bottom of it into the coop and leaving the chair on top so I can sit with them and have a view.
I have just enough room. My head almost touches the top of the trellis. I figure that we will dig under it so they have a cool place to hide from the heat also. We also thought about hooking up a small mister on our yard timer so it goes off during the hottest part of the day. I will add a fan of course. I have been using the pine bedding and hay on the ground. I hope that is OK. The pine bedding is messy though. They love to scratch in the hay and dig in it. I prefer the hay. I am excited to learn how to raise chickens! As you can tell, they will be pets...LOLKris
from Ohio. So glad to have you aboard. Congrats and have fun. 
