NY chicken lover!!!!

[Gramma Chick]

Finished building a coop today. I decided I'm going to use one crate as a "grow out pen" two crates for a duck house and one for a rabbit hutch because the one I have my male bunny in is falling apart. Here'a a pic of the grow out pen. Still needs to be painted.



On a sad note my momma bunny abandoned all her kits and I got home today to find them all dead. So upsetting. I can tell by their markings they would have had some awesome coloring too. :-(

Coop looks great !
Is that the 1st Rabbit litter ? sometimes they dont know what to do with them ..the 1st time

 

[Gramma Chick]

Quote:
Sorry...

I was amused that Stony didnt remember your wet ground pictures ...I was not surprised when you said you had a raised coop .
It looks like the chickens needed a nice dry place to roost at night ..

 

[Gramma Chick]

Quote: That one sounds like a ROO for sure ...

 

[featherz]

Did I tell you I have frizzles laying now to?

Ooo! If you could throw in a couple of frizzle eggs that would be awesome. LOL. Just PM me with when you'll be in town so we can swap out the little guys.

 

[County Boy]

Ooo! If you could throw in a couple of frizzle eggs that would be awesome. LOL. Just PM me with when you'll be in town so we can swap out the little guys.

I will do so!!!

 

[stonykill]

What is a good height for the boxes? I just put my first one up today and I think it's about 3ft off the ground... (I'm planning on putting more nest boxes under it.)

also, I may try my hand at making an incubator...

I build nesting boxes right at ground level.

 

[stonykill]

Sorry...

I was amused that Stony didnt remember your wet ground pictures ...I was not surprised when you said you had a raised coop .
It looks like the chickens needed a nice dry place to roost at night ..

flooding is one thing.But was not the reason stated for raising a coop.
But if you have a low coop and it is damp, or if you have any coop and it is damp there just isn't enough ventilation. Low coop damp, add a vent. Really pretty simple stuff.

 

[featherz]

Height is a problem in one of my coops also - I don't worry about the nesting boxes in the other two coops - easy enough to put the chicks on the floor and the mama will follow. She'll eventually just camp out in a lower box or on the floor once she realizes her chicks can't get up there.

But my one coop, the one we built when we had no clue what we were doing, has a VERY high ramp up to the coop. We had originally had hatchery production birds in there and never had problems since they didn't know the meaning of 'broody'. Now I have THREE broodies in there. Not sure if I can give them babies or not - I think they will be very disappointed this year as there just is no room for chicks and it's gonna be dangerous for em.. Not sure what to do there.

This is a pic from when it was first built. It's changed quite a bit since then but you can see the narrow steep ramp..

 

[Breella]

Mother in Law's houdini horse got out again last night and broke into her grain pail...

I'm heading out to see how bad it is. Please send prayers/positive vibes that she doesn't colic.

 

[JLaw]

Height is a problem in one of my coops also - I don't worry about the nesting boxes in the other two coops - easy enough to put the chicks on the floor and the mama will follow. She'll eventually just camp out in a lower box or on the floor once she realizes her chicks can't get up there. But my one coop, the one we built when we had no clue what we were doing, has a VERY high ramp up to the coop. We had originally had hatchery production birds in there and never had problems since they didn't know the meaning of 'broody'. Now I have THREE broodies in there. Not sure if I can give them babies or not - I think they will be very disappointed this year as there just is no room for chicks and it's gonna be dangerous for em.. Not sure what to do there. This is a pic from when it was first built. It's changed quite a bit since then but you can see the narrow steep ramp..

Only thing I can think of that may or may not help would be to make your ramp a tunnel. It would still be steep but at least only one way down they couldn't fall off sides. The problems that I think could arise would be chickens hiding in it or getting on top of it and trying to roost/ poo on it. Could maybe leave the top of tunnel off or hinged though. It would also take up some cubic feet in they're run though. The only thing I could think of for steepness would take alot of your runs space. That would be to raise the bottom end of the ramp a few feet. then have it circle back and lower to ground back at the coop.