opinions on coop location?

[joustinghill]

Quote:
Yeah, proximity to the house is the primary drawback to C, that and the lack of full sun. It's dappled shade, but it's still shade. The site is smack on the middle of 3 oak trees.

The advantage to C and the reason it's on the list is that it's a space on the farm we're not already using for something else. To keep 4 horses on 5 acres we have to be very efficient at utilizing space. So I'm either going to put the coop at site A and park the horse trailer on site C, or put the trailer on site A and the chickens at C. It sounds like most people consider a concrete run to be unhealthy for the chickens?

 

[scooter147]

The concrete run is not good, I can almost guarantee bumble foot with them being on concrete most of the time. To be happy and healthy imho they need dirt to scratch and dust bath in.

As far as the shade goes, my chickens follow the shade in their run. They will sun bath at times but not all that often. So I really don't see the run being in the shade most of the time a real issue.
It will take longer to dry out after rain but since you have horses I would just throw a couple of handfulls of straw in the run, the chickens will love scratching in it as well.

 

[stacym]

Site c sounds good to me. With that many hens odor shouldn't be too much of a problem. If winter in New Hampshire are like Nebraska you want them where it will be easier to get to them in the winter. Heavy snow can really be a pain to wade through every day. Dappled shade would be ideal here in the summer and in the autumn/winter the leaves will be gone and the sun would warm the area when you need it. That's my two cents.