Pasturing hens (shelters)experienced advice appreciated

[patman75]

I'll repeat what others have said. Build a coop on a wagon frame. On "Modern Marvels" they went to an organic pasture raised chicken farm and they had coops on trailers that they pulled around and moved them to new pature as needed.

You might want look into a Live Stock Gaurdian (dog) to live with your chickens to protect them.

 

[New2Peeps]

Robert Plamondon has a nice site with info about pasturing chickens. Here is the pdf file on pasturing chickens with cows. http://www.plamondon.com/sare.pdf

 

[shanel]

yep plamadon is where i got the idea for the 2 8x8's.

 

[Mr.Bojangles]

I use a Rhino to move my 12x20 coop. Its kinda like a chicken tractor. Mine looks like a greenhouse and the skids are 2x20 salt treated with flooring stapled to the bottom to slide easier. The hoops are 1" fence conduit from lowes bend from a jig I made, with chicken wire all around it. the back end is plywood with buckets for nest accessible from the outside. The 2x4 roosts are running from bow to bow about 2.5 feet high and again at 4 feet high which adds stability to the hoops . The hoops are 4 ft apart and 3/4's of them are covered with 1/2" plywood and galvanized metal flashing . I have a floor build in mine from 1/2 welded wire thats 2 foot off the ground. at the 16th bow its a plywood wall with a automatic coop door. The last hoop is chicken wire around a homemade door. This set up works great for me, I run 50-75 buff orpingtons. On rainy days sometime they won't leave the coop, but have a 12x16 space of ground under the floor to graze and frolic on with protection. I have the outside fenced with a hot wire and a solar controller for nite time protection.

 

[gsim]

Both coops as described are only big enough for around 32 chickens, more or less. Chicken wire will only keep chickens in and will never keep any predators out. You are in need of more research before proceeding. Good news is, it is wintertime and you have lots of time.

For an operation of your size, you will need around three 8 X 16 coops and I would do them on trailer chassis. Then you would need three really large runs which could be built from a variety of materials but must be able to be dragged around the pasture to connect to the coops. No way I would try to make a coop-run combo with the size of the flock you are wanting. I would suggest a flock of 24 to start with to learn the ropes and the do's and don'ts of your situation. That way, mistakes that are inevitable will not be so great nor their effect so great as well.

 

[catdaddy66]

Quote:
I have 25 birds coming and one 8x8' coope is BARELY big enough for them! Free ranging chickens need smaller space but at the minimum 2sf/bird two 8x8' coops are only big enough for 64 birds. You may need one to two more coops to be sufficient housing for happy chickens!

 

[95yj]

definitely check out what joel salatin does,

this shows what he keeps his layers in. also maybe start smaller till you really figure out the whole pasture and free range thing.

 

[shanel]

Here is what he is using now.You may have to scroll down to find it.I can't find any detailed pics.I can't figure where all the roost are located.


http://www.readthehook.com/blog/index.php/2009/12/17/cover-salatins-salad-days-man-of-the-year

 

[tigerbarbd]

Hello Shanel, This is what we did with our 6'x8' coop that we built. We moved it down by the old barn and made a larger run. The run is app. 28'x38'

....

...I know you will have to go larger, but hope this helps............Don

 

[heymikey]

I think many of you are misunderstanding the concept here. "Pasturing" is very different in terms of square foot requirements. All shanel will be doing is providing roost area and nest areas for the birds. The 2 rolls of premier fencing will give the birds approximately 1/4 acre of new forage that will rotate. There is no static "run". So these 2 square foot per bird approximations aren't applicable. Unless I am wrong I think for roosting the suggestion is a little over 1 square foot per bird. I would ladder the roost from front to back of the enclosure. This should allow close to 60 or so per house. I would provide 2 roost houses for 100 birds and one nest house with 12-20 nests.

If you can't do 2 roost houses at the moment you could add a couple higher roosts over the lower part of the ladder. Just keep in mind the birds on the lower part might get pooped on...not good.

P.S. you will be surprised how tightly they will roost. They will fill the higher parts of the roost first and then move down.