PLEASE HELP I DON"T KNOW WHAT TO DO

[black_cat]

***EXCITING DEVELOPMENT***
COMPLETELY out of the blue while I was putting my dirt/mulch in the run, I was told that we are getting something to add space!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It isn't completely predator proof, so it would be like a day/when we're outside thing. I'm SO exited and while it isn't a full on kennel around the whole thing, it adds much more space for the chickens to enjoy, and will also help me access the current run. I offered to pay for it but was told I didn't have to, it's a win win! Here it is! It isn't the best possible situation, but it is much more than I was letting myself hope for with my parents. It comes on Friday and I'm SO excited!

 

[Ribh]

I definitely can't do anything about the coop. Some friends of mine have some extra chicken wire I think-but I've also been over at their place (still social distanced) and doing stuff with them lately and I don't want to be overbearing. I will offer to pay for the enlarged run setup. When I managed to glimpse inside the coop it has no obvious nesting boxes? So if I am to look for eggs right now I will have to check the whole coop for eggs, and I'll definitely have them be in the run. I'm planning to super sneakily reach in with cardboard to cover the opening so that they can't get back in while I'm setting things up. We have a puppy playpen to use as a safety net for now, but it's only about 4 ft high and they could fly over it pretty easily, so I'm hoping everything goes smoothly. I'm going to start to treat train them tomorrow-bag shaking sound=treats- so it'll hopefully be easier to catch one if they escape.

I have read through & agree you need more space, both in the coop & the run, but I just want to encourage you to persist with letting your chickens get to know you are not a threat. I have Campines ~ considered super flighty like leghorns & definitely really good fliers. One of mine has been known to do a 50' circuit amongst the tree tops! It has taken months of just sitting with them, talking quietly, tit~bitting but here we are:

Aoife ~ my super flier.

Medh.

I have found once they start laying they settle down a lot & are much easier to handle. All it really requires from you is time & patience.​

 

[NatJ]

They USUALLY make plenty of sense. My dad is a CFO, so he should know how money works? I think? I really don't know what's going on with this.

He's making choices that seem sensible to him, based on things that either you don't know or that he considers important and you don't.

It happens all the time--different people consider different things when making choices. It's not just parents/children, either. I know plenty of adults that make choices in different ways, and disagree about what's "best."

 

[Ajd1126]

There's one door on the side of the coop for human access, and then the hole that leads into the run for chicken access. I want both the feeder and the waterer in the run. I'm afraid that right now moving the food in and out every night is not an option-we should have secured our yard better. Apparently these hens fly???? Well??? In my experience they will flap up a few inches, a foot high at most. I'm worried that I'll have to literally construct an aviary type enclosure so that they can't get out. I'll draw up a quick thing so you can see better what's going on with it, and hopefully I'll get real pictures tomorrow. The run has fully enclosed hardware cloth, so no tunneling. There aren't any loose dogs in our area that would be at it. No coyotes or woods around my house, and there are fences on two sides of the backyard, so stuff doesn't move through too often. I have grit and shell containers that I was going to hang up for them in the run. I know I need them but I have NO IDEA how I'll get in to hang them. I was GOING to set everything up BEFORE putting in the chickens in the coop, but due to my lack of self confidence, I didn't say anything.

i started with adult chickens. We are 3 months on with RIR and Leghorns also, and I ran into similar issues.
Thing 1: they will calm down. Give them time.
Thing 2: chickens fly. Some better than others. I about peed myself when my leghorns got out and were running amuck. You can deter it by running some cording across the top of your run and this will help with predators.
Thing 4: leghorns are super skittish. Annoyingly so. That won’t change, it’s the breed.
Thing 5: it isn’t going to ever go the way you want it to. They’re animals and each have their own personality. Accept it now, and you’ll be calmer in the end. I currently have three coops because of unforeseen issues. Fun, no, but we have settled into a routine and things are going well, for the moment.
Last thing: you can likely fix your coop to your needs. I’ve made several adjustments from what I thought would work to what works better. My initial set up requires me to walk in for egg collection, which doesn’t bother me. I open their door, they come out to eat, and then I walk in. It isn’t the end of the world. You can make adjustments, and as long as you can keep them safe, take the minor inconveniences in stride, let them settle, then fix you’re troubles. It will be ok.

 

[black_cat]

i started with adult chickens. We are 3 months on with RIR and Leghorns also, and I ran into similar issues.
Thing 1: they will calm down. Give them time.
Thing 2: chickens fly. Some better than others. I about peed myself when my leghorns got out and were running amuck. You can deter it by running some cording across the top of your run and this will help with predators.
Thing 4: leghorns are super skittish. Annoyingly so. That won’t change, it’s the breed.
Thing 5: it isn’t going to ever go the way you want it to. They’re animals and each have their own personality. Accept it now, and you’ll be calmer in the end. I currently have three coops because of unforeseen issues. Fun, no, but we have settled into a routine and things are going well, for the moment.
Last thing: you can likely fix your coop to your needs. I’ve made several adjustments from what I thought would work to what works better. My initial set up requires me to walk in for egg collection, which doesn’t bother me. I open their door, they come out to eat, and then I walk in. It isn’t the end of the world. You can make adjustments, and as long as you can keep them safe, take the minor inconveniences in stride, let them settle, then fix you’re troubles. It will be ok.

Long term I'm sure things will work out. Funny story...I wasn't planning for RIRs or leghorns...we asked for 3 barred rocks...I definitely prefer 4 chickens over 3 chickens, I got an extra free chicken...I'm not picky about breeds with my first ones so I'm ok with it...my short term issues are:
1. How the hell am I supposed to get stuff set up properly in the coop/run.
2. How will I collect eggs without the chickens escaping.
3. Securing the area around the coop with a fence (made out of chicken wire, probably) so that if they do escape they can't get too far.
I am not going to let them do ANY free ranging, supervised or otherwise for a WHILE.
I've calmed down for now. Tomorrow I will sit with them near the run and toss in treats from time to time. If this was up to me I would have built my own coop and gotten chicks, but yeah.

 

[black_cat]

Well, to me that coop isnt big enough.. the run is DEFINITELY too small! You will need that kennel to put that into so they can have more space!

Yes, I agree it's too small. Guess who got overruled again with wanting a bigger coop? For the kennel thing, I'm thinking that I want some sort of chain link dog kennel with netting over the top. The kennel at first would be a safety measure in case they get out, but after we're all used to each other I will be letting them out in it regularly.

 

[black_cat]

We got an egg! I'm super glad because it means that they're settling in, It was from one of the red sex links, and I think I know who it was-the one we named Poppy, she was inside the coop more than any others today.

 

[NatJ]

My main issue right now is that I don't understand their logic on turning this down? It has no cons for them?

...check the local free section on Craigslist for wood, fencing material, ANYTHING that can be repurposed, and even if the end result would look knocked together and junky, you could probably build a border fence with little to no cost.

Perhaps the parents are afraid they will end up with a junky-looking structure in the yard.

Other possible reason for objections:
--maybe black_cat has a record of not following through with projects, or not finishing them. The parents might think this is true, even if it is not true.

--some people have a hard time visualizing new things, but don't want to try something until they know what it looks like. If the parents are this way, then they would be uncomfortable with anything that might get built, but were able to deal with "rent a coop that looks like that" (which they did give permission for.)

--maybe the parents are unsure whether they, or their children, will want to have chickens as a long-term project. The idea of owning nothing, and just returning the chickens and coop at the end, would seem very attractive in that case (no "junk" to get rid of whenever the people are all tired of the chickens.)

--maybe the parents know someone else whose child wanted chickens, and it did not go well, so they are assuming that the same will happen with their own child. They might well be wrong, but there is no way for them to know that yet.

@black_cat I am NOT asking you to tell us more about your parents--none of us want you to share personal information over the internet. These are ideas for what your parents MIGHT be thinking to make them act the way they do.

 

[black_cat]

Today's update:
They are no longer terrified of me.
Their food and water kept getting filled with pine shavings, so we put the food and water up on bricks. This has solved the problem for the food, but the water is still messy. The water is much less messy than before, but still pretty gross. I think that the only way for it to not be messy is to have it in the run, which we can't do at the time being.
I added more pine shavings the other day and they immediately started making a mess having a field day kicking the shavings everywhere. Now the ones in the coop are all piled in the corners, with some bare spots in the middle. I'm going to try to redistribute those ones and add some more today.
The nesting box that we've put in is a modified shoebox with 3 fake eggs in it. We haven't gotten eggs in the box or anywhere else in the coop, aside from the lone egg that we got a few days ago. The nesting box is full of pine shavings.
There's not much space in the coop. It's hard to have the food, water, and nesting box all in there and still have the chickens be able to move around between them. The feeder fits really well where we have it, and same with the nesting box, but the water is posing a bit of a problem. I keep moving it around and am trying to find a good spot for it.
I've put more dirt in the run, but you can see a lot of poop. I have some dirt/mulch mixed, but it got soaked in the rain. I'm going to put it out on a tarp in the sun today to dry, then add most if not all of it to the run this evening through the top. The roof that we made can easily come off and I can't open the run door, so we put the dirt in through the hardware cloth roof.
There have been some pecking issues. Tillie, the leghorn, is getting bullied by the 3 red sex links. I don't know whether the birds were actually housed together as we were originally told. Maybe the sexlinks were together, but I don't think that the leghorn was with them.
Still no luck with convincing on the kennel. I think that the only way that they will agree to it is if the pecking gets so bad that they draw blood. I have stopped pushing it as I know it most likely won't happen, even though I see MANY pros and almost no cons in getting one.
I've discovered a good way to get them in the run, though it requires another person to help. One person lures them in with mealworms (we are shaking the bag to hopefully treat train) and I *lightning fast* open the door to the coop and put a piece of cardboard over the doorway from coop to run. The cardboard doesn't cover the whole thing, but enough that they have never tried to get past it.
One of them still needs a name. We have been calling her Round Chicken as she does not have a tail, so looks very round.
All of the chickens have been looking much healthier, just from looking at their coats they have improved a lot in the past few days. We got them on Tuesday evening and it is now Sunday morning.

 

[black_cat]

After just completely breaking down, I was assured that yes, if we keep the hens I will not be stopped from building them a bigger coop. I'm very happy about this. I've just been extremely stressed out lately and knowing that I'll be able to give them a real home if we keep them has made me feel so much better. I'd say that that's a positive update in my chicken situation.