POD Based Poultry Yard

[HeritageButcherBlock.com]

View media item 7896076View media item 7896076View media item 7896076View media item 7896076View media item 7896076View media item 7896076View media item 7896075View media item 7896074View media item 7896074

I am designing a new Poultry Yard. I plan to use a POD based coop and a deer fence based pen. A POD is an 8W x 20L x 8H shipping container. The deer fence is an 8-ft high portable pvc covered metal fence.

We have 40-60 laying hens at any given time. Our hens have access to the pasture fields during daylight hours. We lock them in the Poultry Yard when it's dark to protect them against the lions and coyotes that live around the lake.

The pink lines in my diagram are the roosts. There is 50-ft of [5-ft high] roosts. So at 1-ft per chicken one of the coops will accommodates a max of 50 roosting chickens. I've picked out these premade metal nests with back-side egg catch and front-side red curtain built in. One coop will accommodate up to 8 sections of these 1.5D x 1.5H x 7W metal community nests.

My initial design has two POD Coops with an 8-ft high 14 gauge metal mesh deer fence connecting them. Will this confuse the poultry having two coops to select from?

 

[3riverschick]

What's a POD design?
Karen

 

[HeritageButcherBlock.com]

What's a POD design?
Karen

Good question. I will clarify in the description. A POD is a shipping container. In this case an 8W x 20L x 8H container. I've designed other POD-based buildings. But this is my first chicken coop.

 

[3riverschick]

Wow that's some heavy duty Chicken House !!well at least it'll be varmint proof I don't think the birds will be confused. I've known other people that had a house at each end of the yard. Birds will kinda of pick out where they want to go and that's where they'll go. since the house is are identical, I don't see any problem with that.
Karen

 

[HeritageButcherBlock.com]

Wow that's some heavy duty Chicken House !!well at least it'll be varmint proof I don't think the birds will be confused. I've known other people that had a house at each end of the yard. Birds will kinda of pick out where they want to go and that's where they'll go. since the house is are identical, I don't see any problem with that.
Karen

Thank you for your quick reply

 

[3riverschick]

I don't see any roosts. is this a free range battery setup with each of the birds is in a cage? which is that's fine if that's what you want to do. how many birds are you going to have and how many nests ?maybe you want to take out two nest sections and put in to roost sections in each pod? that way the birds could learn to roost without sleeping in their nests .that would keep the Nests cleaner.
Karen

 

[3riverschick]

One other thought. another lister just posted pictures of chicken house her father made.
" The big freeze coop". what they did for the roof to keep out Hawks and owls was to put bamboo poles across it and then use deer netting to make roof. that's a thought.
Karen

 

[HeritageButcherBlock.com]

I don't see any roosts. is this a free range battery setup with each of the birds is in a cage? which is that's fine if that's what you want to do. how many birds are you going to have and how many nests ?maybe you want to take out two nest sections and put in to roost sections in each pod? that way the birds could learn to roost without sleeping in their nests .that would keep the Nests cleaner.
Karen

We have 40-60 laying hens at any given time. They are free to roam the pasture during daylight hours. The pink lines are the roosts. There are 50-ft of [5-ft high] roosts. So at 1-ft per chicken one of the coops will accommodates a max of 50 roosting chickens. I've picked out these premade metal nests with back-side egg catch and front-side red curtain built in. One coop will accommodate up to 8 sections of these 1.5D x 1.5H x 7W metal community nests.

 

[HeritageButcherBlock.com]

One other thought. another lister just posted pictures of chicken house her father made.
" The big freeze coop". what they did for the roof to keep out Hawks and owls was to put bamboo poles across it and then use deer netting to make roof. that's a thought.
Karen

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't know about the bamboo poles but i am planning to use the 14 gauge pvc covered deer fence mesh for the fence line and fence top. I found a really good deal.