post your chicken coop pictures here!

[diditotaro]

Here is my ode to Gypsy's

6ft wide x 8ft long x 9ft high

 

[bnknoblock99]

@lynnehd Thank you for the advice!! We live on a very busy street so they won't be able to free range as we would like, but we are going to be building them a nice size run so that they will have more room to move about and explore safely. We always had chickens when I was a child and I just loved them!

 

[lynnehd]

@lynnehd Thank you for the advice!! We live on a very busy street so they won't be able to free range as we would like, but we are going to be building them a nice size run so that they will have more room to move about and explore safely. We always had chickens when I was a child and I just loved them!

They might be able to get out now and then when family members are with them.
I agree about protecting against neighborhood dogs, too.

Make their additional run as large as you can manage; you won't regret it. Looking forward to pics!
My 'secondary' run is separate from the coop/run (which is 6x10'). They use a 'chicken tunnel' to access it, and this works very well, and also amuses us, lol
So if there is a shady area in your yard that you want to use that isn't adjacent to your coop, a chicken tunnel can work well.

(This is from the summer, there isn't a blade of grass left now. We put down some gravel during the dry weather, and add leaves and wood chips to keep it from being muddy. Also upgraded the 'secondary' run itself with deer fencing and aviary netting over the top.)

 

[Sylvester017]

Make a cinderblock step up to retrieve the eggs. You probably have plans for steps or something but couldn't help noticing how high the nestboxes were. That is a huge nice coop and 8 hens will be a good fit. If your hens turn out like mine most of them will sleep in the nestboxes LOL. I don't mind if they're happy. For our own comfort we set a pop-up canopy over our first little coop for us to stay dry when retrieving eggs in the rain (never took a photo of it - bummer).

We set our first little coop on paver stones to deter digging predators - dogs, raccoons, possums. It saved our girls from digging dogs who broke our fence gate and attacked the coop. A good neighbor chased the mutts off. We had chicken poultry wire on the little coop and the dogs mangled the cheap wire beyond repair. Whoever custom-built this little coop at the feed store didn't use 1/2" hardware but instead the flimsy poultry hex wire that keeps chickens inside but DOES NOT KEEP PREDATORS OUTSIDE! From our near disasters we are strong advocates for hardwire stronger than poultry wire and some kind of skirting or solid pavers or cinderblocks around the foundation.

 

[cabinchicky]

I too have a dig barrier, two ft out from fence bottom. 1x2 spaced welded wire, barrier and fence all around. We put soil and large field stone ovver the barrier. Chicken wire isn't worth the trouble or expense.Hardware cloth works well but I feel better with the welded wire fence to stop a coyote or large dog from pushing it in. And when you see a hawk fly into it and knock itself stupid, PRICELESS!

 

[FarmerPhronc]

Here it is 98 years later and it's illegal in many areas. Fortunately I live where it's legal and have 5 hens.

 

[Sylvester017]

Here it is 98 years later and it's illegal in many areas. Fortunately I live where it's legal and have 5 hens.

What's sad to me about this 1918 ad is that they make it sound like you just feed junk scraps to chickens and just expect them to crank out a lot of eggs for you feeding them just on crap. The USDA ad failed to mention that chickens are a great responsibility, are noisy cackling their egg songs, that roosters can often crow at 3 a.m., molting feathers that look like a pillow exploded, that they need a routine cleaning regimen, need worm/lice/mite/coop maintenance, need good feed, need predator-safe housing, have an abundance of run/yard space per bird, and that snotty neighbors can be a real pain regardless if you're zoned for Uncle Sam's cause or not. Uncle Sam was omitting info from us even in those days and only painted the rosy picture they wanted us to see! Still, the ad takes us back to the nostalgic more obliviously innocent simple days of yesteryear before the Great Depression and before the start of the violent gangster/mob decade that made routine newspaper headlines. (No, I didn't live in that era, but my folks and grandfolks did!)

 

[FarmerPhronc]

While it's true that in the ad they didn't say what is involved with raising chickens, they gave two great resources for learning how.

 

[MeepBeep]

What's sad to me about this 1918 ad is that they make it sound like you just feed junk scraps to chickens and just expect them to crank out a lot of eggs for you feeding them just on crap.  The USDA ad failed to mention that chickens are a great responsibility, are noisy cackling their egg songs, that roosters can often crow at 3 a.m., molting feathers that look like a pillow exploded, that they need a routine cleaning regimen, need worm/lice/mite/coop maintenance, need good feed, need predator-safe housing, have an abundance of run/yard space per bird, and that snotty neighbors can be a real pain regardless if you're zoned for Uncle Sam's cause or not.  Uncle Sam was omitting info from us even in those days and only painted the rosy picture they wanted us to see!  Still, the ad takes us back to the nostalgic more obliviously innocent simple days of yesteryear before the Great Depression and before the start of the violent gangster/mob decade that made routine newspaper headlines.  (No, I didn't live in that era, but my folks and grandfolks did!)

Lets put this in period correct context we were involved in a World War, food rations and conservation were the buzz word of they day... Most of Europe was starving due to farm land becoming battle fields and A LOT of the US food reserves were being shipped overseas to keep people alive and avoid famine... There was a big push at the time for Americans to alter their diets, consume less and conserve as much food as possible for the Wartime effort... Feeding your chicken garbage and leftovers is exactly what they were promoting at the time as a way to eliminate waste further... Right or wrong in your eyes the welfare of the chickens took a backseat to feeding hungry people at that time...

http://histclo.com/essay/war/ww1/cou/us/food/w1cus-usfa.html

 

[FarmerPhronc]

What's sad to me about this 1918 ad is that they make it sound like you just feed junk scraps to chickens and just expect them to crank out a lot of eggs for you feeding them just on crap.

In 1918, kitchen scraps were fed to chickens, pigs and other livestock. You have to remember in 1918 people weren't eating processed junk food, so how do you relate them feeding kitchen and garden scraps to feeding them crap?