Questions about coop, yard, EVERYTHING!

[dvanoudenhove88]

Hi,

Turning here for my many questions. We are going to get a coop and chickens are want to educate ourselves first. We live in the country with MANY predators, so the coop I have picked out is raised up, sliding hen house door, and run is protected with hardware cloth verses chicken wire. Here are some of my questions:

- I would love 5-6 chickens, the coop says it would fit up 5-6 but it offers only three nesting boxes max. Does every chicken needs it own box ideally or do they share their boxes? The dimensions are 4’ wide x 6’ long x 8’ high with a 8 sq. ft. hen house and a 16 sq.ft. chicken run area. There is a size up 4x8 but for up to 8 chickens but that is still only 3 nesting boxes.

-I want to be able to let out mature hens during the day light hours. We have a gross pond in our yard, will chickens go in there or will they stay away from water? Also, do they generally stay close to their coop or do you need a fenced in yard if you are close to the road etc. we have a decent backyard but our front yard is close to a road.

- do you need to dig down and install wire or hardware cloth under the ground of the run/ coop?

Any tips/ answers are appreciated.

 

[jetdog]

1 laying box per 3/4 hens so your good there, for the run you should have a minimum of 10 sf per bird so 6 birds should have a 6x10 run bigger is better, they will probably venture down to the water to get a drink they won't go swimming but will check it out, for safety sake I would fence off the front yard so they can't get in harms way, you don't need to dig you can make an apron of wire around the whole thing extended out about a foot there are lots of good threads on here on how to make one.

 

[dvanoudenhove88]

Thanks JetDog!