Roofed roosting bar at night and that's it...anyone with experience?

[Taranakian]

We're new to this whole chicken-keeping thing. Basically decided a month ago that it was finally time to get some after being on our rural acre for 4.5 years, bought some fertile eggs, an incubator, had an abysmal first hatch which I suspect is common (if not normal) (8 out of 20 eggs - lost one to natural causes and one to the dog/my carelessness) and now have 6x 11 day old mixed Orpington chicks officially transitioned to their outside, electricity-free brooder with a wool hen and 12 Indian Game/Dark Cornish eggs in the incubator.

In the last month or so I've read hundreds of topics on this site, and thousands of posts. It is what I do in the morning while my husband is reading the news, and what I fall asleep to at night. And I know I haven't even scratched the surface yet. I'm arming myself to give them as good a life as I can manage in the ways that make sense to me, eventually transitioning to as much of a hands-off flock as I can hope for.

Our acre is quite steep, so we terraced it immediately. We've got 5 (out of 6) terraces we'll make available to the chooks, though we'll fence each terrace in as an individual paddock so we can rotate the flock at its largest just before filling the freezer, and also isolate sets for breeding when we're building our flock up again for the next generation of my evolving spiral breeding plan while giving them plenty of room to meet their daily needs.

I've looked at hundreds of examples of coops here. Many of them are bigger and nicer than the bus we live in. While that's pretty neat, it also doesn't fit my land or management styles. Anything big enough to securely house even 8 chooks is too big to manipulate around our terraces, especially with the fruit trees planted in the middle of each one, and they would require a degree of management I would prefer to avoid if possible.

One thing to note is that we're in a mild climate. Our highs are in the upper-20s in summer (low-80sF) and in winter we'll only get down to -5 (23F) but only for a couple of hours overnight before it bounces back to low-to-mid double digits during the day (50s-low-60sF). As a rule, if we have wind/rain it's not *that* cold. If it's cold, it's still and clear.

So, what I'm wondering about is just building a number of roosting bars under a roof of three or four sides to protect them from driving rain and the prevailing wind and then just moving those around the terraces regularly enough to keep waste from piling up in any one area. Something not terribly dissimilar to a roof over a wishing well, just without the well (and with access from the back so they could hop up from the hill leading to the next terrace up. I could also dig some nesting boxes straight into the sides of the terraces, though if/how I'd teach/manipulate them to use the nesting boxes is still a learning-in-progress.

Finally, we do have predators - rats, mustelids (ferrets, stoats, weasels), hedgehogs, and possums (different than your American opossums), a few feral cats, and a hawk or two during the day over summer - and I know I'll lose some birds/eggs to them, but A) I make a living trapping so am not only comfortable, but reasonably skilled at doing it (bonus points for then using the predators to feed my flock), and B) I'm ok with a bit of loss knowing that breeding surviving members of the flock will provide me a more predator-proof flock in future.

I've read plenty of posts about free-ranging chooks, lots of people whose flock sleeps in trees, or under the awning/porch roof, or under the carport, even in climates more marginal than ours, so I know the idea is not terribly wrong-headed. I'm just, ultimately, looking for anyone who has experience with building super-minimalistic shelters for their birds to chime in and help me figure out what I don't know that I don't know.

Thoughts? Ideas? Personal attacks?

Cheers

 

[NatJ]

I think your idea of semi-sheltered roosting bars will work nicely for chickens to sleep in your climate, if you are not concerned about predators.

I do not have experience with most of the predators you have.

I could also dig some nesting boxes straight into the sides of the terraces, though if/how I'd teach/manipulate them to use the nesting boxes is still a learning-in-progress.

For nests, I would start with something really simple: a box sitting on the ground. I'm visualizing a wooden box that is open on one side, but some people have good results with a bucket turned on its side, or various other things that provide about the right amount of space with shelter on the top and 2 or 3 sides.

Single nests would be easy to lift into the next terrace when you are ready to move them.

For the number of chickens you have now, you probably only need one nest, or two at the most, unless some hens go broody.

Once your pullets grow up and start laying, you can see where they lay their eggs, and consider whether to change anything. If the pullets choose to make their own nest under a bush or in a corner or something like that, you might consider just letting them do that. If you put one or two fake eggs in the nest, they will often continue to lay in the same nest, even if you collect all the real eggs each day. (If you take all the eggs and leave the nest empty, they may go pick a different spot to build a nest, and then you have to hunt for it again. It's easier to have them keep using the same one you already found.)

we do have predators...I'm ok with a bit of loss knowing that breeding surviving members of the flock will provide me a more predator-proof flock in future.

I'm not sure whether "predator resistant" will actually matter for your chickens or not.

A chicken that is completely free can run, fly, choose a hidden roost for the night, or move to a new spot if this one has too much predator pressure. Since your chickens will be confined to your terraces, they will not have as many options. There may be ways they can behave to make themselves safer (example: ducking under a roof when a hawk flies overhead) and other things they cannot do (escape from a ferret that gets inside the terrace with them: the terrace limits their options for running or flying away.)

Whether you can afford to lose a few chickens to predators will also depend on how many chickens you have, so it might be a bigger deal at some seasons than others.

I've read plenty of posts about free-ranging chooks, lots of people whose flock sleeps in trees, or under the awning/porch roof, or under the carport, even in climates more marginal than ours, so I know the idea is not terribly wrong-headed. I'm just, ultimately, looking for anyone who has experience with building super-minimalistic shelters for their birds to chime in and help me figure out what I don't know that I don't know.

I have had chickens sleep in below-freezing conditions with just a tarp to shelter them from wind/rain/snow on the top plus 2 or 3 sides. The chickens were in a pen covered with hardware cloth to keep out predators, but of course the hardware cloth does little or nothing to keep out the weather, so the tarp was the only real "shelter" they had.

 

[Taranakian]

Thank you for such a thorough response, and for pointing out something I didn't realise I was inadvertently taking for granted.

For nests, I would start with something really simple: a box sitting on the ground. I'm visualizing a wooden box that is open on one side, but some people have good results with a bucket turned on its side, or various other things that provide about the right amount of space with shelter on the top and 2 or 3 sides.

Great idea, thanks! Much easier than digging into the terrace, aye? Also, I've got plenty of wood, constantly. We pick up enough pallets (heat treated only) on an annual basis to handle all of our kindling needs for the wood stove throughout winter - super easy to light, and handy for little random projects.

Once your pullets grow up and start laying, you can see where they lay their eggs, and consider whether to change anything. If the pullets choose to make their own nest under a bush or in a corner or something like that, you might consider just letting them do that.

This is largely my hope. I've seen suggestion over in the landrace thread that at least some people have noticed at least some of their chooks laying in their nesting boxes until just before they go broody, and then developing themselves a little hidden nest somewhere for the next few weeks. This is ideal behaviour for me, something I would absolutely select for, and possibly something I would specifically bring in fresh genetics for if I could find any breed that's more likely to do this than others (that's also available here). Making it really clear for me which eggs are for eating/preserving/selling and which are going to become our next generation to go in the freezer would be invaluable, and save me a lot of hemming and hawing for the first few years while getting some experience under the belt. Bonus points if they had a tendency to go broody in the colder months.

Since your chickens will be confined to your terraces, they will not have as many options. There may be ways they can behave to make themselves safer (example: ducking under a roof when a hawk flies overhead) and other things they cannot do (escape from a ferret that gets inside the terrace with them: the terrace limits their options for running or flying away.)

Absolutely. This makes sense, and is something I took for granted. Of course they can't escape the same way they would be able to if they were actually free-range. We do have 4-5 fruit trees, a handful of shrubs, and some tagasastes on each terrace with some self-seeded tasmanian blackwoods, and a few larger perennials dotted throughout also so they'll have reasonable shelter from hawks (though I'll plan/t to increase their number of hiding places). But you're right about ground-based predators, for sure. I'll have to give it time and see if I need to reassess my approach.

That said, it wouldn't be hard to electrify a strip of each leg supporting the roof structure high enough that the chooks won't contact it by accident in their day-to-day and wide enough that any predator trying to climb up at night couldn't help but contact it. It wouldn't stop predators from jumping onto the roost to get at the sleeping chooks, but if I were trying to plan for everything I'd just build myself a fully enclosed coop. Either way, I'll keep that in the back of my mind and chew on it for awhile.

Thanks again. I really appreciate your help sharpening up my general notion, and also the validation that I may not be too far off-track.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

We unofficially have a version of this. We have a Nestera coop sitting on a 3’ high platform, which the pullets have loved. In late July? early August? I added an L-shaped outdoor roost to the side of the platform for sleeping on hot summer nights.

Here we are on Oct 1 with cool nights, and they’re still out there.

The roofing is currently a battered tarp, but the plan is to build a for-real roof above the HWC topping the run in order to have (among other things) a roofed outdoor roost.

Note: they are in a run completely surrounded and covered with HWC. Their run is effectively an 8’x15’ open-air coop.

 

[Mrs. K]

Moveable coops are great in theory, but they tend to be difficult to move and will be labor intensive.

Perhaps I am visualizing your set up wrongly, but what if you built a shelter between two terraces, and had two options for opening the coop. So they could enter the coop from either terrace.

Post a picture of the set up.

 

[Taranakian]

We unofficially have a version of this. We have a Nestera coop sitting on a 3’ high platform, which the pullets have loved. In late July? early August? I added an L-shaped outdoor roost to the side of the platform for sleeping on hot summer nights.

Awesome! Thanks for that. I reckon we'll just try it and see. We've always got material on hand, so I can knock up something different pretty quickly if it turns out to be necessary.

Moveable coops are great in theory, but they tend to be difficult to move and will be labor intensive.

Yeah, I can imagine. I'm not terribly interested in breaking my back to move the chooks. They're supposed to be working for me, not the other way around. Hence I've been noodling on this for a bit.
We'll likely build a prototype this weekend and I'll add some pics when we do.

As far as spitting a coop between two terraces: the medium-term plan is to raise enough to feed us one bird a week on average. We'll have to utilise all of the terraces when we're sitting at max capacity. While it's more laborious, I'd rather have a larger number of smaller coops than a smaller number of larger coops - though building ones that were half-seated on a terrace, half floating above the next one might be a bit better use of space.

 

[NatJ]

As far as spitting a coop between two terraces: the medium-term plan is to raise enough to feed us one bird a week on average. We'll have to utilise all of the terraces when we're sitting at max capacity. While it's more laborious, I'd rather have a larger number of smaller coops than a smaller number of larger coops - though building ones that were half-seated on a terrace, half floating above the next one might be a bit better use of space.

Several different thoughts, that do not all go well together:

You might make different amounts of "coop" on different terraces. One might be sufficiently sheltered and predator-proof to raise young chicks, and it could also be used if you get really bad winter weather. Others might just be roosts with a bit of a windbreak, if you are not too concerned about predators.

In many kinds of weather, chickens can happily sleep on tree branches. A roost underneath some kind of roof would provide similar protection. Sometimes it is easier to build a stationary thing than a moveable thing. For example, four posts set in the ground, with a sloped board on top for a roof, might be enough shelter for much of the year. If you tried to build that as a moveable structure, you would need some additional braces to keep all the pieces together, and it would probably be big and awkward to move.

Depending on how the terraces relate to each other, you might be able to build two coops, with each coop opening onto two terraces. Then you could divide each coop in half with a piece of wire fencing when you want them separate. It's often easier to make one thing twice as big rather than two smaller things, and then you've got the flexibility of using it as one big space or two smaller spaces.

 

[Mrs. K]

the medium-term plan is to raise enough to feed us one bird a week on average.

If you want birds for meat, get meats birds. Have a meat flock and a laying flock. They do need to be separate. Yes you can eat laying hens and dual purpose birds, but it is not KFC. They don’t produce much meat for the feed put into them.

I tried the dual birds and I have a few in my flock. But they are not great meat birds, and they are not great layers.

As for putting something together… it will depend on your predators. Coons are my nemesis, and I fed a lot of them until I finally got something built that was tight enough that they could not get into. You can go quite awhile without getting hit, but once predators find you, they will be back. And the can wipe you out.

 

[NatJ]

If you want birds for meat, get meats birds. Have a meat flock and a laying flock.

This is definitely a case where the "right" answer depends on who you ask, because different people like to do it different ways.

Yes you can eat laying hens and dual purpose birds, but it is not KFC. They don’t produce much meat for the feed put into them.

If you are hatching your own chicks, half of them are going to be males anyway. By the time they are big enough to sex accurately I figure they are big enough to eat too. It just depends on how many people I'm trying to feed, and how many birds I'm willing to use per meal.

If you have to buy all the feed, I agree it makes sense to butcher scrawny males as soon as you know that you don't want to keep those particular ones, and then raise meat chickens (more efficient feed/growth ratio) for the rest of your year's chicken meat. But if the small ones can forage for some of their own food, it may be worth raising them a bit longer, because they are growing partly on food that they find instead of you having to buy it.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Whatever you decide to do, I would err on the side of not putting too much effort into it because chickens free to roost wherever they please might not choose to roost where you want them to. I have a little lean-to with a roost that I built out of some scrap table legs, an old barn door and a fallen tree. It is as unsightly as it sounds which is probably why I don’t have a picture of it I built it to keep their waterer elevated and dry but I also put a roost in there. Last night my rooster slept on top of it. Before that he was sleeping in the adjacent tree. A couple of the hens slept in there one night when they got locked out but they have never chosen to sleep there instead of the coop.