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

[Taranakian]

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.

I'm buying this, for sure. I'll definitely expect broodies to raise the majority of my chicks, but I suspect I'll always want the option to bring in more genes via the incubator, so something that could double as a coop and brooder makes sense. It would also give me a reasonable option for quarantine or sick bay.

I also hear you about moveable vs. immovable. It does get pretty blustery here, so anything moveable would need to be anchored and that's a pain.

I still have to sell my husband on this whole thing. It'll be hilarious because last week I was telling him his ideas for the coop weren't draft proof enough (Ha!). Thankfully he's a good sport.

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 hear you, and I've thought about this, and I may end up being one of the large number of people that think they know better and then end up abandoning their dual-purpose flock and just going straight meat birds.

That said, I'm unconcerned about cost/quantity of feed. Besides the seed bank we've built up over the last 5 years of not mowing anything, and that our property is teeming with insect life, I'll also trap a fair bit of their food for them. I'm clear that a number of people have issues with that but I don't, and besides being perfectly acceptable food for the chickens, it's also good for the environment. So at least academically, I don't have much issue with giving them time to put meat on their bones. We also normally slow cook our chickens anyways, so appropriate cooking methods for their age don't bother me.

That said, I do have some CobbX eggs coming in about three weeks when the Indian Game currently in the incubator get kicked outside into the brooder. The idea is to fill up the freezer, to give the dual-purpose time to fill out.

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.

I love that. Low effort is my jam! If my trees were, say, two or three years older I'd just let them hang out there and not worry much about shelter. As it is, on one side of us we've got a community owned domain with a line of mature trees between us and behind us we've got about 5 acres of community owned bush. I've thought about letting (encouraging) them to take up residence in one or both of those locations. I could easily train my dog to sniff out eggs, bit that seems a bit bolshy. Still, if they end up sleeping there I won't be upset except for figuring out how to keep them away from our home and the veggie garden.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I won't be upset except for figuring out how to keep them away from our home and the veggie garden.

Build a chicken run for the veggie garden haha

 

[Taranakian]

Build a chicken run for the veggie garden haha

Ha! More like a human run, aye?

 

[Mrs. K]

Another piece of advice - is don't go all in, in year one. There is a learning curve to predators, weather, and building. It is better to have a mule-generational flock, so everyone does not get old at once.

And if you get eggs and a broody hen - well she will hatch those too.

Mrs K

 

[Taranakian]

Another piece of advice - is don't go all in, in year one. There is a learning curve to predators, weather, and building. It is better to have a mule-generational flock, so everyone does not get old at once.

And if you get eggs and a broody hen - well she will hatch those too.

Mrs K

This makes sense. I've already learned the literal meaning of "don't count your chickens before they hatch". Certainly we've got no real option but to try to plan for perfection at the moment, but tempering that with keeping infrastructure "just enough, just in time" certainly allows more adaptability.

I also reckon it'll take me a couple of years to figure out how many hens I want to keep over winter, and probably much longer to figure out how many can self-sustain over winter.

Defo makes sense not to go all in.

 

[Mrs. K]

Well as I have been running chickens for more than 20 years, and am still playing with it...just saying it is a fun hobby.

 

[Appalachickens]

Hedgehogs! They seem too adorable to be a threat - that's news to me. I'm new to chickens so I have no advice, but I'm following with interest and would love to hear about it as you go. I only free range my coop chickens during the day, but am planning a totally free range flock as well for the woods. I'm leaning toward building a very simple shelter that can be shut or left open, thinking I can shut them in at first while they get used to where "home" is, then leave it open so it's aplace they can go if they want. Nest boxes wil be out and about, and my hope is they will roost in trees.

 

[SamLockwood]

The first potential problem I see is if you get severe weather any shelter light enough to move around is going to be light enough to get knocked down by the wind. So think about some way to secure the shelters in event of severe weather.

The second problem is that anything in the weasel family are excellent climbers, and one is quite capable of wiping out your flock in a single evening

Third, if you have any owls that sleeping arrangement will make them easy pickings at night.

Since you're doing fencing ground predators might not be as much of a problem, but daytime hawk raids will give you an unsustainable loss rate.

They need lots of ground cover to hide in. My birds have learned over the years that it's a good idea to never be more than 20 feet away from a hiding place, and they've got lots of hiding places around their area (both natural & artificial).

Plus, as they've survived multiple attacks they've gotten more savvy. The last year and a half I've seen them use surprisingly sophisiticated tactics when they're threatened. My advice is even if you're raising them mainly for meat try to keep a core of "old timers" because their instincts only take them so far.

I'd also suggest you add some lights to your shelters: they have some pretty cheap solar-powered ones with built in motion sensors. I've had mine for over three years and as long as I keep the solar panels clean they work fine. I have mine set up to turn off after 15 seconds of no motion. The benefits I've seen are as follows:

• It helps them find the roosting bars in late dusk.
• Sometimes they squabble in the middle of the night and one will get knocked off the roosting bar. The lights help them find their way back up as they're pretty much blind at night.
• If something is creeping around the shelter at night, it will activate the light, and if you have a line-of sight from your house you'll be alerted before the screaming starts.
• Some predators will back off of a light comes on.