Roosting bars to high ? and spacing ?

[newimaging]

Hi guys,
I am new to the board and to chickens. I currently have 16 Buff Orphingtons that are 3 weeks old in a temporary pen in the house.
I just finished most of the chicken coup I was building the last few weekend.
After reading a bunch of post I am getting conflicting information and wanted to double check a few facts:

1. How high can the roosting bars be. Currently mine are at about 24" so they are as high as the top row of breeding boxes. Do I need to build them a ladder, or what is the maximum high for them to jump up that is recommended ?

1b. How steep can the ladder be if it has cross bars for anti-slip ?

2. How far appart should the roosting bars be if they are on the same hight level?

3. Do you set up water and food feeders in the coop and outside. Do you recommend the nipple drip type feeders inside the coop.

4. What kind of chicken wire do you use if I build a fully enclosed run around the coop. Maybe 25'x25'. I am also thinking about just setting up 100' of temp electric fence around the coop to keep raccoons out during the day.

I am attaching a few pictures to show the setup and one that shows an idea of a ladder ( I`d still have to add cross bars so they don`t slip)

Christian

 

[chynasparks]

I love your coop. I'm no expert so I will just share some of my experiences. My coop is designed for no more than 5 chickens. I have 5 chicks. This is my second flock. First lost to predators :-( This time around I chose a nipple watere in the coop. To my surprise the chicks took to it right away. The area under the waterer is staying wet from dripping when they drink. That's ok for me because the alternative is a messy nasty water tray. And it's realy just damp, not sloppy wet. I can live with that. My husband built a ladder for them to go up to the roost. It goes up, there's a platform and then a turn to the left going up to the roost and best boxes. It's steaper than the ladder in your picture. They have no trouble with it. He did add raised wedges though to give them something to grip on, no sliding down. We made a poop caddy. It's like a tool box. Sand in the bottom and the "handle" is the roost bar. The first flock used it fine. New babies haven't figured it out. I'm in the process of making a chainlink dog kennel run, covered. I'll have another nipple watere in the run too. i read that some people thing the chickens might not drink enough from a nipple waterer. My chicks seem to be drinking just fine. I will keep a close eye on that when the weather gets hot. I can put lots of ice in the waterer, they will always have clean water.
Again, love your coop

 

[Sonya9]

If you want opinions.....

That looks like it will be difficult to clean! I would consider putting one or two long roosting bars lengthwise with a poop shelf (with PDZ) underneath.

Poop shelves will make life so much easier for you, and being able to quickly scoop out the poop frequently makes for a much healthier environment for the chickens.

 

[autumnhearth]

That is a beautiful coop! Did you build it or are you just adding to it? Concerning roost height, it looks good, spacing should be fine. Now mind you there is no one right way do keep chickens, there are some bad ones but are many good ways. I have no doubt the ramps work well for others but we don't have one going up to our roost, only up to the coop from the ground. Rather we have a droppings board or poop shelf with a lip on it made from a 2x2 that they jump up onto first, it is about a foot off the floor, just above the nesting boxes, the 2x4 roost is about 8-10 inches above that. You may want to just try putting a lower roost in front of the others as a step to hop off of.

We have sand and Sweet PDZ on the shelf, making it easy to scoop in the morning with a kitty litter scoop. However the orientation of your coop, in relation to the human access door looks like it will be hard to clean no matter what, they deep litter method may work out better for you. Or you could have your floor be sand and attach some fine hardware cloth to a mulch/compost rake to scoop the droppings, see 1/4 of the way down: http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/search?q=sand

But without droppings boards your hens will likely track feces into the nest boxes. Again no one right way to do things, but I see you have a lot of nest boxes at two different levels. The saying goes something like if you build 7 nest boxes for 7 hens they will all want to crown into one. This was how it was at the beginning for our 5 pullets, they all wanted the middle nest box. Now they will use all three and one sometimes lays in a staw nest over in the corner. But having your top nests level with the roosts *may* encourage your girls to sleep in them instead of roost, especially broody inclined Buff Orps. But I can't speak from experience. I would board up the nest boxes until they are close to laying age and then maybe open up the bottom ones at first.

I know many people who have nipple waters and gravity feed dispensers in the coop and they love them. We keep our water and food in our enclosed run. Both a personal choice and one made based on what we had. We are only a year in to keeping chickens and are still learning what works best for us.

Best of luck!

 

[Blooie]

Welcome, Christian! Your coop is really nice. I't's obvious that you've put a lot of time and thought into it. But I do have a couple of questions.

Are every one of those boxes nesting boxes? For 16 birds, 4 or 5 would be sufficient, since most of them will use the same boxes anyway. Having one nest per bird takes up a lot of space and will likely encourage them to sleep in the boxes. Your roosts should be higher than your nests for the same reason. It looks like it would be relatively easy to convert the access doors on the unneeded nests with hardware cloth windows, leaving the outside access doors open except for the sides where the wind is coming in. In other words, add hardware cloth to the current nest openings for ventilation (I don't think that the vent you show will be enough, especially with 16 chickens) and leave the doors on them for opening and closing when the weather is really bad. You don't say where you live, so I don't know what your winters are like, but heat kills more birds than cold and there is never too much ventilation in a chicken coop. In a closed up coop in the winter time, frostbite is a real problem too. But you don't want to remove those access doors completely - they add so much to the look of the coop and really enhance the flexibility of your coop ventilation if you decide to go that route. You can have some open, only those on the leeward side of the wind on bad days, or all open during the hot summers. Love that!

Will you be able to remove the roosts for easy cleaning? It looks like it would be hard to clean the area around and under the far ones. They can easily fly the 24 inches you have, but remember that BOs are large, heavy bodied birds. They'll want to fly down and need space to land when they do. Mine thinks she's a 747! And if it freezes where you live, sand is a pretty hard landing zone. Some chickens will use a ladder, some prefer to fly up and down to and from the roosts. It looks like your coop is too narrow to allow for just one long roost...they'd smack the wall on the opposite side flying down. So keeping them the way you have them will work....but they don't need so many. If we had some dimensions of your coop it would be easier to answer that question more accurately.

I use horizontal nipple waterers for my chickens and keep food and water out in the run. They don't eat or drink when they sleep anyway, and for me ideally the coop should be for sleeping and laying. If the nipples drip outside, it's no big deal. A simple stir and it dries up quickly in the moving air. Inside the coop it can just sorta stay damp and a damp chicken coop can smell awful! Besides, having them in the coop takes up valuable floor space and I'm not a good enough carpenter to design one of those awesome home built feeder that fit between the studs of my coop.

As for a run, you can use about anything, but chicken wire is only designed for one purpose - keeping chickens in. We used cattle panels wire arched between steel fence posts anchored deep into the ground. We covered the arch with chicken wire to keep out overhead predators and small wild birds, then used hardware cloth at the bottom 2 feet, folded it outward about 2 feet (maybe a little less) secured it with landscape fabric staples, and let the grass grow through it. Invisible, but sure does the job. The best part is that we can walk upright in it. Sounds like a small thing, but if you ever have to do a deep cleaning or catch a chicken it will really save your back! Electric fencing also sounds like a good idea - lots of folk use it and love it for protection. Other people have had great success with dog kennel panels, woven wire fence, and even done the entire run in hardware cloth, which quite exceeds my budget! Your imagination is the limit, always keeping in mind that your first job is to protect those chickens. The wheels on your coop tell me that you plan to be able to move it from time to time, so that's an important consideration when deciding how to build your run - is it as easy to move as the coop? I saw a run made from dog kennel panels that had retractable wheelbarrow wheels attached to the four corners and center posts. It still took two men and a small donkey to move it, but move it did!

Your coop is beautiful. Now all you have to do is get those ladies out there and get them busy! I apologize if I sound critical - I don't mean to. I know it's a bummer when you work so hard at something and then someone else comes along and points things out. But if your girls are 3 weeks, and you want to make any changes, this is the time to do it. We are still "fixing" things in ours.....ideas that seemed so great on paper and looked so pretty built just didn't work at all when the chickens actually moved out. They say a chicken coop is never "finished". I didn't believe that. Um, after the week we just spent taking the chickens' needs and habits into account instead of what seemed like a great idea at the time, I believe it now.

 

[r-dale]

Nice, I'm going to agree with sonya, inthat you will find it easier to clean and work in the coop if the roosts run lenthwise, so you can walk from the front to the back. Does the coop open on the window side? In the photos it looks like you have hinged openings under the windows. That is a great feature that will speed up clean up. Great design.

 

[Sonya9]

The saying goes something like if you build 7 nest boxes for 7 hens they will all want to crown into one. This was how it was at the beginning for our 5 pullets, they all wanted the middle nest box. Now they will use all three and one sometimes lays in a staw nest over in the corner.

I agree. I think the rule of thumb is 1 nestbox per 4 hens.

Since there are so many nest boxes with exterior access I would probably convert one row of nest boxes into a roost with the poop shelf underneath. That would make it easy to clean/scoop from the outside. Maybe even two rows, with roosts running down both sides if both have flaps for easy cleaning access. FYI ideally both roosts are the same height, else they will probably all want the higher one.

Also I would think about sealing the floor with black jack or another good sealant before the chickens ever get in it.

 

[autumnhearth]

I would probably convert one row of nest boxes into a roost with the poop shelf underneath. That would make it easy to clean/scoop from the outside. Maybe even two rows, with roosts running down both sides if both have flaps for easy cleaning access.

Also I would think about sealing the floor with black jack or another good sealant before the chickens ever get in it.

Great suggestions! We stapled roofing paper to our coop floor.

 

[Sonya9]

Great suggestions! We stapled roofing paper to our coop floor.

Thanks...but I suspect the person that built all of those nest boxes won't be thrilled by the idea of tearing them out.

And yes, a sealed easy to clean floor from the start makes a big difference. No one wants to be scraping ancient chicken poo off the floor and trying to seal the mess later.

 

[newimaging]

Thanks guys for all the great ideas and points. I live in Rochester, Michigan, its Zone 5B, so it does get cold in the winter. Thats why I added electric for putting in a head lamp.

As far as air circulation I have vents on both ends that are adjustable, and also along one whole side above the nest boxes that are adjustable. Then both windows can be opened fully and left open as I added hardware netting to keep critters out.

As far as the poop and clean up issue, there are 2 doors under the windows which are meant for poop drawers that I haven`t build yet. I was thinking about just going with the deep litter technique which seems to be working great indoors for the 3 week olds. But I guess they`ll start pooping a lot more.
So based on all the comments, the poop boxes seem to be essential
The roost bars are currently just layed ontop of the parralel bars, so I can take all 5 of them and move them out within 5 seconds to have the whole floor open.

I tried to make the upper nest boxes just slightly lower then the roosts, but maybe closing them off until I might have more chickens (supposedly supports up to 25 with free-range) forcing them to use the lower once.

Maybe taking the top nest boxes out completely and adding 2 roost bars might be an idea to consider. Would definably use the space better.

Here are a few more pics of the poop doors. I also added a side view from the plans I used as a guide.