Sumatra houseing needs.

[K&H Chicken Farm]

My son is getting a show line Sumatra hen and may be a roo tomorrow night. I have all morning to get some type of houseing for them. From what I have read they do not like small quarters.
Now are they talking about cages and closed hen houses or what?

 

[flyingmonkeypoop]

We keep some of our breeding birds in 3' square cages and they do fine. If you have a large pen, they can run away from you, and are harder to catch. I like ours being in smaller cages because you can catch them easier and it makes handling them easier/faster.

 

[K&H Chicken Farm]

Thank you!
What do you use for shelter? I was thinking a small a-frame.

 

[Pinenot]

I know for sure that the smaller the space, the more the feathers seem to part and mess up. I can tell you also, never feed corn. It will turn black feathers a purple sheen, instead of a green sheen. Give them space and wood sides to the cage, if all possible.

 

[tiki244]

I heard they like to sleep in the trees.

I talked to a man who one a show last year with a Sumatrs and asked him how he conditioned her and he said he had hes loose and just picked her out of the tree and brought her to the show.

 

[K&H Chicken Farm]

We have the nicest hen in our kitchen in a big dog crate right now. My son called her Raven, the name really fits. She does look like a big raven.
We could do a wood side pen for her. She was in a all hen pen that was under a bounch of trees with perches nail to them. The cocks where keeped in big single runs with high perches, blows my mind how long the tails where! The leader is going to help us get another female and a roo out of her lines so he has a nice breeding group. She just culls so heavy that this one was all she could part with at this time and later this summer wher the chicks are older we can get a couple more good ones.

 

[tiki244]

nice

 

[Rafter 7 Paint Horses]

I agree with Pinenot.
Give them as much room as possible. The long tails of the rooster will get ratty real fast if he does not have enough room.
Also, you might have to do introductions slowly when you get more, I never could just put new hens in with existing hens of my Sumatras. The hens I had would beat the new ones up to the point of nearly killing them if I didn't intervene.
Some of my new hens I had to just turn out to free range because the original hens would never accept them.

Jean

 

[K&H Chicken Farm]

THanks every one!

 

[Pinenot]

If you read about them, they came off the island of Sumatra. They are a jungle bird and a lot of cock fighters will use them because they can be real aggressive. We couldn't keep our roo. He would flog my son every time he went out to feed and he was just mean. I just couldn't let that happen to my child. My hen is soooo sweet. You just have to watch them. They are real teritorial. Beautiful birds to look at!