The Girls Have Arrived!!

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Hello there and welcome to BYC!
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Glad they all made it home safely! Just make sure where ever you keep them, you give them 10 square foot per bird in the run or tractor and 4 or 5 square foot per bird in the coop. Chickens can go off on each other when cramped and need a lot of personal space.

Enjoy your new hens and welcome to our flock!
 
Welcome to BYC! Please make yourself at home and we are here to help.

Feed your chicks layer feed with calcium on the side at 18 weeks.

They need about 8-10 square feet per bird.

Cute coop!
 
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OnTheHill said:
All good thoughts and thank you. I should have mentioned the tractor has an enclosed end that is off the ground with nesting boxes also. I wanted them to have a place to lay regardless of where they are.

You are right on point with the winter months. The plan before fall is to make a larger run attached to the red coop removing the one you see now in the picture.
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Sounds like you are right on track!
 
I have a coop with a small run ( I built it didn't buy), and realized the run was too small by the time they were about ten weeks old. My girls free range for several hours a day, so I thought the small run would suffice. But having chickens vs reading about them is very different! I ended up cutting a door into the wire wall of the existing small run, and building a large pen that they can be in if I don't get to range them. This worked great for us, they can go into the small run if it's raining(small run is roofed, large run only has avian netting on the top), and they have access to their nest boxes/ feeders /etc whenever they want. My coop run is 6'x4', the added on pen/run is aprox. 30'x18', and they still free range most days. I originally had four hens in the coop, now there is five, and this amount of space seems good for them. They technically have more run space than is advised now, but they use all of it and love the big pen. The big pen has tree branch roosts, and I dump clippings/leaves/etc for them to scratch through periodically. I think your hens look great, and it sounds like you are off to a good start! Someone told me after I started with chickens that your coop/run is never technically finished, and I think they were right!
 
abserbean said:
I have a coop with a small run ( I built it didn't buy), and realized the run was too small by the time they were about ten weeks old. My girls free range for several hours a day, so I thought the small run would suffice. But having chickens vs reading about them is very different! I ended up cutting a door into the wire wall of the existing small run, and building a large pen that they can be in if I don't get to range them. This worked great for us, they can go into the small run if it's raining(small run is roofed, large run only has avian netting on the top), and they have access to their nest boxes/ feeders /etc whenever they want. My coop run is 6'x4', the added on pen/run is aprox. 30'x18', and they still free range most days. I originally had four hens in the coop, now there is five, and this amount of space seems good for them. They technically have more run space than is advised now, but they use all of it and love the big pen. The big pen has tree branch roosts, and I dump clippings/leaves/etc for them to scratch through periodically. I think your hens look great, and it sounds like you are off to a good start! Someone told me after I started with chickens that your coop/run is never technically finished, and I think they were right!
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The space per bird most commonly listed is a "minimum" - there is no such thing, imo, as too much when it comes to the amount of space you might provide
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Quote:
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I was rolling on the floor when I read your post! I was in the same boat...finally had the run finished except for.....the POP HOLE! I had to find someone to borrow a reciprocating saw so I could cut the thing out by myself (oh, it wasn't a pretty picture...another story, another time!). When I finished that pop hole I literally plopped myself in my chair outside the coop/run and screamed "YES! It's finally DONE!" Good thing I don't have neighbors too close, they would've called the sheriff!
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iwiw60 said:
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I was rolling on the floor when I read your post! I was in the same boat...finally had the run finished except for.....the POP HOLE! I had to find someone to borrow a reciprocating saw so I could cut the thing out by myself (oh, it wasn't a pretty picture...another story, another time!). When I finished that pop hole I literally plopped myself in my chair outside the coop/run and screamed "YES! It's finally DONE!" Good thing I don't have neighbors too close, they would've called the sheriff!
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I provided hours of entertainment for the neighbors (we are all on 2-3 acre lots, but they are put together such that they are long and narrow, so the houses are all pretty close - bleh!) - I am pretty sure they set their watches for my usual arrival time after work each afternoon so they wouldn't miss either of the day's chicken wrangling -- and I nicely provided an afternoon and evening showing
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Welcome to BYC, Janet! Glad you decided to join our flock. I was trying to determine the breed of your chickens by looking at the photo of your cute coop. They look like either White leghorns or White Rocks, but I can't see enough details to determine which. If they have red earlobes, they are White Rocks. If they have white earlobes, they are White Leghorns. Either way you have some good dependable layers. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck with your flock.
 

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