The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[delisha]

I have a question. I have my 5 Reds that are 15 weeks old. I need to build them a sleeping coop so I can get my chicks into the coop they are presently in, in a couple of weeks. We only use the coops so that I can lock them up at night. Coop will be inside the covered chain link pen. How tall do I need to make the coop so that they will be comfortable at night? It will be 1 RC cockerel and 4 pullets.

Penny

Penny, just as a suggestion, and for things that have never worked for me, make it large enough and tall enough for you to enter in comfortably and for you to house all of your LF you intend to have sleeping there at night next year. Why not make it outside the chain link, with an entrance into the chain link fence. You will probably always need a broody building, and a juvie building. Eventually you will have to have a bachelor pad too. I have three coops and it seems I never have enough buildings.

I also have a temporary A frame building. It is larger than a large dog house and I can put in roosting posts if i need to separate. I do not like it because I have to crawl into it to get out a bird if they do not want to come out. I have a cupola in this side but that is for nesting only. I put ducks on this side.


Building outside of the fence..the fence goes all the way around the building, except the front side.










Inside of building..

Or this A frame



This is also the back side of the fencing.

 

[DaveMcLaren]

You will probably always need a broody building, and a juvie building. Eventually you will have to have a bachelor pad too. I have three coops and it seems I never have enough buildings.

I know this is taking us off topic for this site, but can you please elaborate on the purpose of each building?

 

[delisha]

This is just my opinion and what I do. I hope this helps...

When I incubate eggs I do not raise them in the house. They are also too small to be raised with adults. So they go out to a broody coop. They are exposed to adult bacteria and germs with out the risk of injury.






This is my broody coop. It is fenced in and allows them on the ground safely. They have exposure to adults, yet no physical contact.






This is the hospital coop. All new shipped birds are held here for 30 days. I than introduce one of my birds for the next 30 days. If all is good. The new birds are put into the large coop.
You can see by the dust the hospital is not used. I have not dusted in years. I have had injured birds that I used to tend and try to save. I really do not do that much any more. I had a duck attacked by a coyote and nursed that duck. I sewed up all of her wounds. She started laying 6 months later, than she was killed by the neighbors dog. It just put my ambition about injuries and healing on a different plain now. I should have butchered out that duck and ate her. Her injuries, all though healed made her slow and unable to fly. She was hindrance to the flock and it was a bad decision on my part. She could have cost me my whole flock.
I use the back half of this building for a bachelor pad when needed.

 

[melroseladi]

delisha we are all woods here. I would have to cut down big trees to put up another building outside the pen. We put the pen under trees to help with summer heat. I have a 4x8x6 coop attached to one end of the pen that I use for the younger birds until they are big enough to just stay in the pen.

We use open air pens here for the birds. I am wanting to secure Tanker and his girls in a night time coop just until they get bigger/older since I will be having these other chicks to put into the coop in a few weeks. The coop I have really isn't big enough to divide. I am building a covered hog panel hoop coop to use as a bachelor pen until they are old enough to tell which are keepers and which aren't.

Penny

 

[delisha]

delisha we are all woods here. I would have to cut down big trees to put up another building outside the pen. We put the pen under trees to help with summer heat. I have a 4x8x6 coop attached to one end of the pen that I use for the younger birds until they are big enough to just stay in the pen.

We use open air pens here for the birds. I am wanting to secure Tanker and his girls in a night time coop just until they get bigger/older since I will be having these other chicks to put into the coop in a few weeks. The coop I have really isn't big enough to divide. I am building a covered hog panel hoop coop to use as a bachelor pen until they are old enough to tell which are keepers and which aren't.

Penny

Understood..we cleared a bit too. well quite a bit. it helps with preds too. Easier for me to toss clover, kale, spinach, and squash seeds in some of the cleared areas.
With mild weather a lean to or A frame would be sufficient. RIR are pretty hearty birds. With a few roosts in the pen they would probably sleep out in most of the elements.

 

[BantyChickenLuv]

I use 3 x 2 (maybe more, maybe less, don't know for sure) pens for my breeders. Of course, this is only for 2-3 bantams per pen, which is pushing it. I'm not a large scale breeder so it works for me.

ETA: I keep my birds in garage/shop so they are protected from the elements.

 

[cmom]

I have a hatch going on. My Mohawks are popping out. They are beautiful babies. I had a hatch last week, one today and will have another one the end of the month. I also hatched some Buff Orpingtons, Rose Comb Rhode Island Whites, and I have 3 chicks from one of my Red Sex Link girls. I put her in with my RIWs because the birds in another pen were picking on her but she gets along well with the RIW girls. Her chicks are black and 2 are Rose Comb and one is a Single Comb. They are cute and I'm going to keep them just to see what they grow up like.

 

[SallyinIndiana]

I have a hatch going on. My Mohawks are popping out. They are beautiful babies. I had a hatch last week, one today and will have another one the end of the month. I also hatched some Buff Orpingtons, Rose Comb Rhode Island Whites, and I have 3 chicks from one of my Red Sex Link girls. I put her in with my RIWs because the birds in another pen were picking on her but she gets along well with the RIW girls. Her chicks are black and 2 are Rose Comb and one is a Single Comb. They are cute and I'm going to keep them just to see what they grow up like.

I'm curious, you mention Mohawks so there must be differences in the lines (not sure if this is the right word maybe it should be strands) in this bread. How many good lines of HRIR are out there and what are the differences. Has anyone made a comparison chart? Maybe something similar to:

HRIR Line / Attribute summary (not what makes them HRIR but what sets them apart from the other lines of HRIR) / main locations / LF or Banty / Breeders
Mohawk line / ?? maybe these have darker tail feathers for the roos??? (just an example, I really don't know the differences) / ??State?? / LF?? / I think I saw a Matt mentioned with a mohawk post
Fogle line / ?? maybe these are more brick shape?? again I'm just putting something here for an example of how a chart could look / Arkansas / LF / Ron Fogle

While curious, I'm sure that for those of us trying to decide if and when we want to get into raising heritage birds, a chart with this kind of information would be a tremendous help.

 

[cmom]

Quote:
Some of my birds came from Matt.

 

[cmom]

I am line breeding which means that my HRIRs are all descendants of the same line which was originally the Reese line. Robert Blosl bought the Reese line around 30 years ago. He now calls them Mohawk. Read Robert Blosl's posts and you will learn what a good HRIR is. He started this thread.