newhamplover
Chirping
I think that is a great idea to get your chickens outside quickly. I would address the worm situation after a few months of them getting their bodies regulated. I have an automatic door for my coop which I LOVE. The greatest thing since ice cream. It is electric & we have had no issues with it in over 2 years of use. The unit sits inside the coop & the frame is made of a wood plastic that will not rot. Very easy to install. I bought it from flemingoutdoors.com. After 34 years of horses, dogs, etc. to have to be up at a certain time every morning.....this is one luxury that is worth it. I can look out my bedroom window every morning & see them outside & I can get up when I want too LOL!!! But in the country that is still early. It is nice though to have a cup of coffee FIRST.I'm kind of glad that I didn't spend the money to put in an outdoor run, because now I can see that the chickens would be MUCH happier to go free outside. An outdoor run would give them about 100 sq ft of extra space and I could dress it up with logs and perches, but it wouldn't have grass and millions of bugs and all the variety of the great outdoors. It would be so cool if the chickens could graze in our orchard and keep the bugs down below the fruit trees we planted this year.
I was thinking that when (or at this point what feels like "if") we get this worm problem cleared up, I would put them outside. Do you think it is worth waiting for that, or will I never have the worms 100% cleared up so I may as well accept that there will be some worm eggs in the environment, and I can go ahead and let them out now?
Another issue is getting my dog trained to leave the chickens alone. A very good thing about this dog is she does care what I think. So she's quite trainable. She is a herding breed, Australian Shepherd, but leaves the horses alone at all times. But I taught her this as a young dog. Does anyone have any tips for how to proceed with dog training for free ranging chickens?
Also I am looking for help with pop-door design. On the other side of the back wall of the chicken pen is a large covered 3-sided run-in shed for the horses. I thought the chicken door could go there, because the shed doesn't fill with snow and the chickens could go out and scratch amongst the horses basically all year round and then choose to venture out from there if they desired. The wall itself is 9" thick including the planks on both sides. The door needs to not stick into the horse area or have anything the horses could fiddle with. So I was thinking of something that operated from the chicken side. I would put a lip of about 6" at the bottom to keep their bedding from spilling out. Other than that I'm not sure what the best approach is. Ideas?
Thanks everyone!
Lori