What is a "breeding pen"?

[chicklets81]

Ok, I'm a total newbie. I only have 1 chicken coop.(I know many of u here have multiple) It has small door open to a back enclosure, and front door open to free range yard.

I've heard people talk about having breeding pens. What is this setup? Is it a separate house or just a separate run?

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Breeding pens are housing units used to keeping breeding groups separate frome other birds to asdure resulting chicks are from the intended parent birds. This requires total separation so the birds cannot share any part of the housing (coop or run) with birds not part of the breeding group.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Meant to add, depending on climate and setup, the actual structure of the "pens" can vary a lot from one person to the next

 

[Sophocles]

When you're breeding you want to control which rooster fertilises which hen and which hen's eggs you hatch. You can't do that with a big flock in 1 run because even if you have 1 rooster, hens will share nesting boxes so you don't know which eggs were laid by which hen.

A breeding pen is just any build that lets you isolate chickens for the purpose of breeding, seperate from your main run/coop. For the chickens' welfare it should offer both shelter and some room to do their thing, but given space and money constraints and the fact that they're only temporary and house only a handful of chickens at most, they're usually quite small.