This is our 3rd year of "Chicken farming". I cannot tell you all the things we did wrong over this period of time but I would like to tell you about some of them especially if you are considering raising chickens. When you think about the coop think about "how easy will this be to clean". We did not ! We thought we'll just convert our garden shed to a coop. What a mess ! We thought...lets put down linoleum flooring... and we can just come in and use a hose to clean it out OH NO! Once you put down that flooring you are opening up yourself for a life time of worry. Once there is any kind of a tear or even just a bubble under the floor the chickens find it. Not only will they tear up the flooring but they will also eat said flooring (which I am sure can't be good for them). And that idea of using the hose... I did that once and the mess was unbelieveable . So we laid down straw (the straw system) and that helped a bit untill they figured it was still there under the straw. The straw mounted up TO ABOUT 1.5 FT in a month and hauling it out was an all day back breaking job. We tried the sand system which didn't work because they kept finding the flooring. So now we have gone to a system of extra smaller boards under the roosts w/a small coating of sand. I empty these twice a week. It takes about and hour and is stinky work. Speaking of roosts we just made ours without "thinking" about how they sat on them. Our first set of roosts is up too high. the maximum height should have been about 3 ft. ours is closer to 5ft. plus we didn't leave any room for them to fly down. We thought they would jump down to the next lower roost and so on until they hit the bottom roost and then the floor. So every morning I grab them and place them down on the floor. On top of that we didn't leave enough space between the tiers. So the girls at the top poop on the next row of roosts under them. So we always have hens with poop on them. Not good. And you would think that when we had the second set of roosts built for us we would have kept this in mind... We didn't . They do however have more space to jump down onto the floor. But still we didn't offset the roost part far enough apart to eliminate the pooping problem. We did however make the hens a ladder which a few of them use but not all. the reason for the top roost not being over 3 ft is it stops the hens from problems like bumblefoot, sprained ankles/toes, Broken legs etc. Also if the offset is far enough apart you don't really need that height. We have (29 hens 16 of which are just 5 mos old) They have begun to lay. We have 2 girls we know for sure that are not laying BUT DO WE get rid of them? NO! That's Big Red & Lacey how can we get rid of the head of the flock and one of the Prettiest hens we ever had. That's another thing once you name them they are part of the family and it's really hard to kill them or even give them away. I am relating this story for the new people who are thinking about starting the wonderful world of eggs. It is very rewarding because the eggs are GREAT! The hens are like your second family ( they all have their little personalities) and they need almost as much care. Just remember when 7:00 am rolls around every morning it's your job to go out and let them out of the coop and feed them. That's everyday , every week, every month, every year... They are a commitment be sure your ready to make it. For those of us who did we couldn't think about not
raising hens.
raising hens.
