What should I do about night situation?

[beb444]

So here is the current set-up. I have 7, 10 week old chicks in one house at night with water and food. I wanted to keep them all in the same house until they got acclimated so that they could stay warm. The house said it could house 6 chickens when I bought it. They seem comfortable in it now.

My coop goes house, small run, house, and attached to the small run is a bigger run. Should I separate the girls at night(4-3) now to give them more room? Take out their water and food?(If so do I have to ween them off of having it at night?)-if I do take out food and water I can add another roosting pole-currently I have one. I really do not want to keep the house doors open to the small run because of coldness and predators. What do y'all think?

 

[Mrs. K]

I think we need pictures and measurements because often times people are told the coops can hold a lot more chickens than they really can.

Personally, I don't think birds eat or drink much at night if it is dark, by 10 weeks they are old enough to go all night without it.

Mrs K

 

[beb444]

This is what it says on the website:


Henhouse Dimensions: 49" wide (including nest box) x 34.5" deep x 42" high at tallest point
Bird Capacity: 6
Nest Boxes: Three (11" deep x 13" high at highest)
Total Roosting Space: 5' 3" (two 31.75" roosts)

​

And I have two of the houses, but they are currently in one.
The inside of the house looks bigger in real life
(This isn't my pic--I got it off of Google)

 

[lazy gardener]

Each house is big enough for 3 birds at most. Rule of thumb is 4 s.f. in the coop, and 10 s.f. in the run/bird. The manufacturers of these little coops are doing a huge dis-service to folks who are keeping back yard flocks. These little coops may work in warm climates, but would be a total failure in cold climates, b/c there is no way the chickens can perch, keep their feet covered at night, and have adequate ventilation without it blowing across them while they are on the perch.

 

[beb444]

I had to build on to the run that I purchased with these because it was so tiny!! But now the runs are PLENTY big enough for all 7 of them. So should I separate them?

In the summer would it be fine to keep the house doors open to the run so that they can have good ventilation and go from house to house or do you think it's too risky with predators?

 

[Mrs. K]

Thank Goodness, you have two! I frequently leave my coop open all night, in fact most of the time. It will depend on how secure you have built your run. If it is totally enclosed, then that will be fine. If it is not predator proof, then you do need to lock them up at dark.

I think I would open both coops now, and let your birds decide. When they no longer get along in one coop, they may just spread themselves out. If not, you could just manually move 3 head after dark for a couple of days, and they would catch on.

Those are just not great coops. Start looking on Craigs list, or the paper, sometimes you can get a shed reasonably priced. These are cute, but they really won't work well for full size chickens, maybe they would work for bantams, but even then, they have a lot of problems of space and roosting.

Mrs K

 

[Spartan22]

I 2nd @Mrs. K & @lazy gardener, I almost fell victim to those pretty lil houses.