[poultrygeist]

Drinker
mixed corn for 'treats' in late afternoon.
compost bin to put all that lovely chicken poo in  

Completely identify with the 'how far will this wire stretch' feeling !
I squeezed a 2nd gate out of my roll recently but it's a tricky calculation.

Sounds like you've got it sussed.
I'm sure your parents won't miss the lawn once they get the eggs comig in. Don't forget, once the grass has gone, to give them greens hanging up for nice yellow yolks.
Have you got somewhere to store the sacks of feed and wood shavings and straw ?
My shed seems to have become an overspill for this sort of thing. Got a permanent layer of straw on the floor now.  :?

Rob  

[FCG]

Thanks, between you and porffor i've got off the ground with this project! Yes, i have a shed for storage of food/bedding and i have a old style black bin for compost.

Thankfully i found a natural source of bark chips (A MASSIVE pile of chips left near my house, near the small wood) which will be used after the grass is gone. I grow my own veg, so my perpetual spinach and lettuce will be going in for them. Cress and mustard ok too? I can also throw them any bits of greens out of the fridge.

Another question, how high should the fence be? I can get it to a moderate height, but i think i'll have to net it at the top.

Finally, should i go for that maran or not? Are they a tricky breed?

[Porffor]

Marans are similar to my girls the bronze ones anyhow. lol

The fence should be 5' or more if you are not covering it.. i personally have an uneven fence it is about 5' at the top near hte house and comes down to about 4' nearer the other end. fence posts were recycled from elsewhere in the garden! We have netting over it (pond netting in black from Homebase). stops wild birds getting in, and poss illness/mites etc being transferred and stops birds eating their food. We have a lot of jackdaws here, so we're not talking cute till robins or anything pretty.

Really glad you are getting on well.. the bin for poop is a good idea - will steal that one.. as I have a compost heap but am terrible for not keeping it well.. it just gets added too each year!  :oops: I would love to keep the manure for my veggies though.

Mine love radish (leaves and radish) and cooked pasta. but it'll be a case of seeing what yours like.

[FCG]

Unfortunately i was hoping to have the run done today! Just been rained off, darn it!

I managed to get 2 fence posts in so they should settle (or topple, if they are too shallow) They are 4ft above the ground, but the wire fence is 5ft. Hmm, pole extensions i think! I'll probably leave it open seeing as i love the wild birds in my garden. I'm currently supporting 3 nests of blue tits, a bullfinch, about 1,000 jenny wrens, robins (we had baby robins in today!), one thrush and a very fat pigeon called George whos mate i rescued from a dog who sadly died and he has adopted me methinks... instead of the other way around.

I doubt i'll have a battle between the birds, as there are enough feeders in my garden. A bonus of the sunflower seeds never get eaten, so i wonder where they are going now..

However there is one extremely pesky squirrel. Cute and funny yes, annoying as well. Hmm, i wonder if my birds will kill the * for me.. muahaha.

[Porffor]

sounds lovely (the birds) i love little wild birds, but as said we don't have any.. one robin we regularly see, and i feed him out the front.. sneaky i am (bread crumbs out the kitchen window into a flower bed) the big birds don't notice and teh robin does!

[FCG]

Update!

I have made the basic run shape and finished the hutch. I have a picture that i will definitely post tomorrow morning. I'll be digging the wire in a few inches into the ground all around and putting another perch in.

[Porffor]

great stuff! you must be chuffed.
look forward to the pics and those of your hens in due course!

[FCG]

Here are your picture updates!



The coop before i put the roosting bars in. What do you think?



Here is the finished coop inside the tentative outlay for the run. It's big, but i hope to either expand to have some ducks or chicks next year (Hello kate and her ducks!) I handily had some very thick wood to use as a cover at the bottom and used the excess middle floor that i didn't need for the top covering. Which handily also left a nifty vent.

Also if you spot in the first picture i can covert the top section to have a little section of the coop for a broody from which she can use the ramp.

[blossom1044]

Great coup.

also if you have hen fighting you can use a divider in the same pen to keep that bird seperate at night without having to buy/make different coup.

[Kate and her Ducks]

Great coop and definately room to expand for ducks . If you are like me they will be free ranging round the whole garden in no time!

[Porffor]

Fantastic! looks great and a lick of paint in time will even up the differing wood that's why i painted ours.

Really chuffed for you!

at the ducks Kate! hubby is 'coming' round to that one, on the hatching egg front as would mean no killing if male We had a couple follow us yesterday and he joked about 'come to the car'

[FCG]

Finished! (nearly)



As you can see, the hutch is no longer with us. The coop is! Sited on some bricks it's totally complete and finished. Dug down 1/2 foot and buried the the wire (which i know is fairly short - but you can see the netting in the bag on top of the coop) and left a curtain underneath at the bottom. Doing my best to keep the fox and the rat out.

So basically to finish the project i have to add the dust bath and attach the wire in places to the poles. Oh and i have to add some thin poles in the middle to add tension to the wire so it's not so flip floppy. That's all i can do until i buy the straw and shavings for the coop and the feeders and drinkers. Plus if you are wondering why there is a huge gap in the wire, that's where the gate is going. I'm attaching it to the longer length of wood which is far deeper in the ground purposely to hold up to the swinging open and shut.

I'ld like to dedicate this project to the forum. I had been toying with the idea of getting chickens for about a year but all i had done was read about it. Joining here really gave me the boost of enthusiasm to do it. Thanks! And a further thank you for all the excellent advice in this thread and elsewhere on the hen house. So within a week... 3 chickens shall arrive. So excited! What breeds should i get? I'm looking at a black comet, a golden rocket and a copper black. Or perhaps a black comet and two golden rockets. Or just 3 laying hybrids. I get a choice from these: here

Now all i have to do is pick the names.

[poultrygeist]

Well done !  

Kiss goodbye to that well kept lawn. You now have a huge dust bath to be !!  

Can't advise on breeds. You'll have to see what everyone else thinks. We got amberlinks but you'll have to drive across the pennines and see grannieannie for them.

Put your feet up for the evening.  

Rob  

[FCG]

Hahahahahahahahahaha


Well kept lawn?  

We have a well kept mass of weeds, i'll have you know. Mostly this year i by chance pulled up most of the weeds when the soil was very soft and the dandelions where putting up their first heads. So we didn't get huge ones this year. However the lawn is one mass of daisys at the moment which admittedly before i cut the lawn last week was rather nice as it was a carpet of them. Once the lawn goes, i'm covering it with bark chips. There is a giant pile near me that's about 1 year old and very soft... and full of bugs! I'm sure they'll like that.

I'm very tired now, so it will be feet up.

[Porffor]

congrats!

How big is the run? just comparing yours to mine!
Really pleased you are at the shopping stage. I THINK i have 2 bovan Nera's which lay around 240-260 a year. One lays everyday and has since she started laying and the other was every other day.. till today! lol
they were at POL and took a couple of weeks to settle in first.