New to chicken keeping

Quote from: MKD on September 26, 2016, 22:38

Quote from: snowdrops on September 26, 2016, 10:29

Hi there, how many chickens have you?

Hi there as we are new to hen keeping so only got 4 at the moment we have a new coop that supposedly holds 6 to 8 birds but we decided to only keep 4 in there to give them plenty of room
As time goes on if we get along ok with hen keeping we will increase the size of the run coop and flock but want to take things a bit at a time. We have a biggish garden so going to let them out daily for a scratch around just getting them used to the coop first

Hi MKD, welcome to the forums.  I don't have any chickens now, but we have raised and sometimes bred our own, and at times had over 300 here! 

I am pleased to see that you are not trying to jam 6-8 birds in your coop, as the manufacturers, especially Chinese made ones, usually say you can get more birds in a coop than is realistic, so only having the 4 in there is very sensible.  But beware, chicken keeping can become very addictive, so be prepared to buy another coop if you have the room!   

Pleased to see how sensible you are being over the welfare of your hens Max.  The manufacturers don't care about hen welfare, they only care about the money they can make by selling these fairly cheap coops, knowing that someone like you, will be buying another one to accommodate the hens that you realise are overcrowded!   LOL

My partner built me lots of henhouses and coops over the years we had our chooks, one of them was a 6x4ft shed, which he then cut the side out of to accommodate the 10 hole rollaway nest boxes I bought, but for your hens you would be fine with 2-3 nestboxes inside.  Brian then made the perch so it went all down one side of the shed, but was removable so I could clean out easily and check for redmites.

Being a shed, it was so much easier for me to get inside for egg collecting and cleaning out.  I'll see if I can find a pic of the inside, but not sure if I've got one that shows the perch, I was more interested in my nestboxes which I was very proud off.  Rollaways are good, as it stops the eggs from being pooed on!   

I was right, it doesn't show the perch on the right hand side! xx

After this photo was taken, we were given another same sized shed and Brian added it to the rear of this one so it ended up 12ft long!  The hens loved it in the winter if it was too wet outside!