Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Poultry and Pets => The Hen House => Topic started by: Oliveview on November 30, 2006, 10:31
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We (Me) hope to get some hens, just about 4-6. What I need to know is what sort of housing do they need? We (me) will have to build a hen house, so any suggestions would be great. They will need to be fenced in a large run too.
Thanks
Pamela
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Pay my afre over, and I'll help you build one, or better still, pay for Brian too and you'll get an even better one!!!!! lol
Serious though, our small chicken house is about 3ft x 4ft ish, may be a bit bigger, has 2 nest boxes, a pop hole and a door for cleaning out. Brian made it 6ft high so we don't have to stoop to clean it out. I'll send you a photo! Brian mad our last enclosed run high so we could get in it, but with only 4-6 hens you wouldn't need that if you built the door on a differnet wall to the pop hole, but still a height of 3-4 foot is nice, as hens do like to flap their wings and leave the ground sometimes! and run area as big as possible to give them plenty of space to move around!
Are you back home in Spain now??????? Did you get my letter yet?????
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There is a great book in the golden cockerel series on Hen house construction, here a link to one on ebay, but you maybe able to get it cheaper Poultry house construction book (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Poultry-House-Construction-Book-New-Great-Book_W0QQitemZ150062083433QQihZ005QQcategoryZ46292QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)
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Buy yourself a decent shed and build a run out of 2in x2in weldmesh panels.Most building merchants sell them and they come in 8ft x4ft or 6ft x4ft .Frame the sides with 2in x2in tanalised timber and dont forget a sheet on the bottom..no fox will get through it and its very sturdy.
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That answers a question for me - putting weldmesh on the bottom to keep the fox out - thanks smallholder.
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You should make sure they have enough dirt, or wood chip on top to scratch in. Scratching just on the wire could hurt their toes :!:
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Thanks Sally, noted. I'd like to have them in the garden but Val takes a dim view, just because she's phobic about birds. :)
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:D :D My other half moans on and on and on about the amount of time I spend on my birds.
It takes me about 2 hours a day to go around and feed/water them...thats morning and evening and all weekend cleaning them out and making there lives as comfortable as possible.
I must be one of the few poultry keepers that has an indoor duckpond and double glazing on my duck house :lol:
I know it sounds as though I don't get out much but I know every cockerel by his crow...all 37 of them...soon to be quite a few less...(big white thing in the utility room time)..I find poultry very interesting and breeding as near to the breed standard as possible and still getting birds that lay or come to the table at a worthwhile weight is an ongoing venture.
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Thanks Sally, noted. I'd like to have them in the garden but Val takes a dim view, just because she's phobic about birds. :)
My husband WAS rather bird phobic before I got the hens. Took me a while to persuade him to touch them. Now he is as fond of them as I am :!:
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OK - even if I could convince Val, there's still Claudipus. He may be the local bruiser cat but he is scared of mice. Goodness knows what he'd make of a chicken.
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John - a year ago my wife would not go near the poultry - now she happily feeds the chicks/ducks and geese - she loves the goats anyway - the point I am making is that once you have them your wife will get intrigued and that sorts the problems
MOH has had a phobia about birds al her life the menagerie is helping resolve the issue - also they make good eating and she loves the eggs!!!
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I'm sure you're right, I'll drag her around to the lotty until she learns to love 'em :)