Chicken Run/Coop

[Sam Drinkall]

I am also after a plan for a chicken coop for about 6 chickens its more for sleeping and laying as they have a lovely big garden to play in.

Any help would be great!!

[Swingman]

A country boy at heart, who would always have a dozen hens if the local authorities would allow, I've recently designed and built 3 coops for my home building partner in Austin, Texas who is heavily into that areas "urban sustainable living" scene and has kept chickens in an urban setting ever since I've known her.

Here are photos of those coops that are specifically for an urban setting:

me on the back channel and perhaps I can help you out.

[notbob]

What's the point of the high rise designs?

nb

[Leon]

To keep the flood waters out.

[Swingman]

A stand is optional and doesn't have to used. In an urban setting with limited yard space some folks want extra room under the coop to be part of the run. Some use it as a good place to hang the self feeder to keep it out of the elements, to provide shade for the occupants during the heat of the day, or as a place to store the feed.

And, as any farm boy knows, chickens prefer to roost as high as they can get. If it's too low you will be forever going out at night to capture (easiest way is with a broom handle) those few activist hens with a mind of their own that never seem to get the word that they are safer locked up inside, rather than roosting on the roof.

After all, chickens can, and do unless you keep one wing clipped, fly .... after a fashion.

[notbob]

Makes sense.

I wasn't exactly raised on a farm, but spent several Summers on a small cattle grazing ranchette. The family I stayed with had banty chickens for the pot and what were probably leghorns for eggs. The banty chickens ran loose around the farm yard, with the exception of

3-4 banty's in lone cages, much like rabbit hutches, for some reason I don't recall. The leghorns had a relatively large ground level pen (~ 10-15') covered over with chicken wire and laying boxes inside a room at one end, but it was also at ground level and the laying boxes jes a foot or so off the ground.

I don't recall ever seeing a chicken in a tree and I don't think the egg hens had any roosts, but the leghorn pen was covered completely over so the hens couldn't get out. Perhaps the banty chickens did roost in trees, they having no real coop. This was over 50 yrs ago, so there's a lot I don't remember. I do know it was a great place to be as a kid and I still have a certain fondness for chickens to this very geezer day. ;)

nb

[HeyBub]

There are several books on chickens you might consult:

• How to Win a Pullet Surprise

• Filet It As It Lays

• Feathers in the Attic

• Scratch 'N Sniff, My Life As a Hen

• Teach Your Chicken To Spit

• Breast In The Mouth, Thigh In The Hand

• Drumsticks Along the Mohawk

• Nuclear Power or Chicken Kiev

• Fear of Frying by Erica Chong

• Bantam Fighters of Somoa

[Larry Jaques]

Questions: Why tubatwos for the runway instead of 1x2 lath? Why straps and lags vs. M&T joints, ya slouch?

-- We're all here because we're not all there.

[Larry Jaques]

Then why not build chicken boats and turkey barges?

-- We're all here because we're not all there.

[dpb]

This country boy would never even see a chicken again outside a deep skillet... :) Damn, how I hated them filthy cluckers as a kid... :(

--

[Swingman]

Truth were told, it's not the chickens I like so much as the fresh supply of eggs that stand up and look backatcha in the morning when cracked into a hot skillet.

Old hens also make the best gumbo ... the meat stays on the bone, thus you don't a disgusting pile of bones at the bottom of the gumbo pot.

And, I don't name my hens ...

:)

[dpb]

...

That's why one has neighbors that _do_ keep 'em... :)

--