First Observation: In hindsight - this is all pretty straightforward and easy. GO FOR IT!
Books:
When we were getting into this whole chicken thing I read several books and one nice thing was none of them really contradicted another. The info is pretty much the same across all of them. I think I read and/or reread about 6 books and several How-To magazines, not to mention all the websites I could find...
The Storey book is considered by many to be the defacto standard, and I got to admit that it has lots of info in there, but I found it to be a bit dry...
Also liked "Raising Backyard Chickens" (or similar) and it was good, but in this case kind of lacking.
The one I like best and turn to most often is from the Dummies series "Raising Chickens for Dummies". Often times these books are written not just for dummies but for complete blithering idiots as well, but this book seems to cover all the bases quite nicely.
One gripe I DO have with this book is, despite having two chapters devoted to the subject, is a lack of any building plans whatsoever for either a coop or a run. One of the authors is owner of backyardchickens.com who sells coops and plans and book with that sort of thing... hmmm... I would think they could at least give owners of the book access to at least SOME plans don't you think??
The funny thing was that when we went and actually picked up our six chicks, that the feed store handed us a one page "instruction manual"... feed them, water them, protect them, keep them warm, watch out for them pasting up... that was IT!
Websites:
There is a LOT of information out there on the web about raising chickens... the aforementioned backyardchickens.com has some good stuff but there is a lot out there... read all you can but I think you'll find most of it is pretty consistent...
The bottom line: The words of advice from the feed store were true: Keep It Simple !!
The Coop:
I wouldn't recommend doing what we did, as you'll see....
I had originally planned on a budget of about $150 for building the entire coop and run. We had an old bookshelf in the garage w/ deep shelves and I thought I would slap some 4x8 sheets of plywood against it, put in some fencing and call it good... sort of a eight or twelve foot long "chicken tractor" which I'm sure you've heard of by now...
BUT our good friends Jeff and Joan hooked us up with their old coop that Jeff had built years ago... they liked it so much I believe they actually brought it with them when they moved out here from Montana...
Anyhoo, it's from a book and the design is called the "Ten Hen House" which I take to mean you could fit 10 hens in there... THAT I'm not so sure about but this thing is pretty decent size - 5 feet by 4 feet by 4 feet. The roof opens up (at least a third of it anyway) and I can get down in there with a broom for cleaning... if I drop something in there that's a problem, and reaching out and lifting a heavy feeder or water dispenser can be tough, but doable.
The coop has a large nest box section that we made sure we put on the exterior of the fencing for easy egg access when the time comes. It of course locks shut with a hasp and a caribiner for a lock. Good luck with THAT Mr. Racoon...
We decided to widen the entry way to the nest boxes and using that scrap I put in taller walls for more privacy.
The Run:
Using an existing fence as one side, we built the run by putting in four 4x4 treated posts (thanks a bunch for your help Les!!). We went something like a span of 8 feet, 5 feet, one for the door at 3 feet and finally the other corner post. The doorway is 3 feet wide.
Using 1/2 inch "hardware cloth" - think of it as a heavy duty mesh with 1/2 inch squares - we used it to go on the outside of the entire run. Depending on your predator threat you could get away with regular (and cheaper!!) good ol' chicken wire, but I wasn't willing to take that chance. Plus I think chicken wire in general looks like hell...
I really hate using a staple gun and (correctly) assuming that we'd change our minds a time or two on how to put this stuff together, we used screws and washers to drill into the posts and 2x4 supports to attach all the fencing. Works REALLY well and if you screw up or decide to try something else, just back out the screw and try again. Easy.
These were 1/4 by 1" washers. Sorry for the crappy pitcure but you get the idea:
Washer:
Not that we would, but in theory this whole thing can be disassembled into all its' pieces and taken with us if/when we move. No nails, staples (or duct tape!) were used in the construction...
For the roof I ran two 4 ft wide lengths and just over 16 ft long across the top. I happened to have from years ago a spool of 1/16" stainless steel aircraft grade cabling that I then used to thread the two halves together. I also used the cable to thread the roof onto the fencing along the edges and really tighten that thing down. That roof is rock solid.
Roof Attachment:
Rather than digging trenches and burying wire for digger protection, we used our friend Brandt's advice and just attached about 15" of chicken wire along the bottom and running outward from the run. The idea is that a predator will at first try and dig at the edge, run into the wire, start backing up to try again, hit more wire, and eventually give up. Or at least slow them down enough that it might take quite a while to get in and give us a chance to deal with the problem. That's the theory anyway...
"The book" has different ideas on what is considered the proper amount of space for each of your hens inside the coop and for outside - I've seen as low as 2 square feet up to 4 square feet. Personally I'd say the more the better but that might not be doable in everyone's situation. Outside areas are from 2.5 to 6 square feet.
So, looking at our coop and run - do we have enough room? (Too late now, but let's do the math).
If the coop floor is 5x4 that's 20 square feet. For 6 hens that just over 3 sq. ft. each. Not bad. They also have the nesting boxes and roost rails all the way across.
The outside run is 8 feet by 16 feet for a total of 128 square feet. Even if you subtract the footprint of the coop (not actually true since it is raised off the ground) it still maths out to 18 sq ft per girl... Plenty of room to run around!
The cost (so far) ?? Not including gas for trips to Jerry's (hardware center) - just over $500...
Free Range:
Although I think we have more than enough room in the 8x16 foot run, I really like the idea of allowing the girls to free range as much as possible. Originally we had thought we could let the girls run amok in the garden area but they weren't big enough, soon enough for that to happen.
Next year.... besides, ducks are probably better suited to that anyway.... (shhhh - don't tell the wife that ducks are next on the list!!).
Our backyard has some odd angles and curves, but it's big and for the most part is useless for anything but cultivating grass that in turn needs to be mowed... (Personally I'd plow the whole damn thing up and plant corn, but....).
Last weekend we picked up a 25' chunk of plastic poultry netting and I built them a 6x6 foot area to play in for their first foray into the outdoors - they REALLY seemed to love it. Don't forget to give them access to food and water when you do this! Warning - chickens can tear up ground in a hurry and that 6x6 plot is still obvious where they were...
Last night, my first night home from work, beer in hand, girls outside, I rigged up the fencing forming a big triangle running off the edge of the run. I could step in and out of it easily enough and at one point put my chair in there and sat down to put some of the girls in my lap to feed them some scratch... I almost started to cry - I've been looking forward to doing that for a LONG time and it was a special moment for me...
Matt in coop:
As time goes on we hope to use longer fencing and just set something up for where we want the girls to roam. My comfort level with having the girls outside free ranging isn't quite there yet and I've read that generally you want to be keeping an eye on them. So this is a practice best done when you are outside doing chores already.
Girls at Play:
