Chicken coops?

[Stevie Mac]

Evening all hope you've all had a good week.

 

The wife and I have been talking about getting some ex battery hens ( about 4 or 5). Am looking at building my own chicken coop but my carpentry skills are not the greatest in the world.

Does anyone have any tips or experiences of building their own chicken coops?

 

Cheers

 

Stevie

[Ross Macneil]

A good book to get is poultry house construction by michael roberts,i have over 50 hens and have built a few coops.

[Stevie Mac]

Thanks for the info I've just ordered it from amazon got it for £7.17.

[northumbriaforestry]

I made ours from old pallets, it sits within a big fenced off area for them & they can be locked in at night if needed, & still be able to run around a bit in the morning if we're up late! But, we never lock them in & even given our location, we've never lost any to the critters

[felixthelogchopper]

Living Wood magazine had a feature a few months ago about building coops from old pallets. I may have the mag somewhere if I look.

[Stevie Mac]

I made ours from old pallets, it sits within a big fenced off area for them & they can be locked in at night if needed, & still be able to run around a bit in the morning if we're up late! But, we never lock them in & even given our location, we've never lost any to the critters

 

 

I wasn't to worried about critters bothering the chickens until a couple of days ago. I do live in the country side but mainly next to fields, there are some wood close buy through and I've never seen any foxes. But I was round at one of my neighbors doing a grass cutting job for her, she got 5 chickens a couple of days ago and on the second day she returned from a morning run to find a Mink with a chicken in its mouth. She chased it off and got a local game keeper up and he set a trap and within hours it was killed.

[northumbriaforestry]

I wasn't to worried about critters bothering the chickens until a couple of days ago. I do live in the country side but mainly next to fields, there are some wood close buy through and I've never seen any foxes. But I was round at one of my neighbors doing a grass cutting job for her, she got 5 chickens a couple of days ago and on the second day she returned from a morning run to find a Mink with a chicken in its mouth. She chased it off and got a local game keeper up and he set a trap and within hours it was killed.

 

Ah wow, never spotted mink round our way, or would also be trapping & then stitching! Mink fur is fantastic:001_tongue:

[garth mc garth]

Dont make the opening for the door / pop hole too big otherwisw you will get birds like crows / rooks etc flying in and taking the eggs...... hang lengths of string so they dangle down over the door to stop it.

When making the perches dont use anything below the diameter of a broom handle or you will knacker the tendons in their legs.

We got near 2000 free range birds including waterfowl!

[Mick Stockbridge]

I saw one of these in a customers garden a while back. Pricey but no carpentry skills needed.

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[armchairarborist]

use heras fencing with bottom bit buried to stop mr fox digging under