Hey.... Lets keep Chickens..!

Mojisola

youngmummy wrote: »

hi all, im after some advice,
OH has agred to allow us to have chickens next year when the garden is done, but the garden isnt very big and i still want our LO to have room to play, does anyone know a type of coop that is reasonably priced but not too big, i looked at the omlet ones, love them but would be abit to expensive for us, a run is essential as we have a puppy.
thanks in advance x

ideal coop i just found ... anyone got one similar?

I know a lot of these small coops are sold but I don't think they are big enough to keep chickens in if that is the only run space they are going to get.

The chooks will soon scratch up every bit of grass and the run will be just bare soil. Unless you can move it around the garden, you are likely to get problems with parasites building up in the soil. Alternatively, you could use a deep litter system - see post 2187 and 2188.

They are also going to feel very restricted. Chickens naturally want to range to look for food and will pace up and down a small run for hours, looking for a way out.

RebekahR

Horrid re the red mites! I was going to have a wooden one with a platic interior in sleep and nesting areas. Not sure thats a good idea at all now. Might be best to pay out for something plastic alone.

mardatha

Are they easy to spot ? How would you know you had a problem?

7_week_wonder

Hello people, I've got a quick question. After keeping hens for several years I think I've got my first broody hen! On Friday at around 8 in the evening she was still sitting in the nest box. I was pretty sure she wasn't actually laying and so I picked her up and moved her - sure enough there were eggs underneath her (including one from her). She went down into the run and didn't make any effort to go back to the nest box. Yesterday she was acting normally (she didn't lay though) and today she's been in residence for around 3 hours. I'm pretty sure she isn't actually laying and I'd like to be able to get in and clean the roost, but when I tried to persuade her to leave the nest box she had a right go at my hand (good job I was wearing gardening gloves!!). So how can I tell if she is just being broody? and if she is, how can I stop her taking up residence every day?

Thanks

Steel_2

mardatha wrote: »

Are they easy to spot ? How would you know you had a problem?

Have a look at this link about red mites

You won't find them on the chickens as they live in the coop and only go on them at night to feed. They can hide ANYWHERE and that's what makes them so hard to spot.

In the wood shavings, they have two different appearances: before they feed they are black small dots, after they are red fat dots as they are full of blood. You might not see them unless you poke around in the corners of the coop bedding, but once you see them you can't mistake them. If they've fed, when you squeeze them they'll explode and you'll have blood all over your fingers.

Also, they leave a greenish white dust of faeces everywhere so if you have what looks like a whitish dust somewhere on the inside of the coop they are there.

Sometimes the chickens at the ends of the perches may be more badly affected as they may be the first chickens the mites get to when they crawl out at night. If they are repeatedly attacked they get weaker and weaker as the colony size increases and take more blood every night. They go off the lay and become weak, thin and listless.

I found out the hard way when I found one of my chickens dead in the coop about 2 years ago. Until a few months before my girls had been clear but I left one of them with a friend to look after when I went on holiday and she put her in a rabbit hutch that obviously had the mites. One or two must still have been on her when I brought her home.

I hadn't fluffed up the wood shavings for a while like I used to do every day to check for any damp spots and evidence of scoffed eggs (I have a very cunning ex-batt who tries to hide the evidence!) so when I finally did do it there was a massive colony underneath the sawdust in a corner closest to where the dead hen used to perch. It was a writhing mass of red and black horribleness. The wood shavings were moving there were so many.

Steel_2

7_week_wonder wrote: »

Hello people, I've got a quick question. After keeping hens for several years I think I've got my first broody hen! On Friday at around 8 in the evening she was still sitting in the nest box. I was pretty sure she wasn't actually laying and so I picked her up and moved her - sure enough there were eggs underneath her (including one from her). She went down into the run and didn't make any effort to go back to the nest box. Yesterday she was acting normally (she didn't lay though) and today she's been in residence for around 3 hours. I'm pretty sure she isn't actually laying and I'd like to be able to get in and clean the roost, but when I tried to persuade her to leave the nest box she had a right go at my hand (good job I was wearing gardening gloves!!). So how can I tell if she is just being broody? and if she is, how can I stop her taking up residence every day?

Thanks

Mine go all fluffed up and irate, and pull out their breast feathers so they are bald in that area. If I turf them off the nest and out of the coop they cluck angrily at me and turn tail to run back into the coop. They peck and get nasty if I try and remove the eggs. If I close the coop up, they run round and round frantically trying to get in, even climbing up the chicken wire of the coop run to try and find a way in.

One of my hens has a very specific cluck when she's broody, sort of a low gutteral cluck made from the back of her throat with her beak shut.

You might find you just have a hen that like to take her time and get comfy then doze off.

One of mine was in the coop for two hours yesterday laying. I forgot she was there and was constrcuting the new coop. I got the fright of my life when she suddenly broke into joyful yodeling right next to my ear having laid a whopper.

mardatha

I dont think I'd see them.. the state of my eyesight I can hardly see the bloody chickens. My coop is deep filled with shavings and has nice straw in. The hens (only 2 ) sleep in the nest boxes so I suppose that would be the place to look. Wonder what the neighbours will say if they see me out at midnight in a balaclava and magnifying glass...

ionahenor2

Just to add to our worries this seems to be a problem for alot of people. My little Black Rock has it at present and is on Tylan.

http://poultrykeeper.com/chickens/health/mycoplasma-gallisepticum.html

salthepal

Steel wrote: »

I'm still really quite upset about the bloody horrible things that are eating my girls alive.

You poor thing. I was ill for a couple of days during the lovely hot weather and didn't check for them as I usually do. I lifted up the newspaper which lines their nestboxes thinking that I saw blood on the edge of it and found them crawling and massing all over the place.

I vacuumed, sprayed jeyes fluid and sprinkled Diatom powder all over the place. I also put some Diatom in their sand bath and since then I have had no problems. I find it easier to put folded newspaper in their nestboxes because the mites like to shelter there when the girls are not in there. I then put a treated straw product on top - can't remember what its called but I think its rape which is dried, cleaned and chopped. Then more Diatom!

Good luck getting rid of these nasties.

Sally

rachbc

think there is something up with one of my girls - yesterday our black rock spent most of the day inside - I assumed cos it was cold and horrible but today she hasn't come down for food when we opened up - i tried to offer some food in the coop but she wasn't interested - I also noticed some runny poo in the coop. What could it be and what shoudl I do?