What would you do?

[Tony22]

I will be building new housing for the chickens shortly but am undecided about what to do, a number of smaller coops or one large one. I have enough timber to cover either, so there is no problem there.

I intend eventually to build a flock up to around twenty of various different breeds and I think in the future would like to breed my own birds.

Space isn't a problem I intend to have appx 120msq to start maybe more, and either partition it off or have it as one large pen?

Have any of you guys done similar, regretted either??

Any pics of larger set ups??

Any suggestions much appreciated.

[stace]

Take a look at some of these Tony


Stace


Members Coops

[chickenchaser]

Hi Tony,

I fenced off the bottom 3rd (approx 1300-1700 square feet) of my garden and bought a posh chicken shack which can house up to 20 birds.

It is more than enough space for my small flock of 12 but I really wish I had converted a shed to make cleaning easier. It is a nightmare to clean out due to bad weather and my poor back


Your first hens will all want to be together but if you can sort it so you can section off some of it at a later date for the new hens, it will make your life much easier

[Tony22]

Thanks for that, I have seen a number of set ups and I think that for ease of cleaning collecting eggs etc, one large shed would be more convenient. Still not 100% convinced though.

[chickenchaser]

What aren't you sure about, Tony?

[julie2]

Hi Tony, I have a shed, I could have had a proper chicken coop but i didnt want one. To me a large shed is much easyer to clean, you can walk about and stand in it, and arrange nest boxes perches and stuff the way you want it. I would keep the whole flock in the same place. Also with a large coop you will have room for a devider should you need to seperate one of the hens for any reason.Its just personal choice, what ever would suit you best.

[dogcatcher]

I started with a coop and an ark behind an electric fence in a field and got fed up with getting muddy knees when I wanted to do anything like retrieve the egg that is always laid in the far corner! In this sort of weather I need to move them around the field to get clear of the inevitable mud; I have to wait till someone turns up to help me lift the hutch. Bearing in mind the need to expand chicken numbers I am getting a hen-house built which is large enough to take the hens + more and is tall enough for me to stand up in. It is also on runners so that I can tow it with the tractor when I want to move the girls onto fresh grass. The electric netting presently gives them 300 sq yards to ruin, which they can do in a fortnight; I am about to double that area.

[Tony22]

What aren't you sure about, Tony?

Mainly having lots of birds together in one coop.

When I have been to look at or buy birds, they always seem to be in a number of coops instead of just one.

[chickenchaser]

My girls would not be happy seperated. They are a flock, like a family, with the pecking order sorted out so everyone knows where they stand.

Commercial breeders keep theirs apart for different reasons. When I got my hybrids, the white star and bluebell were in one shed, the amber stars in another. Not all of the birds had access to grass and were just kept inside.

It's up to you but, I have 2 coops in my set up. They lay in one and all sleep together in the other.

Their choice

[cluckyclaire]

hi tony. we have about 50 birds and they are housed in 2 large converted sheds and are all together in one large pen (with access to a field). we then have some seperate pens incase of needing to seperate any, for breeding or for rearing youngsters before introducing to the main flock and we have some smaller coops in the smaller pens.

[Tony22]

Many thanks for the replies, I am definately leaning towards one coop. I will still have the other two, as mentioned before, just in case some need to be separated for some reason. Better draw some plans up then.

[Mo]

It is very useful to have 2 coops and the ability to divide the run, if you want to creosote one coop, or introduce new hens where they can see but not get at each other, or separate a bully or a hen whose eggs must not be eaten because of medication, or shut a broody hen out of the coop. The spare need not be anything elaborate if it's not used much.

I have a feeling that the Soil Association reccomends that hens should be kept in small flocks rather than thousands in one shed, as a few hens can stop the lower hens from coming out. Not sure how large a small flock is (back-of-the mind says 12, but could be talking rubbish)

[Mo]

I have now found the Soil Association Standards.
They talk about, if you have more than 100 birds they should be allowed to form social groupings. And you shouldn't keep more than 500 in one shed unless you have a management plan approved by them.

Don't know where I got the other from.

[stace]

Mo Thats not a good link

Saying something about a licence agreement
cant get rid of the box now

[Mo]

Sorry.
It is a link to an Adobe file, maybe you haven't got Adobe on your computer. Is the licence agreement an agreement to a free download?

The Soil Association website is large and complicated as it covers so many aspects of agriculture and aims to tell the public why they should look for their logo, as well as tell farmers what to do.

http://www.soilassociation.
org/web/sacert/sacertweb.nsf/
e8c12cf77637ec6c80256a6900374463/
4d7054234b8da20a8025740b0012f83f!OpenDocument

has links to download Adobe to read the standards, and links to the standards themselves. I couldn't get this link to display the way we usually do. And it is too long to fit the page. You'll need to copy and paste and remove the spaces

Even when I found them I didn't find it easy to read them as the Adobe page was larger than the space on my screen and in 2 columns, so I kept having to go across and up.