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Backyard Chicken Coops- any suggestions?

lefty

lefty

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 24, 2002
Location
Menlo Park, CA USA
Moto(s)
'05 ZRX1200
Name
Ed
I have always wanted to get some chickens and raise them in my backyard.

I have 3 dogs and a cat, so I will need to have a secure enclosure-- moreso because of my cat. My dogs are very sweet and I am sure that they would protect the chickens from harm from raccoons, etc..

I have been looking at the coops on Amazon and Costco.com, but so many of them are tiny and have poor reviews.

I don't have the skill or desire to build a decent one, but I will add a larger run area to a store bought unit.

Are chickens a lot of work? Can they be alone for a weekend?

I would only want to get 2 or 3 hens.

Thanks.
 
Easy. They can be left alone for as long as you can provide food and water.

Just buy a used dog kennel and add a roof. Add a place for them inside to hide out.
 
Do yourself a big favor and get a portable. They come in all sizes. The great thing is that you can move it around and the chickens will act like bug vacuums wherever they are put. Also, better to have a coop slighter larger than you think you need than one too small.

Start slow, don't get a rooster unless your neighbors are really understanding. Save your veggie scraps, they will eat them, just no salt.

Get 3 instead of 2. Works out better. Expect racoons to come around but if you have a dog they might stay away, depends.

They can easily be left alone for a weekend and a little longer. As someone else said, just make sure they have food and water. What they find and eat off the ground (bugs) is far better than most everything else. The portable coop lets you relocate then and the chickens don't care.
 
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My daughter and fiancé are doing ducks and chickens since spring. They are down to 3 chickens and they have eggs coming out the ying yang
Good luck!
 
Not many cats will take on a grown chicken but a 20 lb dog can kill one, or spree kill even more, easily. Something about a scared chicken just pushes every button on a dog's prey drive. My only loss to predators was to a dog, and my neighbor lost 3 chickens and more wounded when a terrier and a smallish mix got into her yard.

Raccoons can manipulate latches and are pretty formidable nocturnal threats. They'll kill several birds at once. They'll grab them through a fence if the mesh is too big, and just eat the heads.

I get foxes, cats, hawks, possums and dogs. Haven't seen any raccoons out here, no coyotes yet, but they are the worst.

I wouldn't get a portable coop, aka chicken tractor, unless you have a huge yard. The idea there is to move the coop and run before the chickens damage the grass too much, a few days at most for a 24 sq foot run. I had a coop with a run, and a portable 4x6 pvc and hardware cloth pen I moved them around in for a few hours during the day. Let them roam free during the day if you're 100% sure dogs are no threat.

I have 10 pullets and feeding and watering takes 5 minutes a day.

My first coop
The reviews are spotty and it seems cheap, but this thing worked well for me and three big hens, for almost 3 years. It goes on sale for $299 every spring. I'd beef up the latches and and put a 3 foot border of hardware cloth on the ground around it to deter digging predators.

The best Chicken Forum
 
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Do your neighbors a favor, and don't get a rooster.
 
Lefty- I got a kids play structure from nine inch a few years ago. When my kids were done with it I put some wood on the side with a door and chicken wire. It works great and was minimal effort. I have left for two weeks on end with no problems. You can get a large feeder and an automatic waterer. We have a cat and she doesn't even look at them and she regularly leaves us mouse skulls on the front step. They are not much work at all. You need to know if you already dont that they do not lay eggs for ever. Only about two to three years then you have to decide what to do with them. Im facing this now. All 7 birds stopped laying this year. Today we are having fresh chicken soup. At their laying height they produced 175 eggs a month. I hatched them from my neighbors flock as they have a rooster to fertilize the girls. Good luck it has been fun. Bees are my next project.
 
Chicken coops are also illegal in many cities, unless you can place them X feet from the property edge and your property is bigger than Y. Better check your local laws first or make sure all your neighbors are cool with it.
 
Looks like in East Palo Alto you will need a permit. Not a big issue but make sure you get one if you keep a flock. No permit required in Oakland. Also there is no limit here but in EPA you are only allowed 6.
 
Since you only want a few, just build a little area for them in your yard. Give them a place to lay eggs and a secure spot to roost at night. They're pretty low maintenance for the most part. If they start limping they probably have bumble foot (staph infection) that will need to be taken care of. They'll eat damn near any left overs you give them. Some stuff is not safe for them to eat, do a google search before tossing them left overs.

My g/f has a lot of chickens (over 30 currently, only 1 rooster now) plus a female turkey (she's my buddy). She also got 5 guinea hens, 2 pompom chicks and some more silky chicks the other day.

FWIW, my g/f does have some that she's looking to get rid of soon. We're not 100% sure they aren't roosters yet though.

Her area for them is probably 30' deep by 100' or so wide. She has a good size back yard and about 1/3 of it is dedicated to them. Here's a bunch of pics. https://imgur.com/a/Cezwg

The one of them in the grass was from Friday. She decided to let them out so they could fuck up the yard a bit. They love taking dirt baths in the half wine barrels that she plants stuff in (thus destroying the plants).

The attached pic is of the turkey. She's way more fun than the chickens.

edit: Turkey video from a little over a month ago. She's been a bit less bitey lately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAagk7acuuA
 

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Tractor Supply has chicken coops of several sizes.

We don't keep chickens but did in the past. You can move their coop around. Chicken poop is a great fertilizer for the garden.

Chickens are generally pretty dirty IMO.

I grew up on a farm with between 500 and a 1000 chickens and a few roosters...
 
My in-laws have a larger coop. They have 5 cats that roam the property and do not bother then chickens. If the dog gets to the chickens its a different story.
 
Double-walls. Trash Panda's like to reach through a single wall and will pull a chicken through the wire. It's not pretty (seen the aftermath first-hand at a friends house). The outer wall should be ~2ft away from the inner wall. You don't have to do it all the way up, of course, but you need to enclose the top of the outer wall.
 
Strigoi-

Thank you for the great pics and video!!
I have been looking at the Tractor Supply website- lots of cool stuff.

I'm leaning toward a setup like this;

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008E15UZM/ref=twister_B01DQAG8JW?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Many of the other units have tiny enclosures, but I plan to build my own enclosure, so why waste $$ on a crappy enclosure- I just want the hen house/nesting box.

Here is another example of just the box.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VSG8BX/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I3I4MDE6VO5DGO&colid=3PT1BXAPBSHPU

I will elevate it and make a longer ramp.

Joebar- Thanks for the advice!! It's great to hear from you.
 
lefty said:
Strigoi-

Thank you for the great pics and video!!
I have been looking at the Tractor Supply website- lots of cool stuff.

I'm leaning toward a setup like this;

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008E15UZM/ref=twister_B01DQAG8JW?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Many of the other units have tiny enclosures, but I plan to build my own enclosure, so why waste $$ on a crappy enclosure- I just want the hen house/nesting box.

Here is another example of just the box.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VSG8BX/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I3I4MDE6VO5DGO&colid=3PT1BXAPBSHPU

I will elevate it and make a longer ramp.

Joebar- Thanks for the advice!! It's great to hear from you.
Click to expand...

Found almost the same one on Craigslist for $100. It is pretty flimsy so you might have to reinforce some screws and brackets, but does the trick as long as you don't move it around too much.
 
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