Backyard Chickens?

[Tropicalbri's]

I hear ya about that prey drive. We dont make a habit of having the girls around them. They got zapped by the chicken fence each one time and want nothing to do with the back one acre of property They think the chickens are evil now.

I would definitely have to put up a hot wire around a chicken fence if we decide to have them. Hubs wants them and a goat. Lol

 

[Gelcoater]

So?
What ever happened to the op, @Dragonborn ?

 

[GennyB]

I wouldn’t trust the dobes around free range chickens.

I our case we settled for part time free range. I think it's good for their health to be able to free range. We have a pretty good schedule worked out. The coop is large enough that they would be okay if our plan didn't work.
The dogs go out for exercise early on the morning. We run through the paces to makes sure they get enough. Then they go in and I let the girls out, feed, water and clean their coop. I go inside and start work, paperwork, answering phones and sometimes running stuff to job sites. Later I go out call the hens in because the dogs are going out. The girls are pretty smart and come running when I call. The dogs come out and do their thing. Then later in the evening the girls come back out and stay till they are ready to roost for the night. I close them up for the night and the dogs come back out and hang with us around the pond.
We do have an electric fence around the coop but it hasn't been hot for a long time, it's just there as a reminder for when some chicken nuggets look just too tempting.

 

[Tropicalbri's]

I our case we settled for part time free range. I think it's good for their health to be able to free range. We have a pretty good schedule worked out. The coop is large enough that they would be okay if our plan didn't work.
The dogs go out for exercise early on the morning. We run through the paces to makes sure they get enough. Then they go in and I let the girls out, feed, water and clean their coop. I go inside and start work, paperwork, answering phones and sometimes running stuff to job sites. Later I go out call the hens in because the dogs are going out. The girls are pretty smart and come running when I call. The dogs come out and do their thing. Then later in the evening the girls come back out and stay till they are ready to roost for the night. I close them up for the night and the dogs come back out and hang with us around the pond.
We do have an electric fence around the coop but it hasn't been hot for a long time, it's just there as a reminder for when some chicken nuggets look just too tempting.

Wow, you have it down to a workable science. I think having chickens would be great but as my friend in Roatan reminded me; chickens will attract the big snakes so I would have to have an enclosure that would be snake proof. Our home is right at the edge of the rain forest so there is a lot to consider for keeping all the critters safe. The locals say the snakes mainly go after chickens but not the dogs or the Watusas so I don’t want to test that theory. Lol

How would Drake and Rumor handle being around a goat? Hubs has his heart set on getting one. I guess I would have to train B&B to coexist with one. Any suggestions is greatly appreciated.

 

[MyBuddy]

@Rits Omg, it's like you were reading my mind! I have been thinking about the chickens for the last couple of days and have been wanting to post here asking for some recent pictures! And here they are! They all look wonderful! So adorable. And your husband is so cute sitting there with them all around him. . Thanks for the update!

 

[GennyB]

How would Drake and Rumor handle being around a goat?

I think just fine. Both have gone with me to the goat farm where I buy raw milk and did GREAT!
If I wasn't already convinced, I learned through training Rue that you can teach almost anything.

 

[Rits]

I find the less flighty the animal the easier itd be to train them to leave it. I dont want my chickens to get used to dogs anyways because we have a neighbor dog that has killed the other neighbors chickens...twice so I want mine to not lose that fear of dogs. Their fence is to protect them and its way larger than what they need but we still do let them roam the entire property only when we are outside to keep an eye out. We also have a full grown rooster for flock defense. I know he isnt isnt immune but he is the ladies first line of defense and usually the roosters will sacrifice themselves so the hens can run away. So far Biggie has been a great rooster. He always has an eye on the sky and screams out when he sees a threat. They listen and go running inside.

For those snakes I would make sure to use hardware cloth and bury it underground an enclosed run.

 

[Ravenbird]

We have free range chickens and my housemate has a Dutch Shepherd with a prey drive like crazy. She was about 2 1/2 years old when we got our first chicks and she got one zap from the e-collar when she expressed too much excitement over them. Never had to remind her again and it's been 3 years now. She has zero interest in any chickens! @Rits I have a beautiful Black Australorp (hatchery) that I got with some other breeds - I call them the variety pack. My Easter Egger, Muffuletta, lays cream color eggs but makes up for it with them being HUGE. She's a small chicken and lays these xxl eggs! Your chickens are beauties! I love chickens!

 

[Tropicalbri's]

For those snakes I would make sure to use hardware cloth and bury it underground an enclosed run.

The use of cement over there is very prevalent and relatively cheap, so I would most likely do a footer of cement about 2’ deep around the perimeter of the enclosure. I have been told it is not uncommon to see 12’ to 16’ boas on the property. They will climb into trees when they are younger (about 6’-8’ long) but as they grow the limbs will not accommodate their large size. I would have to do a complete enclosure like you would with a green house except using hardware cloth 1/4” instead of shade cloth. The goat (s) could be with the chickens maybe?
I would prefer the pups not to be around the chickens at all since Bogie’s prey drive is quite high. My first boy would kill chickens. I could never break him of that so he was not allowed anywhere near the coop or the chicken yard. The chickens at the barn would fly up to the rafters and perch so they were safe from Rocky. My barn cat would hide in the hay bales if he saw Rocky with me. Surprisingly Rocky was respectful of my parrot Panama. If the animal lived in the house, Rocky respected it. Outside though was fair game.

 

[GennyB]

Any suggestions is greatly appreciated.

I just realized I didn't really answer you. All I can say is what worked for us. Starting pretty young with Drake and very young with Rue, they learned I make their world happen and all good times come from me. ALL my dobies have had pretty high prey drive and I didn't want to kill that, just cap it a bit. The reality is the different drives dogs have are great training tools, they just have to learn some control, sort of like teenagers and hormones. All very normal, just need some discipline.
We started in our front yard, lots of distractions.....they just need to learn where the focus should be. We moved to pet stores with lots of little critters that looked like marvelous snacks and soon learned that what I had was a better reward. My Goober had the hardest time learning that the ferrets weren't better than what I had to offer but she did.......eventually. Wasn't too long before they all learned Mom had the best thing going. Because of experience I was able to teach Rue the fastest that her whole world comes from me. I have no doubt the twins know this, just a matter of reinforcing it with them.
I hope that make sense. I guess in a nutshell you just have to reinforce all fun comes from you and they quickly learn they want to please you to have fun. I believe all dogs live in the moment and when it's fun, the better the moment

 

[JanS]

So?
What ever happened to the op, @Dragonborn ?

That's a million dollar question Gel. Another one who went missing and I can't remember if I'm friends with her on FB or not.

Love all of the chickens and seeing how happy they are!

 

[Rits]

@Gelcoater
Excuse the conditions of a working coop, lol. Over winter we used foam board and gorilla tape to winterize the door. Tape pulled the paint when we took it down in spring. It worked great though for what we needed. This year we are going to do something different so I don't have to repaint every year! I had a container garden behind the coop that killed the grass + let the chickens back there to till up the crab grass that came in. The coop is on clay soil so, when it hasnt rained here in forever, forget about using your own muscle to till. They did a great job helping me out! Now its been blocked off from the chickens and reseeded. The white tape is to keep the horse away from the coop, since they sometimes share a pasture with the horse We just changed the door design when we added two coop doors, so that we could open them from the outside. I still need to stain it when I find some time.

There are no build plans. This was my husband's and I's first build together. I had a look I wanted and functional aspects we wanted and my husband drafted it up. It's not perfect but the experience was. We've made my Daddy proud

The coop can be divided if needed. We have used the divided part so many times its come in handy! When we get chicks, or when we have a broody hen needing her peace, or even to give the hens a break from the boys. We finally came to a conclusion on how the roosts work the best for us. Originally we built a temporary roost because we were still building the coop! Then we made a ladder option but that took up a lot of floor space, the poop just falls straight to the floor making the floor space below the roost, not useable. Finally we built tables and put sand in them. We love it! I scoop it every morning. The bedding lasts us 3-4x as long now because they do most of their pooping overnight, onto the poop boards. Even better we have increased our floor space because things are finally safe to put underneath the roosts, including chickens walking around!

The coop is 8x12 and can comfortably hold 30 chickens. There are 4 windows and 2 vents. We use a fan when its super muggy. The fence is solar and the light inside for dark winter afternoons is solar too. We move the fence frequently to move them to fresh grass to give their poop a chance to break down, any parasites to die and the grass to regrow. When we get our own place we plan to put the coop on wheels to be able to rotate them on grass even more.






Oh they also have a lean to we built for shade and shelter from rain, wind and predators. The back end of their pasture is pretty far from the coop. They take naps under this thing all day lol



Hope that tickled your fancy

 

[Ravenbird]

Awesome job with that set-up!!!

 

[MyBuddy]

Hope that tickled your fancy

It tickled mine! I love it! You did an awesome job on that! I love the little lean-to! That was a great idea! I can see them getting a lot of use out of that.

I'm trying to piece together what I see on the outside to where it is on the inside. In the first picture, that bottom row looks like it has handles that lifts up. Where is that on the inside? And is that where they lay the eggs? I thought with the handles on there that it might be an easy way to pick up eggs?

 

[Rits]

Btw, the air fresheners arent for smell, theres hardly any of that thank goodness. Ive heard around from chicken peeps that flies dont like vanilla? Im not sure if its helped any but I like to use a natural eucalyptus spray to clean the roosts daily and I spritz some on the sand. That for sure seems to work and the coop smells great when I do that!

 

[Rits]

It tickled mine! I love it! You did an awesome job on that! I love the little lean-to! That was a great idea! I can see them getting a lot of use out of that.

I'm trying to piece together what I see on the outside to where it is on the inside. In the first picture, that bottom row looks like it has handles that lifts up. Where is that on the inside? And is that where they lay the eggs? I thought with the handles on there that it might be an easy way to pick up eggs?

Yep thats the nesting boxes for their eggs. Let me include a few more pics. It opens in two sections. We use a prop stick that falls in place when you lift up the lid. There are 4 nesting boxes on the larger side of the coop and 3 on the smaller... though ask any chicken person how many nest boxes you "truly" need according to a chicken. Just one. Lol! They all want to lay in their favorite and it happens to be the same box lol!

Well, I cant find the picture of when we added the stick props but just imagine some sticks connect to the lid by hinges, theres a lip they prop up on so you can access the eggs without holding up the lid.

Nest boxes from the inside, this is the wall with the flower boxes

The front drops down to clean it all out when needed.

 

[JanS]

Yep thats the nesting boxes for their eggs. Let me include a few more pics. It opens in two sections.

Wow I actually figured that out before someone asked. That is a beautiful setup and probably an inspiration for many people with chickens.

 

[GennyB]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=239721206911998

 

[Ravenbird]

@Rits do you belong to Backyard Chickens forum (not on Doberman Chat, it's a place just like DC is). Anyway, they have a thread just for showing off your coop and design. You'd def get a bunch of likes from those folks! I'll gather up some photos of my coop to show here. Nothing like yours, but it works, AND it's the first building I ever made in my life! Puppy is coming in Nov. so if I don't share chicken related pictures soon it will not get done for prolly, what, 2 years? lol.

 

[Rits]

@Ravenbird I don't but I often lurk there from time to time. Im in 6 different Facebook chicken groups or something like that... I don't think I could add another forum to my browser, lol! DCF keeps me plenty busy

Hey if it works it works! As soon as our coop was functional... As in 4 walls and a roof, the chickens were in! We have been working on the coop here and there, making things right or fixing mistakes, since last year. The windows and doors were recycled from an old farm, which is probably my favorite part. I knew I wanted a fun color to go with it. Its not often that you can paint a door turquoise blue.