chicken/hen house's

[jimLE]

i've noticed at least a few people here have chickens for eggs and meat alike..in which i thought of when i came across some good ideas for hen house's...and these are good for those that are just starting out with chickens as well..

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/8866530491708152/

 

[Brent S]

i've noticed at least a few people here have chickens for eggs and meat alike..in which i thought of when i came across some good ideas for hen house's...and these are good for those that are just starting out with chickens as well..

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/8866530491708152/

Some really creative designs! I always like to give a little style to any project I work on, but these are really nice.

 

[jimLE]

yeah they are nice,and creative..especially the flower box..my 1st thought there,was herbs

 

[Gazrok]

I recommend trying to use an existing wall wherever you can. That way, you already have stability, and one wall completed when you start!

I also like one to be tall enough to walk into and collect eggs or a chicken.

For feeding, we made these great tubes that we just fill every few days, instead of dealing with it daily.

Also recommend using 1"x1" wire vs. chicken wire. Chicken wire just doesn't stand up so well to harsh weather and is less safe vs. predators.

 

[hills have eyes]

http://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_2,_Standards_for_Confining_Farm_Animals_(2008)

 

[hills have eyes]

prices will be bout 20% higher this year for dozen egg

 

[hlrive]

Yeah I heard the price of eggs is going up. I still am getting $2 a dozen for eating eggs, however I make $25 to $40 a dozen for the fertile eggs. I want to get me some game hens this spring. The fertile eggs for games can even run close to $150 per dozen. I have 2 roosters already but 1 is part Phoenix so he has the long tail, the other is 100% pure. I don't dare to have any more then 1 or 2 breeding roosters for games, otherwise the law shows up

My coops are not fancy and of course most of my chickens are free ranging, the issue though is no matter how many nesting boxes I have they never lay in the boxes instead they come up on the back porch and lay eggs in the cats bed, a cardboard box, or go to the front porch and lay eggs on my rocking chair.

 

[Brent S]

I just wish my hens would start laying again! I had to buy a dozen eggs the other day for the first time in ages. I guess my girls dont like the cold.

 

[hlrive]

I just wish my hens would start laying again! I had to buy a dozen eggs the other day for the first time in ages. I guess my girls dont like the cold.

No they say it has to do with there isn't enough light. However mine slow down every winter light or no light. You can put a light inside the coop and turn it on for 3 hours every day and see if it helps. Personally it doesn't help mine at all. Wish it did but they just are refusing to lay like they do in the summer months.

 

[Brent S]

No they say it has to do with there isn't enough light. However mine slow down every winter light or no light. You can put a light inside the coop and turn it on for 3 hours every day and see if it helps. Personally it doesn't help mine at all. Wish it did but they just are refusing to lay like they do in the summer months.

There is a science to it. I live in the chicken raising capital of the world, and some of these farms have really worked out the buggs to keep production going. I have no doubt that light could help, but guess I don't care that much. I'll just let nature take its own course. The birds have a natural rythym, and I am sure it's the healthiest for them. That reminds me, its about time to go and thin out the roosters from the last batch of birds. Ive found that if you clean them when they are young you cant tell the difference from a hen.

 

[hlrive]

The price of eggs is going up already in the stores around here. I went in food lion yesterday and saw it is now $2.69 for a dozen of small eggs. They were $1.99 just before Christmas for small eggs. Large and extra large were already over $2 a dozen, so I guess now I will have to put my prices up when selling eating eggs.

Age also has something to do with hens laying. My older hens are laying nothing. I have even been putting them outside every other day and not a single egg. My younger hens I am getting 8 to 12 eggs a day. But the older ones are refusing to lay. They had better be laying this coming spring or they will be losing heads. I refuse to feed chickens that wont be laying eggs. I have tried everything possible for the older ones to make them happy and still nothing. Time to start culling come spring by the looks.

 

[Gazrok]

My chickens are confined, but certainly have a lot of room, and fit the recommendations.

Yeah, the idea of the cages at egg farms is pretty inhumane. That really should be outlawed.

Surprisingly, I'm still getting a lot of eggs each day, but been a pretty mild winter so far. I was really expecting worse...so glad I was wrong. Now if I can just keep them from pecking an egg or two all the time, ruining it. Why the hell do they do that?

 

[hlrive]

I had our hens doing that for awhile. The best way to break them from doing it is to remove the eggs as soon as they are off the nest and leave a plastic Easter egg in there. However if you can't check on them every 30 minutes. Then leave the plastic egg in there, and start feeding the hens 2 cooked eggs a few times a week. They are in need of extra protein. Normally they would get the protein from bugs, this time of the year I feed mine leftovers and cooked eggs. Of course though if you catch just 1 hen doing it you may want to remove her, sometimes one hen in a flock will start being an egg eater that is when I cull them.

 

[Gazrok]

Gotcha. We do try and remove them quickly. May get some of those ceramic eggs. We do already do some scraps and mealworms, etc. We do usually give them some cooked eggs too.

 

[hlrive]

Now if I can just get my young cockerel to realize trash in the yard is not food. It's his first time out on his own and he thinks everything is food, trash, bottle caps, sticks, even pieces of glass. I just stand there shaking my head at him, and have to wonder where the stupid came from that is in him.

 

[hills have eyes]

the law in not just chicken also hogs. eggs are used for a lot of things
and good farmers dont a buse there animals

 

[Dani]

Those are some very trendy looking coops Jim!! My hen house is not quit that nice but very practical and functional, plus it was free. . . .my neighbor down the road was getting rid of his old metal storage building which is a 4 ft x 8 ft, just right to add in shelves an hen boxes. Just had to redesign to add in a side door for the chickens into the run area, but with a walk-in door to collect eggs. . .what can be better? Although the chickens are free ranging in the back yard now and unless I take my dog Ike out back with me for coffee breaks, they have claimed the porch as their roost area during the day time. Actually at night too until hunny was woken up at 3:30 one morning, went outside and pushed Mr Rooster off the railing. We tend to get $3 a dozen around here

 

[hlrive]

The only issue that I have with free ranging is that the girls find all kinds of places to lay eggs and then I have to go looking all over the yard for them. I have had a couple lay eggs in my rocking chair on the front porch. I guess they figured that way I would find it easy. Also I don't know if you all know it or not but the cage free eggs that folks buy in stores, come from pretty much in humane farms as well. Sure they are cage free but they are all inside of a big metal building shoulder to shoulder. 4 of my Delawares came from one of those places. I wasn't happy when I saw where they had been. If you look into some of the hatcheries it is the same thing. This is why I don't like leaving my older hens cooped up. It's just in humane to me to do it. They however get 1 day in and 1 day out. But a few of the older ones still don't get it and fly out of the 1 acre yard they have just to go check the neighbors yards out. This spring we will be culling many of the older ones. They seem to think that free ranging means where ever they want to go, including neighbors yards.

 

[Gazrok]

The only issue that I have with free ranging is that the girls find all kinds of places to lay eggs and then I have to go looking all over the yard for them

I would never find the eggs if mine free-ranged.

 

[hlrive]

There are some days when I wish that we had never allowed ours the ability to free range. Especially when it comes growing season and I see them wreck the whole garden in a day. Or when every time I walk in the house I have to check my feet for chicken poop. I am pretty sure my cat feels overwhelmed when he tries to eat and has 20 chickens to fight to get to his food bowl. But then I have days when I set on the back porch step and Rose comes over and starts pulling at my hair and then sits in my lap and gives me a satisfied look. It's almost enough to bring a tear to my eye, because I have said time and time again I am NOT getting attached to another one. When I am busy in the garden I always have Rose and Junior there watching me and checking to see what I am doing, that is when I realize I am happy, very happy that they are all free range. It's that closeness that you can get with them.

I just hope none of you ever come face to face though with a man fighter. I rid myself of a man fighter a few years ago (gave him to a neighbor), then the neighbor started letting him run loose all of the neighborhood. When I would go get my mail I would end up being attacked. So one day knowing they were gone I went out to the mail, gun in hand and a certain rooster died that day. I will carry all the scars from that bad boy for the rest of my life. However he tasted darn good, a bit tough but that was to be expected.

 

[Kenprep1979]

I just wish my hens would start laying again! I had to buy a dozen eggs the other day for the first time in ages. I guess my girls dont like the cold.

If you have your hens in a coop? enclose an area for the nesting boxes if not already done! throw a heat lamp or 2 in there and they will start laying again ! a buddy did this at winters start and laying has not slowed down at all!

 

[hlrive]

One lady came here today to buy eggs from me, She uses the light and everything and yet hardly no eggs at all from her 17 hens, so sometimes the light doesn't work, I know it doesn't with my older girls. I think it's the cold weather more then the light.

 

[Kenprep1979]

One lady came here today to buy eggs from me, She uses the light and everything and yet hardly no eggs at all from her 17 hens, so sometimes the light doesn't work, I know it doesn't with my older girls. I think it's the cold weather more then the light.

no im talking about heat lamps ! for heat not light

 

[hlrive]

no im talking about heat lamps ! for heat not light

Well that is new, they always tell us all to keep a light on just a regular light not a heat lamp I will have to try and use a heat lamp it may work. However where they are free ranging they will get cold outside during the day.

 

[Brent S]

no im talking about heat lamps ! for heat not light

I've even heard from some that a red 90 w flood lamp will help too. I guess it puts out some heat, but the color dosent confuse the hens sleep as well.
I have 4 days off, so I'll add to my list to refresh the hay and get the lamp in there. I'll let you know if it makes a difference. I have not gotten an egg for about 4 weeks now.

 

[NCHydrangea]

A friend of mine rigged up a way to enclose a light bulb in an old metal lunch box to put in his dog's house to keep him warm. He didn't want it to light the inside of the house, just keep it warm.

 

[hlrive]

I had to move my youngest game rooster the other day it was so cold he almost froze to death. His one hen in there with him is crippled so she doesn't get up on the roost with him, and he was almost freezing at night time by himself, so after 3 days in the house he went into the chick coop with her. Last night he was nestled right up close to her with his head on her back sleeping. So until spring gets here they will be in there or warmer weather which ever one comes first. I never thought about that would be an issue, but it was and a big one. I don't want to lose a $180 bird.

 

[Gazrok]

That's one expensive chicken!

 

[hlrive]

That's one expensive chicken!

Yeah he is but now I need some girls for him, a dozen fertile eggs go for $100 to$150. A grown rooster can run anyone from $100 for pet quality to $500 each around here. The local flea market folks are selling hens for $100 each. However I am buying me some chicks this spring for $6 each from cackle and will raise any roosters up to full grown then sell them at the flea market. I hope no one fights them, however I don't care what anyone does with them once I sell them. I know I will be having mine just for breeding, that's what counts.

 

[Gazrok]

I just buy the $3 ones from Tractor Supply to make eggs, lol.