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aunt betty wrote:

assateague wrote:Final tally on the coop- $609.70. Not as bad as I feared.

Hom much is that per egg including feed ?
Before you whig on me...I gotta build a shed too. Lawnmower n gardening stuff.
Wanting to build onto each side.
Greenhouse on one side and chicken coop on other. Still in planning stage.
Could easily encorporate your chicken coop ideas.
Nice work.

The way I've figured it, it'll be paid off in about 3 years. A little less, if I count the chickens which are gonna get eaten. We go through 2 dozen eggs a week, at $2 a dozen for store bought. If I was figuring it at $4 a dozen for the fresh, organic, that'd be cut in half, but that seems like "cheating", so I just calculated based off of store bought. Feed is free. I'm eventually going to expand mine, to incorporate the pump house next to it (making a full 8' pump house, instead of a crawl space-type deal), and run the roof over the big pole barn, to make a place to store my firewood under cover.

flight control wrote:If you let them loose in your garden, would they eat the potatoe beetles or the plants? I've been wondering for a while now.

This was my plan- to fence off the potatoes, and let them run. You can't let them in the garden, or they'll tear up all the fruits and green stuff, but I figured with the potatoes, the plants get so big, and grow so fast, that I figured they'd be happy just picking the bugs off. Then I found out that nothing will eat a potato bug- not chickens, not even guineas. Those bastards are superhuman. So much for that plan.

My great grandpa used to make a wire cage out of wire that was big enough for chicks to freely run in and out of it. He would place a hen in there with the chicks and lets the chicks roam around his garden eating bugs. The chicks dont mess with the plants as much as a full grown chicken will, mostly just chase the bugs.

How is the chicken bizness going Assa?

So far so good. Got 27 in there now, and another 12 in the incubator, due sometime around Tuesday. By the time they start laying next spring, and getting rid of all but 4 roosters, I hope to have 20 laying hens left. We'll see!

assateague wrote:So far so good. Got 27 in there now, and another 12 in the incubator, due sometime around Tuesday. By the time they start laying next spring, and getting rid of all but 4 roosters, I hope to have 20 laying hens left. We'll see!

Thinking about getting rid of the lab and turning the kennel into a coup, tired of all the ticks in the damn yard!

It'd be a lot nicer if dogs laid eggs, too. Everybody says that's too many, that we're going to be inundated with eggs. Well, that may be the case, but I can think of worse problems to have than having too much free food to go with my free deer steaks. Also, I fully expect to lose them regularly, due to critters, sickness, dogs, whatever. It'd be dumb to just have 10 and hope they make it, IMO.

No pictures?

I keep forgetting your pics, Tom. I'll get you some tomorrow when it's not raining.

Tomkat wrote:No pictures?

Don't know what a chicken is?

Probably somewhere between these two:

MuddyWaterWarlock wrote:

Tomkat wrote:No pictures?

Don't know what a chicken is?

Yeah, thats what it is. Dont know what one is.

NO you clear water witch!

I want to see AT's set up, HIS chickens, how he feeds them. where they sleep, etc...

Tomkat wrote:

MuddyWaterWarlock wrote:

Tomkat wrote:No pictures?

Don't know what a chicken is?

Yeah, thats what it is. Dont know what one is.

NO you clear water witch!

I want to see AT's set up, HIS chickens, how he feeds them. where they sleep, etc...

See page 4 of this thread

Holy crap! Thats a chicken palace!

I picture AT sitting out there with his chickens...playing his mouth-harp and singing this song while he chokes his chicken.

I saw the Daredevils at a field party near St Joe MO in 1978. One of the better days of my youth....


Things have changed a lot since then.

This thread just makes me want to build a small coop and get 3 or 4 chickens.

Sent from my phone.

Olly wrote:This thread just makes me want to build a small coop and get 3 or 4 chickens.

Sent from my phone.

No way. 3 or 4 couldn't possibly be worth the trouble of the upkeep, but chickens could be nice to have...

I think this is where something clever about tapatalk should go.

Feelin' Fowl wrote:

Olly wrote:This thread just makes me want to build a small coop and get 3 or 4 chickens.

Sent from my phone.

No way. 3 or 4 couldn't possibly be worth the trouble of the upkeep, but chickens could be nice to have...

I think this is where something clever about tapatalk should go.

Really? I've never owned chickens but I've been researching smaller scale back yard coops and 3 or 4 seems to be a good number. I'm a single guy so there really is no way I could eat more eggs then more than that could produce.

Sent from my phone.

Olly wrote:

Feelin' Fowl wrote:

Olly wrote:This thread just makes me want to build a small coop and get 3 or 4 chickens.

Sent from my phone.

No way. 3 or 4 couldn't possibly be worth the trouble of the upkeep, but chickens could be nice to have...

I think this is where something clever about tapatalk should go.

Really? I've never owned chickens but I've been researching smaller scale back yard coops and 3 or 4 seems to be a good number. I'm a single guy so there really is no way I could eat more eggs then more than that could produce.

Sent from my phone.

I have been reading about them, too. Would love to have some fresh eggs and some insect control.
I think in my case they would be a predator magnet.

No idea. Just couldn't think that the work involved would be much different from 3-20, but if it's just for you, why not?

I think this is where something clever about tapatalk should go.

This is what I had in mind.



Sent from my phone.

One of my neighbors tried a similar little pen for a few months, but apparently scrapped the project.

No chickens at our place, but I'm about to find out how many young homing pigeons I'm willing to pluck at a sitting.

does it have wheels?

Feelin' Fowl wrote:

Olly wrote:This thread just makes me want to build a small coop and get 3 or 4 chickens.

Sent from my phone.

No way. 3 or 4 couldn't possibly be worth the trouble of the upkeep, but chickens could be nice to have...

I think this is where something clever about tapatalk should go.

I disagree. It'd be a piece of cake with 3 hens and a rooster (although I'd go 4:1). They are easy keepers after about 5 weeks, and after about 10, they eat anything. Just like pigs. Throw out the dinner scraps, and they clean that shit up like its filet mignonette. When I'm skinning deer or hides, the ones that we had roaming around before my "domestication" of them this time, hang around snatching up every scrap they see fall.

Olly, I say go for it. You could build that for about $25, most expensive part would be chicken wire. You can expand later- just get some step-in posts, and have a semi-movable coop. They won't fly over chicken wire- any "lid" is to keep other critters out, not to keep them in.

And fresh eggs are delicious. My neighbor is getting a little over 3 dozen a day. I get his overflow.

Thats what I worry about...the owls, coyotes, and hawks that like here now.

Yeah, you would definitely need it at your place. I'm lucky. We're very rural here, but I am a good ways from the nearest woods, which cuts down on the critters a lot. We get the occasional visitor, but not so much. I put the coop where I did because its under trees. This will help with the hawks while they're little, but when they get turned out when they're older, they're on their own.

If you do build one, don't forget the bottom. A wire top and sides are good, but a fox or coyote will dig right underneath in just a couple hours. My buddy lost all his chickens a couple years ago in one night by having a fox burrow under the blocks he set in the ground to build on, coming up inside the coop. Came in, and it was carnage. He pulled the coop off with a tractor, dug a 2 foot deep trench, and buried a double "curtain" of chicken wire, overlapping the outside of the block, then put the coop back on the foundation. He still has foxes try to dig under, but the chicken wire stops them. His is actually IN the woods, and he hasn't lost any in almost a year. They free range during the day, and they go back in at dusk, and he just makes sure the coop is closed up tight.

I'm sure you know this, but it's not the daytime you have to worry about.

I hear ya, but daytime here is a little dangerous, too.

So you think that free ranging them during the day would be ok?

And isnt it best to get them as chicks so they know where "home" is?

This house is in the fake country. It's a large plot surrounded by suburban houses in the county. The predators I'd have to worry about would be foxes and hawks but I doubt even those would be a problem much. My plan is to let the chickens free range during the day and bring them in at night

Sent from my phone.

A slick trick learned from our upland preserve days is to surround your pen with buried wire or tin angled away from the pen. A couple feet is more than enough, because while predators will dig straight down for seeming ever, they won't back up while digging. Don't know why, but our birds were glad it's so. Well, at least until they got shot.