Chicken Coop

After 8 weeks or so, the chickens (now pullets) were ready to be transferred outside. The chickens were hatched and arrived in June, so I was lucky in being able to bring them on during the warmest months of the year, transferring them outside in early August. 

I bought a chicken coop with a small run for about £100, which was more than adequate in size for two chickens. It had an upper portion which could be locked at night, with an exposed area for movement and roosting, and an inner chamber laid with straw, which was suitable for laying. The bottom part of the coop was a wire run, in which I initially placed a feeder with the Grower’s pellets, and a dispenser for water.  The coop could be opened from the top, and from the upper doors and laying chamber, and the coop, so allowed easy access for cleaning and egg collection.

 

My cleaning regime for the chickens is every few days to weekly, depending on my commitments, the weather (heavy rain needs cleaning sooner) and the state of the coop. I rake out the coop- run area, sweep up the straw and sawdust from the roosting and laying box, and use simple no- odour antiseptic wipes to clean the coop before restocking it with clean straw and sawdust, above and below. In this way, I have not experienced any pests such as red spider mite at all. As a consequence, I have not had to use insecticidal or strong odour cleaning fluids in the coop. I am mindful of the quality of the egg I am eating. 

I added a security feature (in the form of a trellis) to the wall against which the chicken coop sat. It would otherwise be too easy for them to jump up on top of the coop roof and hop across the wall to the adjacent farm. As the wall was tall, they would be unlikely to return. In order to bolster this effect and discourage chickens on top of the coop roof, I also rolled up a section of chicken wire which was secured by hooking to screws on the wall.