Chicken Intervention for Joz

[baymule]

Joz, you have been hanging out on the gardening with animals forum and have given some very good pointers and advice. I enter exibit A.......


Joz quote:
The most quoted rule of thumb I've seen is 4sf per bird in the coop, and 10sf outside the coop.

So...

96/4=24 will fit inside and
660/10=66 will fit outside.

and 12" of roost per bird. I think. So 24' total of roosts. 2x4's on the flat seem to be the favorite. You didn't ask, but do Google "poop board". You're welcome.

Rather than orienting your roosts per the sun/cardinal points, consider where the least-drafty area of the coop is. Do you have enough ventilation?

Nesting boxes: That's a crap shoot. They might all use one. Three of them will hide eggs around the run. One is going to lay in the middle of the coop no matter what you do. At a minimum, probably 3-4 birds per box. A 3" lip will keep the nesting material and eggs inside the box. The nesting boxes should be lower than the roosts. They should be located for maximum comfort of the egg collector.



Disclaimer: I do not, and never have, owned chickens. But I've been reading BackyardChickens since 2008, planning my coop and birds and whatnot.

Here is a seriously deprived chicken-owner-wanna-be!! JOZ! YOU NEED CHICKENS!! The sooner, the better! Ahhh....but it looks like chicken owning is in Joz's near future.......I enter exibit B....

Joz quote:
Since the guys working on my house destroyed my back stairs, it'll happen soon. When I rebuild the stairs, I'll also be building the open coop/run. My yard is tiny, and I figured, I've already got the structure, why not just cover it all in hardware cloth and let THAT be the coop? It never gets below 30*F here, so I don't need a proper enclosed coop, but will have a roost area with corrugated metal "walls" for windbreaks.

I just hope that 4' wide (x ~20' long) is wide enough to allow for the squabblechases. I'm only going to have 4 birds (or thereabouts... have considered up to 8, but am scaling that back), so I'm guessing it'll be alright.

OK, my fellow TEG'ers, let's help Joz decide what breeds of hens need to live under the stairs. An under the stairs coop sounds like a brilliant idea, making use of space in a small yard. Joz, build the nestbox so you can access it from the outside. Now....back to breeds. This is how we will do this, Joz says 4 birds, maybe 8, so let's go with 6 hens and split the difference. You have 6 votes, one for each breed that you think would suit Joz the best.

Here's mine.
1. Silver Laced Wyandotte.
2. Blue Laced Red Wyandotte
3. Ameraucana
4. Australorp
5. Speckled Sussex
6. Delaware

 

[thistlebloom]

Thinking only of my favorite chickens of the breeds I have owned here's my vote:

1. Black Australorp
2. Rhode Island Red ( I know, there's controversy swirling around RIRs, but mine have always been friendly and easy going.)
3. Buff Orpington
4 .Dutch Bantam - a banty, but so petite she hardly eats anything, and the sweetest little buddy chicken I've ever had. So consider it sort of a bonus breed, and you can squeeze an extra chicken in!
5. Easter egger
6. Barred Rock

 

[bj taylor]

assuming they're all girls
1. buff orpington - the most laid back birds
2. black australorp - they lay the biggest eggs.
3. delaware - because they're a heritage bird. I don't know their nature yet. I have 4 two month old chicks
4. silver laced wyandotte - because they're beautiful & my one is sassy & talks to herself all the time
5. & 6. I don't know

 

[canesisters]

(from my personal favs)
1. Speckled Sussex
2. Australorp
3. Easter egger

(from my want list)
4. polish
5. faverollie
6. dominick

(and I've probably spelled them all wrong... )

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

here's my short list but not really in order of like the most:
1. orpingtons (any color is nice)
2. Easter eggers (Americana per most hatcheries)
3. Delaware
4. any of the Rocks-not just the barred
5. Marans- for those nice dark colored eggs

alternatives if you were looking for something smaller and if you were going to keep them around children, i would recommend these too:
3. D'Uccle bantams-if you can find someone local that will sell the hens or pullets, the girls are sweet, the boys can be brats
4. Faverolles either LF or bantams-you would be able to find more breeders of these in southern states. maybe i'm just influenced to list this because i own some.
5. Seramas- such cute little birds! but i know their eggs would be tiny. they don't take as long to hatch like other chicken breeds.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I think Joz needs eye candy along with her eggs. That means different colored and patterned birds to make a diverse flock. Decent egg layers that take confinement well. A variety in egg colors. Common enough you can actually get them.

Red (with those beautiful spots) Speckled Sussex
Yellow Buff Orpington
Black Australorp
White Delaware
Dark eggs and Barred Cuckoo Marans
Colored eggs Easter Egger

Ive had all these except the Marans. I include them because of the dark eggs. I could easily substitute any of the Rocks or any of the Wyandottes for the Marans, or just get a second Easter Egger.

The Australorp, Delaware, and Easter Egger will always make my list. If I did this again, the other 3 might change. There are a lot of really good ones out there.

 

[ninnymary]

I vote for : Silver laced wyndotte
Blue laced red wyndotte
Speckle Sussex
Ameraucana
Delaware
Buff Orphington

Not necessarily in that order. Does the Delaware go broody often?

Mary

 

[thistlebloom]

Mary I don't know about the Delaware, but my Blue laced red Wyandotte is broody every other minute. And I won't even bore you with the details of my Black copper marans. At nearly two years old I bet she has only laid 2 dozen eggs .

And she hasn't laid a single egg since September.

And she's a grump.

And she needs culling.

 

[joz]

Awwww, y'all are sweet!

My original plan was for an assortment of both feather and egg colors. And my boyfriend insisted on "the one with the 'fro". Mostly I wanted to be able to identify each egg and relate it to its hen. So my list was:

Polish - White Crested Blue or Buff Laced
Speckled Sussex
Orpington or Australorp (I never could decide)
Welsumer
Marans - undecided on color
Araucana/Ameraucana/Easter Egger

And I really want a Mille Fleur d'Uccle rooster, but I don't think that's very practical.

Ordering all those chickens online would mean I needed to order one more to make the minimum order. Then I'd have to figure out which ones to give away. And it's expensive, and shipping, and... feh.

Locally, there are people breeding Blue Laced Wyandottes, Polish, Orpingtons (lavenders even... oooooo...), Marans, and others I can't remember. So once I get my coop/run sorted, I'm going to go up to the monthly chicken swap and buy 4 or 5 or 6 that are appealing. Or I'll give the swap vendors 21 days notice on the varieties I'm shopping for.

My mom breeds and shows Buckeyes up in Kansas City. She's offered to ship me started hens. They're beautiful birds, and she's done very well with them at shows, but.... they're all the SAME. Booooorrrrrring. I'm an ungrateful daughter, I am.

 

[ninnymary]

Thistle, I have had a blue laced wyndotte for about 2 months now and I think she is stressed and won't lay. I bought a speckle sussex at the same time but she turned out to be a rooster so now the rest of the hens won't accept her. They are on pinless peepers and I've tried once to remove them but they all gang up on her. If things don't improve, I may have to get rid of her.

I still want a speckle sussex so badly. The first one I had was a young pullet that got caught underneath a chicken wire partition and got killed. I may replace my hens next year with chicks and get the above mentioned ones. I'm going for beauty and egg color.

I like buff orpington's but my last one went broody every 1 1/2 months! A little too often for me.

Mary