Hen House, Chicken Coop, Ark etc
To house chickens; the minimum space required is 1 square foot per bird, however, I should warn you that chickens are highly addictive so you should think about whether or not, you will add to your flock.
Personally, we use houses that are 4ft by 3ft (to house our breeding flocks) built by a local firm called
Wood n Things and they build what we ask for. In my opinion these are far superior than a lot of other houses you can buy so therefore they will last a lot longer.
We do not have felt roofs as this is somewhere that red mites love to hide under.
We have removable roosting bars and nest boxes, which mean it is easy to keep them clean.
Red Mite
Red Mite are terrible. Simple as that. They are the silent killers.
Prevention is better than cure.
Clean out their coops daily, use Red Mite Powder in their nest boxes , dust baths and even dust it on the chickens. It is best to do it just before the chickens goes to bed as Red Mites are nocturnal.
Some people even would put lime around the coop to keep the pests at bay.
We once got Red Mite but very luckily, we did not lose any of our girls.
To get rid off them, we build a brand new house, treated the girls and then when they were moved, we then cleaned out the infected house with the power washer thoroughly and got rid of the nest boxes and the perches. We then repeat the cleaning a week later as Red Mite’s life cycle is 7 to 10 days.
Then the girls were moved back in after three weeks and the flock seem so much happier.
Of course, some houses are impossible to get rid of the Red Mite, the best solution would be to buy a new house and then burn the old one!
I have heard that some people would have two different houses, one for the winter and another for the summer.
Every 6 months, they will move the chickens to different house and treat the empty house.
With care, you should have no problem at all from Red Mite.
They should be between one and a half to two and a half inches wide, depending on the size of poultry and have the edges rounded off. You should allow 8 inches of bar per chicken but again, this can be depending on the actual size of the chicken.
If you have a problem with your chickens that do not want to use them, you should move them onto the bars when they are asleep and after a week or so they should start using them.
Nest Boxes
They should be reasonably warm, always dry, and in the darkest part of the house. The nest boxes themselves should be about 12 inches square and always be lower than the roosting bars.
I fill them up with straw, you do not have to arrange it as the chickens like to do that.
Unfortunately, the chickens will still lay where ever they like especially if they free range, however, there are several ways that you can do to encourage them to lay in the nest boxes;
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Have enough nest boxes for the hens, one box for every 4 to 5 hens should be the maximum for the hen to feel happy to be laying in the nest box.
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‘Trick’ them. You can do this by putting a fake egg into the nest box which you can buy from your local feed store and online.
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Ensure that they are dark and quiet.
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And if you really at loss of what to do and tried everything else, you can keep them inside the coop for the morning as hens do most of their laying before midday.
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Free range or run
If you are going to allow chickens to free range, they may not or may destroy your garden but it does depends on the size of the garden.
A vegetable plot will be eaten if it is not fenced off.
We keep ours in secure runs that have a small door which allow them into a bigger fenced off area when we are there to supervise them.
In the run, we occasionally hang a cabbage or greens etc, we place a couple of branches, and other things to keep them amused.
Dust bath
Dust bath is important for chickens as it allows them to keep clean as well as helping to control bugs.
Some people use play sand in a suitable container with drainage holes, however we are lucky to have some really nice soil so they make their own.
Cockerels
There is no real need for one unless you want to breed more chickens from your own stock, and the hens could be friendlier without a cockerel.