Chicken questions

[LiamRatSnake]

How much space, per hen, inside the house itself? I'm looking at half a dozen hens, just wanna know how big to make my coop, and if I wanted 8, how big, minus the nest boxes, which I will add one for every 3 birds? The run is about 18x9.5 feet, so way more than the 3-5 square feet per hen outside, they will be allowed out of the run anyway. Also, any ducks that can live with hens? Oh and the coop will be raised, so effectively won't take any space from the run.
Thanks, Liam.

[glennskow]

hi there, ducks make a hell of a mess and not usually housed together , as for nest boxes personally i would have more to stop fighting also if you get a breed that goes broody that will iliminate the nest box for a while . just type in hen houses into google and use different ideas and sizes .

[mattm]

As said above they're not usually kept together for that reason, ducks are the messiest things ever!!

The amount of space you have sounds fine, for mid-hybrid sized hens. Obviously if you go for a smaller breed such as bantams or larger it will affect how many you can have.

Remember that in the main coop hens must have a roost (thick perch) which they will sleep on, as they feel most comfortable high up.

[LiamRatSnake]

Got all that, thanks guys, I've read a couple of books, Choosing and Keeping Chickens by Chris Graham is a nice book. Ok so no ducks, I got everything else sorted, just placement of the perches I'm stuck on now.
Only other question is that I want to give them all leg rings, so I can keep track of them if I can't tell them apart, what size would I need for a average size chicken, eg a Sussex hen?

[glennskow]

you will be able to tell them apart lol i had rhode island reds and could tell em apart a mile off ,e bay for leg rings . perch hight say 3/4 high 2x2 with the corners rounded off and if more than one perch dont put one underneath the other ,dont laugh i have witnessed this .

[CKS]

The space your offering is generous enough. I actually keep 6 hens in a house thats 4'x4'x2.5' with a 6'x4'x2.5' run attached. they have plenty of living space for when i can't let them out into the garden. I'm just incubating some eggs as it happens. The best laying hens are leghorns and black rocks (a hybrid) although the leghorns are a bit timid they often lay twice daily. The black rocks are very friendly and lay superb tasting eggs. I agree ducks are really messy. Can be noisy too, although khaki campbell ducks are pretty quite and can be kept with chickens ..... good luck

[LiamRatSnake]

Ok thanks for the info guys, yeah the run is pretty large, but they'll be able to come out supervised anyway. I may go for hybrids, but at the moment eggs aren't at the top of my list for keeping chickens, they will be more pets with the bonus of eggs thrown in. Any info on the size of leg rings I'd really appreciate cos I'd like to just make sure incase any get ill. I was thinking 16mm, but I've never really looked at a chicken's leg.

One last question is how to provide enrichment, apart from the usual hanging a cabbage and maybe CDs and stuff.

[LiamRatSnake]

I lied, I do have another question, home made dust baths. What can I use? I heard wood ash, but I don't have any of that lying around, could I use chinchilla sand or something similar?

[fenwoman]

Will the run be covered? If not, make the indoor space very large since hens dislike wind and rain and in such weather, won't be using the run. So they'll need enough space in the house to move about. The house will also need a lot of ventilation at roof height. Perches need to be oblong and not round, and removable iff possibble for you to treat for redmite in summer. Ideally, paint the inside of the house with as many layers of gloss paint, allowing each coat to thoroughly dry in between adding another coat. The aim is to make a smooth wipeable surface and also fill in any cracks and gaps as this is where red mites live. Red mites will make the birds lives a misery and they will refuse to go into the house to sleep or lay eggs. To be perfectly honest, life would be simpler if you simply bought yourself a 6X4 garden shed and adapted it by taking out the window glass and replacing with mesh (ventilation), then placing perches midway along. At the rear of the shed place some large cardboard boxes to use as nest boxes. They are free and when they get soiled, infested with lice/redmite or disease, you can simply take them out and burn them and replace. By placing them at floor level, you will also deter the hens from sleeping in them at night as their natural instinct is to roost high. Place the shed up on a couple of breeze blocks placed at each corner. This keeps the floor off the ground and keeps it dryer and it means that rats have no place to hide. Make it so that the door in one end of the shed, opens into the run. You should in any case have a run you can stand up in (to clean) and be able to enter into. So you'd go into the run to open the henhouse door. Keep food and water containers inside the house, one either side of the door so that they are away from the perches (stop poo going into them). A layer of shavings on the floor keeps it clean and dry (straw harbours mites and live and fungal spores and holds the damp and poo) Put a little shredded paper in the nest boxes and hey presto, a fab henhouse. By placing 2 perches acrossways, you'll have 8 foot of perch space. Enough for about 10 hybrids or 7 large fowl or 12 bantams.
The run should have gravel boards at the base and be filled to a level of about 2 or 3 inches with gravel which can be hosed down weekly. The dirt runs down to the soil and the worms do their work eating the dirt so the run stays clean. You could first place some chicken wire down under the gravel to prevent rats digging up under and getting into the henhouse and killing your hens. The gap under the henhouse will mean that you can place a bait box with poison. If you keep chickens, you will need to practice rat control. Traps are indiscriminate and kill other species so poison really is the most effective and safe way when used in conjunction with a bait box.
As others have said, never keep ducks and waterfowl, with chickens. They are filthy creatures who produce copious amounts of liquid sh1t daily which your chickens will scratch about and peck in and end up ingesting some pretty nasty diseases which will mean that you cannot eat the eggs. As for breeds, unless you are abler to manage broodyness, stick with hybrids which are less liable to go brood and sit in the nest for weeks, starving herself slowly to death or being eaten by mites. There are some good hybrids about, all different colours which even lay different coloured eggs like brown, fawn, cream, white and blue. You won't need leg rings to tell them apart if they all look different. Besides, leg rings normally get put on 3 day old chicks. Unless you get the plastic spiral sort which can get caught up or come off and are a waste of time. Unless you are going to breed and need different coloured rings to identify certain lines and progeny, rings are a waste of time and money. A book I recommend to everyone is Starting with chickens by Katie Thear. If ever I wrote a poultry book, it would be written just like this one. Its the best chicken book out there bar none. It's paperback and only £6.95 new but you may get a 2nd hand one off ebay.
You'll need a rat proof bin for storing the food. Preferably get 2, one for the layers ration and another for mixed corn. Get proper poultry feeders and drinkers and if possible, screw 2 cup hooks in the ceiling and add chain to keep them raised up off the floor. The feeder and drinker should come level with the bird's shoulder in order to prevent stuff getting kicked into the food and water and contaminating it.
Then buy yourself some poultry wormer, wound powder, louse powder and redmite spray. And find your nearest poultry vet. Then you'll be ready to start looking for birds. At this time of year there aren't many pure bred birds about. People like myself will have sold all our surplus stock in the Autumn, in order to avoid feeding birds we don't need, over the winter. All I have here at present, are my breeding/show stock. However, hybrids are hatched all year around so you'll be able to buy those. Hybrids usually also come vaccinated which purebreds from small breeders/exhibitors like myself, don't bother with. (you have to buy the vaccine in batched of 1000 and once opened, you have to use it in one go on day old chicks. People like me only hatch say a dozen or so per week so it isn't cost effective to vaccinate.
HTH and if you need to know any more, feel free to ask.
Incidentally, I would not use chinchilla sand as it's too fine and the dust might cause breathing problems. If you want to make a dust bath, just use playsand.It needs to stay absolutely bone dry though or they won't use it.

[LiamRatSnake]

Ok Fenwoman, all taken on board, thanks very much I was thinking of using a shed, but it takes up a lot of the run as it would have to be within the run. Food/feeders/drinkers/wormers/wound spray/parasite dust powder/red mite powder all accounted for. I'm in touch with someone with some pure breed birds available, Rhode Islands, Orpingtons, Sussex ect ect and will look into hybrids, but large fowl are what I want really. If I didn't go for a shed, my Father in law get's building materials cheap, so it will probably be home made, and ideally I wanted it raised enough so the chickens can utilize the space underneath it, maybe 3 feet up, how far apart should each perch be?
Now the run is against a wall at two and a half kinda, of the four sides, seven feet high, the patio up to the run has cover over it as far as the run if that makes sense, like an over hang thing, canopy might be the word, from the house, so essentially I could carry that on onto the run, protecting it 100% from the wind and the rain. The half a side that isn't against a wall is still enclosed. The run was a veg patch which has a brick wall about 1.5 feet along the front and a bit of the side of the run, so we are thinking of building up from that. Underneath the soil in the run is concrete so no rats could get in through the bottom, when it's built the only way in will to be to chew through the wire, which will have to be addressed. The feed will be kept in the shed, which is home made and next to the run, there will be no way of the food being eaten by rodents. I was thinking of splitting the section up into 3, IE the furthest section from the coop could be soil (the rain won't be able to get on it) that they can scratch and root in it, another section I was going to use gravel, and the third maybe wood chips or something. Let me know what you think, thanks Liam.