Just as mankind has evolved from inhabiting dank, dark caves, today’s domestic chickens have needs no longer met by the cover of a rainforest. The ancestral ones might have survived just fine in the wilds , but today’s modern flocks face many more challenges. These include diverse weather conditions, seasonal temperature changes, a wide variety of predators and our own impact on the world around us. Help ensure your chickens live a long, healthy life by following these dos and don’ts for providing proper housing.
DO: Provide your flock with a dedicated house
Regardless of whether you choose a mobile chicken tractor or a permanent coop for housing, make sure that your chickens’ shelter is exclusively for them. Housing them with other animals—especially larger livestock—can result in fretful temperaments, accidental injury and even death. Bunking your hens with other birds, such as turkeys, is also not recommended, due to possibility of illnesses such as blackhead disease passing between bird species.
DON’T: Neglect to make your shelter watertight
The costliest designer coop is completely worthless as housing for chickens if it can’t keep out precipitation. Roofs, doorways and windows that leak let rain into the henhouse, chilling your birds; creating a mucky mess of the floor and droppings; encouraging mold, mildew and bacterial growth. Before your birds move in, thoroughly seal their house to keep out drafts and wetness.
DO: Provide proper ventilation
Byproducts they create most definitely are not appealing. Without proper housing ventilation, the carbon dioxide released by their breathing and the hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia released by their droppings will remain trapped within the coop, creating a noxious cocktail of fumes potential lethal to your layers.
A well-ventilated coop allows for these gases to safely dissipate while permitting in fresh air. Proper ventilation also allows the heat and moisture naturally generated by your birds to escape, an important consideration during hot seasons when high temperatures and humidity can adversely affect a flock.
DON’T: Overventilate your house
Too much of a good thing can be just as detrimental to your chickens as too little, especially when it comes to airflow in housing. While generously proportioned ventilation openings allow harmful gases to exit, they also permit chilly air and precipitation to enter. This could be disastrous, depending on your geographic location and the breeds you’re raising.
DO: Install high wood perch for resting
Like all other birds, chickens instinctively perch to rest, sleep and exercise their feet. They also seek the security of higher ground—such as a perch—when they feel alarmed. Outfitting your coop with this not only contributes to your flock’s health and well-being but also to its comfort.
DON’T: Leave your chicken housed all day
No matter how luxuriously outfitted your housing may be, your flock will go stir crazy if it can’t get out and roam. Chickens are naturally inquisitive creatures. They need to explore, scratch, dig and otherwise adventure out in their run or, if you free-range, your yard. While an occasional shut-in day might occur due to severe extreme weather, even when these conditions are experienced, open your hen house door to offer your them the option to go out.
DO: Include nest boxes
Hens naturally seek out the darkest, quietest place to lay their eggs, an instinct dating back to the drive to protect the next generation. Adding nest boxes to the henhouse will give your them a safe and convenient place in which to lay and an easy egg-collection location for you. Supply one nest box for every four hens in your flock to prevent them from all crowding together to lay at the same time.
DON’T: Forget to use nest-box lining material
A nest box won’t be worth much if you neglect to provide nesting material. Your hens will lay their eggs inside but, without a soft liner to catch the egg, all their efforts will be scrambled. Nest-box lining material should be soft, absorbent, inexpensive and easy to clean. Straw, grass clippings and wood shavings are all excellent bedding choices for chicken housing. The hens can shape these to their hearts’ desire before settling down to lay and, when soiled, the litter can be effortlessly composed.
DON’T: Overpopulate their house
Raising chickens can be an addictive pleasure. You set out to raise perhaps four hens and, the next thing you know, you’ve got 11. While a flourishing flock is a joy to have, housing them in undersized accommodations can turn that joy into a nightmare.
Birds that feel crammed and overcrowded quickly become stressed; they start picking their own and their mates’ feathers, slow down or cease egg production, and fight amongst themselves. Like anybody else, chickens need room to move, spread their wings, walk around and socialize. If your flock’s feeders and waterers are installed inside your their house, sufficient space around these is vital to prevent jostling and brawls as your birds try to eat and drink. Lack of interior housing space can also physically affect your flock’s health, especially if there is poor ventilation.
DO: Regularly Clean the house
Dust is a chicken’s natural companion. Dust comes from a hen’s skin, feathers and droppings. It comes from chicken feed and bedding material. It comes from the outdoors. Scrub their house walls, windows, nest boxes, feeders and waterers. Depending on the size of your flock, you may wish to do this daily,weekly or monthly.
Beyond dust and grime, however, is the handling of your flock’s manure. Again, cleaning frequency will depend on the size of your flock. When it’s time to get down and dirty, wear work gloves and use an assortment of tools—shovels, rakes, brooms and hand spades that you keep solely for poultry chores—to scoop the poop and soiled litter from every nook and cranny of your coop.
DON’T: Forget Human-Sized Doors
Even though your hen house is specifically for the birds, you will need to be able to access the interior for a wide for many reasons: cleaning, reaching for an egg laid out-of-place, refilling feeders and waterers, and tending to ill or injured birds that are hiding in corners. Be sure to design a human-sized access door to their house central area, and don’t forget to add an access panel to your nest boxes. This will make it easy to collect eggs because you will not be going inside the hen house to do so.
Regardless of what size you select for your hen house, by following these guidelines, you’ll provide your chickens with a comfortable, secure shelter they can call home for years to come.
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