Re: Bullying in the Coop


"Jill" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:469f234c$0$1618$ed2619ec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
a_l_p wrote:

It's concrete and we cover it with a good couple of inches of wood
chip. If we extended the run it would be over soil and/or grass but
we could maybe pave it I guess.

Can you get some straw, wood shavings (untreated) or other nice stuff
for them to scratch and dirt-bathe in? Deep litter pens work well
and the chooks like them in my experience.

Kent might be dry enough most years but they could be struggling this
year.
The south of England is having a soggy time of it.
Deep litter is an art to manage in those conditions and I was leery of
suggesting it for fear of making the situation worse.
It is possible to end up with a really horrid gooey mess and nowhere to
put it all !!!!

Creating a more interesting pen is certainly a possibility for the
remaining birds. If Jewels can put a cover over the pen that might help.
Branches and such like, daily greenery which is cleaned out every evening,
deep bark, and such like will make the environment more interesting so
avert their attention from each other.

I actually have more chickens in about the same space as Jewels, and I found
myself wondering what my difference is. These are some possibilities I came
up with

1) I have a great rooster who does not allow fighting among the hens. This
is luck, and I'm not sure how you'd find one or integrate him with an
existing flock
2) My chicken coop has two doors, expressly so that a dominant hen cannot
keep anyone trapped inside (I read this somewhere before designing the coop)
3) I have a variety of perches both inside the coop and outside in the run,
which allows chickens more choice about where to hang out (and I have never
seen a chicken attack another chicken on a perch)
4) I supplement my chickens with whey from the goat dairy where I am
assistant milker

Not sure if any or all of these make a difference, but I have 22 hens and a
rooster in a 10 x 12 pen attached to a coop that has about 32 square feet of
indoor space, not including the nest boxes, with roughly 16 linear feet of
perch inside, plus about 2x that outside. My hens should be eating each
other alive, according to Jill, but they all seem to get along fine. They
get out for about an hour to an hour and a half each morning, plus some
evenings for another hour or two.

HTH;

Amy


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: dead sparrows in chicken coop
    ... coop in the morning. ... The hens are all well. ... When i put the chickens to bed, ... But I'm now puzzled about why these sparrows are ...
    (sci.agriculture.poultry)
  • dead sparrows in chicken coop
    ... coop in the morning. ... The hens are all well. ... When i put the chickens to bed, ... But I'm now puzzled about why these sparrows are ...
    (sci.agriculture.poultry)
  • Re: Hen House Design - dont want to reinvent the wheel - can you help with some ideas !!
    ... but I have raised chickens now for about 20 years ... I have built 3 henhouses. ... keeping them safe from the older hens. ... I build into 1 wall a trap door about a foot wide and 18 inches high, ...
    (sci.agriculture.poultry)
  • Re: OT: farming questions
    ... they are not that different from the birds we raised. ... raised some of the hens to see if they would make it as layers. ... were part of the flock for several years. ... white chickens get boring to look at after a while. ...
    (rec.equestrian)
  • Re: just had my first chicken death
    ... > One of my hens has fallen off her perch over night. ... Very fat chickens get a fatty liver, ...
    (sci.agriculture.poultry)