Chickens aren't laying

[Thumper & Buttercup]

How about some photos of your chicken coops.

Been thinking of building one, we use to have one on the farm but no one kept the buildings up here. The house is the only original structure left here. We have built a 50x60 Morton building to hide all our junk in tho.

 

[knute_m]

This past season I started out disappointed when I couldn't get my usual new flock of Rhode Island reds. Instead, we got day-old "sexlinks" that are a mixed breed between Rhode Island Red roosters and White Rock hens.

All I can says is WOW! These are the best chickens I've ever had -- and I've been around chickens for over 60 years. These hens have not slowed down one bit with the shorter days and cold weather. We're still getting nearly one egg per hen per day.

These are the friendliest and calmest chickens I've ever seen -- including the rooster. They have the curiosity of cats, and can almost be pests when I'm working outside. Worst of all, they absolutely love my tractor and come running when they see it. They find all parts of it to be near-perfect perches.

I just hope I can find more of these when the present flock is ready for the stew pot.

 

[knute_m]

How about some photos of your chicken coops.

Been thinking of building one, we use to have one on the farm but no one kept the buildings up here. The house is the only original structure left here. We have built a 50x60 Morton building to hide all our junk in tho.

I'll try to get some photos in the next week or so. My present coop is just a 10x10 shed that I bought as a pre-cut kit for about $500 without floor decking or shingles. I used pressure treated 3/4-inch plywood floor decking. I split the building in half. One half is for the chickens. The other half is for feed, straw, etc. For nine hens (supposed to be 10), we've got three nesting boxes.

The protected hen yard is two sets of used dog kennel panels. Each was supposed to be a 10 Wide x 10 Long x 6 High kennel. So, our enclosed chicken yard is about 10 x 20. We put chicken wire over the top to keep critters out. We also put chicken wire under the fencing and building to keep critters out.

When we are home during the daylight hours, the chickens are let loose to eat bugs, weeds, and seeds.

 

[Thumper & Buttercup]

Thanks knute_m,

We have farm cats so we really have to get this varmint
proof. That old mom cat of ours is reducing our rabbit population right now. I can't build it this year but I can do it next year. I've got to dig up five stumps in the area we want to put it in. I would have to have the dog runs or something like that here, we are getting a lot of coyotes around here also.

 

[schmism]

the chicken laying cycle is driven off of day light hours.

In the winter the lack of daylight hrs will slow there production. (which works well for mother nature as natural food sources (grass, bugs etc) in the winter are scarce)


My 10 hens had dropped off to about 3 eggs a day just before i added my red heat lamp that shines down on the water'r to keep it thawed. (only about a foot above the waterer) Its on a timmer runs from about 4pm to 10 am

no frozen water and my girls picked right back up. I avg about 2 doz every 3 days. (not counting when one goes off and decides to hide a clutch of 6 behind the feed bin)

 

[Highbeam]

I use a chicken tractor style coop that is really quite small. Our chickens are let out during the day and put themselves away at night. I latch up the door when they're in. The tractor style allows me to drag the partially open bottomed coop over fresh grass when their poo is built up too much for my liking.

The cat eats mice and birds but gets along fine with the hens.

 

[dooleysm]

I'll add my vote for the artificial light. I went from 8/day this summer to 1/day in late fall. I added a CFL light on a dusk-dawn timer and I'm back to 8/day. It took 2-3 weeks to get production back up. There was no molting issue because my chickens are all under a year old. The CFL is costing me like $.50/month to run. Well worth it if you have electricity available.

 

[jimmyj]

No question it is daylight hours. They will lay more with artificial light.

I have quite a few different birds (mostly chickens) and keep them in an aviary and chicken coop that are attached together. The coop building is 24' long and 16' wide. It has a 6 foot roof overhang on the one side (you can't see it in the pics) and a 12' roof overhang on the side that attaches to the outdoor aviary part. The aviary part is 62' long and 16' wide and is divided up (with welded wire) into multiple pens that can be left open for community housing or closed off (we use closed pens for meat birds in the summer or sometimes if some birds fight or need to be isolated). The whole thing is surrounded with chain link 6' high and covered in pheasant netting. There are a couple of strands of electric fence that go around so any critters that try and climb in get zapped and fall off (run a hot wire around and the chain link is the ground). The construction of the building is OSB with wood siding and OSB on the roof with tin over top. The aviary is made from cedar posts and rails that go into the ground about 2' - there are over 130 of them altogether. Note on the pasture side there are horizontal extra rails so the livestock cannot not scratch or rub directly against the chain link and ruin it. There are multiple doors to get into and out of both the building and aviary part so if ice and snow get too high we can still use it. The building itself has a small 8'x8' "feed room" with old freezers in it and the rest is divided into 2 large rooms. One of the doors to the building is a dutch door and we can leave the top half open so the birds can go in and out in the summer when we let some of them free range. Sometimes we close one door to half the building and keep sheep in that part. Most of the doors in the building slide to open so we don't have to worry about them being blocked by snow or bedding build up. There is electicity and a water hydrant too for ease in the winter.

It works great. The best part is it was under $1000 to build as I scrounged and traded for a lot of the materials. It was built in stages over a few years too (as the budget and time and materials permitted). Next summer I will extend the roof overhang on the other side of the building too. No problems with varmints except for weasels once and it's about impossible to fence them out. The weasels were not a problem until they ran out of mice and then started on the chickens. You know you have a weasel if the mice suddenly are gone!

NOTE: The only mistake I would say we made is I cannot clean the thing out with equipment. It takes a lot of shoveling and that is a drag.

 

[LC '92]

Heres my chicken house. I had to put wire mesh on the ground under the walls to keep the coons from digging in. I haven't lost a chicken in over two years now. Its made out of treated 2X4's and cedar fence slats.

My Rhode Island Reds molted and stopped laying in early December. They just started back this month.

I killed 6 of these guys in it last year in addition to losing 7 glass eggs!

 

[jimmyj]

Very cute chicken house. What kind of a snake is that?