Hubby caved in to our girls and bout 4 Buff Orpington chicks. They are about 6 weeks old and hubby is in the process of building the chicken condo. He has the frame up and bottom meshed out with 1/2 inch wire. We did a lot of painting all day today. I have been googling blogs and you tube for info. I bought a chicken book today, which I should be reading instead of posting, but it's so much more interesting hearing from others about their experience.
First question: Do we need to close them in at night when they roost? Some blogs say yes. We are out in the country and I worry about varmints getting to them. The coop will be totally enclosed. It just seems like an extra layer of protection for them. My friend says she doesn't close hers in. What do you do?
If you carry a gun, people call you paranoid. Nonsense! If you carry a gun, what do you have to be paranoid about?
We close up our chicken coop every night. Our chickens free range with cattle on pasture so we don't have any fencing to keep out predators. Depending on where the LGD's happen to be and the wind direction we have had coyotes and raccoons occasionally slip through and grab hens off the roost. Our losses now are mainly from daytime raids by Coyotes. We sometimes find the feather piles a few hundred yards from the coop before we know it's happening and it continues until we kill the coyote or it get's chased off enough times to not come back.
Good luck with the Orpington's! These are a very gentle breed that will lay all year long if the light is right.
I would. After the chickens get comfortable with the coop they will all go there to roost every night anyways. It would be easy to lock them in. The next morning they will be ready to explore.
"Character is doing the right thing, even when nobody is looking" - J.C. watts Jr.
CHL since Jan. 2013
53 days mailbox to mailbox.
When I was a kid we had free-range chickens. We trained them to roost in the coop at night, and we'd lock them in and then let them out in the morning. We also had something called a "chicken tractor" (sort of a mobile chicken coop/yard) we used while they weren't yet grown. In that case they were just enclosed by chicken wire, and we didn't do anything extra at night. However, varmints could occasionally get at them if they perched right up next to the wire at night. We didn't lose a lot of chickens -- we tried to be pretty vigilant about locking them up at night, and we had 3 or 4 dogs who slept outside at night. In fact, my mom was touched one morning when she went out to feed the animals and found the Lab sleeping across the door of the chicken coop after a night when we'd heard a lot of coyotes howling.
If you've got half-inch wire it might be ok, but if it's going to break your girls' hearts if a chicken dies, it might not hurt to take the extra precaution.
We had Orpingtons too, and they were good chickens. You can put lights in the coop during the winter to keep them laying when the days get shorter, too. And you might occasionally want to give them some crushed oyster shell to make sure they get enough calcium to produce strong eggshells. And if the noise won't bother you or the neighbors, it can be nice to have a rooster around. Generally they're pretty serious about their role protecting the flock. I loved having chickens, and someday I want to again. Hope you enjoy them as much as we did ours!
If you live anywhere there could be raccoons, foxes, coyote, bobcat or other predatory animals wandering around at night, you will want to close the chickens in a relatively varmint proof coop at night. Chickens have just enough intelligence to go to roost in the evening in a known place -- once they are on the roost the synapses seem to stop firing and they can be plucked off the roost by a predator. I heard a noise one night about 10:30 and went out because I had forgotten to shut the chicken door in the coop, and saw eyes staring at me a good hundred feet away from the coop. A fox had grabbed an Australorp hen off of the roost and was heading away from the coop with it. As I approached, it dropped the hen and ran off. I gathered up the hen, and found that she had no significant injuries so I put her back on a roost in the coop and shut it up. Over the last several years, we have lost hens to hawks, fox and coyote and a bunch to raccoons. Additionally, we have lost eggs and chicks to snakes. I am not sure whether we have lost any to opossum, bobcat or even feral cats, but they are around as well.
It is a good idea to keep in mind that most of these predators have all day and night and can thus be as patient as needed to exploit gaps in your defenses. Our coop is seven years old or so, and for the first time this last year we had raccoons figure out a way in that had always been there. They nearly wiped out all the hens (they always seem to get the hens and not the roosters) before we figured out what they were doing and plugged up that entry point -- a gap about 2.5 inches high that gradually narrowed to nothing across six feet in width, 6.5 feet off the ground and tucked directly under the roof under about a 6 - 8 inch overhang. I am still not sure how they got in and out since I never saw them, but they sure got plenty of food for a while.
Russ
Stay aware and engaged. Awareness buys time; time buys options. Survival may require moving quickly past the Observe, Orient and Decide steps to ACT.
NRA Life Member, CRSO, Basic Pistol, PPITH & PPOTH Instructor, Texas 4-H Certified Pistol & Rifle Coach, Texas LTC Instructor
WildBill wrote:Nothing's better for breakfast than fresh eggs from a free ranging chicken.
Had some neighbors who preferred duck eggs. Claimed they were better tasting and better for you. Might have to look into that. I can't have chickens in my neighborhood but I bet I could get away with cute little ducks.
Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid.
John Wayne
NRA Lifetime member
WildBill wrote:Nothing's better for breakfast than fresh eggs from a free ranging chicken.
Had some neighbors who preferred duck eggs. Claimed they were better tasting and better for you. Might have to look into that. I can't have chickens in my neighborhood but I bet I could get away with cute little ducks.
I have never eaten ducks eggs. I am willing to try.
One of my ex-neighbor's mother has a horse ranch north of Houston. Once is a while she would visit her mom and bring back "farm fresh eggs." She would ask me if I wanted some. At first I said "no thanks", but after a few times I finally said, "Yeah I guess".
Prior to tasting them I was thinking "farm fresh eggs, yeah sure ... blah blah blah".
After I fixed them for breakfast I started to ask her "when are you going to visit your mom again?"
I can't even begin to say how much I miss fresh eggs. One day when we have more flex room in the budget, fresh eggs will be one of my luxury items. Unless we get chickens of our own before then. I didn't really realize until later in my life that it wasn't normal to run out of eggs in the middle of baking something and, instead of running to the store or the neighbor's house, head out to the barn to see if the chickens had laid any yet that day. Occasionally we wound up with more laying hens than we could keep up with. At those times, we would leave for church and each of us kids would have our Bible and a dozen eggs with the assignment to give the eggs to someone before we went home. We also always had people bringing us empty egg cartons. Did the same thing with zucchini and tomatoes when they were in season.
Fresh eggs from chickens that can forage, eating grass and other baby plants as well as bugs, worms, baby snakes, moles, fly larvae, etc... are simply an outstanding blessing in our kitchen. Dark yellow yolks, some almost orange, chock full of nutritional goodness... Eggs from the store don't compare. Similarly, beef from the store doesn't compare to our home-raised, dry aged, custom processed Dexter beef. I know what went into it from birth to freezer, and none of it includes hormones or unnecessary medications or up to a 10% solution of ???. I am spoiled, and wouldn't have it otherwise.
Russ
Stay aware and engaged. Awareness buys time; time buys options. Survival may require moving quickly past the Observe, Orient and Decide steps to ACT.
NRA Life Member, CRSO, Basic Pistol, PPITH & PPOTH Instructor, Texas 4-H Certified Pistol & Rifle Coach, Texas LTC Instructor
Middle Age Russ wrote:Fresh eggs from chickens that can forage, eating grass and other baby plants as well as bugs, worms, baby snakes, moles, fly larvae, etc... are simply an outstanding blessing in our kitchen. Dark yellow yolks, some almost orange, chock full of nutritional goodness... Eggs from the store don't compare. Similarly, beef from the store doesn't compare to our home-raised, dry aged, custom processed Dexter beef. I know what went into it from birth to freezer, and none of it includes hormones or unnecessary medications or up to a 10% solution of ???. I am spoiled, and wouldn't have it otherwise.
I used to joke that the yolks were so bright I needed sunglasses when I cracked open the shell.
To me "Organic" eggs from grocery or healthfood stores taste the same as the normal store bought brands.
MotherBear wrote:At those times, we would leave for church and each of us kids would have our Bible and a dozen eggs with the assignment to give the eggs to someone before we went home. We also always had people bringing us empty egg cartons. Did the same thing with zucchini and tomatoes when they were in season.
Those were the days! Back when you didn't plant okra cause your neighbor did, and they didn't plant zucchini cause they knew you would have enough for the whole neighborhood.
In my teens, I raised Sussex hens and Rooster in addition to Egyptians fighting-style roosters and hens. I loved sussex very large fresh eggs almost each morning.
Last edited by Beiruty on Mon Apr 28, 2014 4:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Beiruty,
United we stand, dispersed we falter
2014: NRA Endowment lifetime member
Your biggest threat may be the stray cats that you see wandering the streets at night in almost every community. They will wipe out an entire batch of chickens if they have access.
There will always be prayer in schools as long as there are tests.
"It's all about shot placement."- David (Slayer of Goliath)
