Advice Needed!

[Hans Mum]

if anyone wants some jumpers i've got 6 which i used on my girls last year, but they are all nicely feather up now send me a pm & i'll post them on

[Hilary B]

Only disagreement with the article is amount of indoor space. I don't think you need much, and if your run is REALLY predator-proof (that is the tricky bit), you don't actually need to shut the hens in their housing at night at all.
I kept chooks (from 6 to 20ish at a time) for a total of maybe 20 years, in a variety of ways, and never had a closed pop-hole at all. The nest box needs to be well sheltered, not too well lit (they prefer darkish nesting sites, and it is usually claimed that they are less likely to sleep in a dark nestbox; must be like me, unable to go to sleep if it is TOO dark) and if possible not readily accessible to rats (you WILL have rats around). Perch needs to be in a weather-protected location, usually referred to as a house or coop, but mine were fine for 4 years sharing a large tin hut with all the gardening tools and the feed for my pigs and goats. There were no doors on either end of the hut (it had originally been a very large garrage, wide doorway one end, ordinary doorway the other).
My birds weren't exactly pets in the sense of caring about them like I would a dog, but I did have 'special' ones which WERE pets.....