A few pre-chook questions...

[sqweek01]

After months of toil my coop is finished & my run is finally nearly ready. I've just got to put another bit of mesh on the roof & bolt the door on, then the fun begins!

My coop is 4ft (L) x 2ft (W) x 2.5ft (H) & sits in a 9ft (L) x 3ft (W) x5ft (H) run & is sat on concrete paving slabs. The coop is on legs so the chickens can use the floorspace too. The chooks will be in the run most of the day while I'm at work & let out to free-range in the garden when I'm at home.

Painting the coop was a real pain, after four coats of Ronseal one coat fence paint which didn't stay on in the rain I opted to use gloss paint. White on the inside & turquoise on the outside (same colour as my kitchen cabinets!) I know I maybe shouldn't have done this (from the mite POV) but I was more than desperate at this point! My nestboxes are blue plastic fruit 'boxes' which I'm going to line with newspaper & top with straw. The floor & sides of the coop are lined with lino to make it easy to clean.

I'm thinking of using bark chips as a substrate in the run but read in another thread that this may not be a good thing, or I might've read it wrong! Is it okay to use shredded paper in my coop as a bedding?

Also what's a good 'first-aid' kit to get together for my girls?

Regards

Clare

[its hilly]

Well from experience if youve sealed the gaps with silicone seal before painting it makes it dead easy to clean and spray over with smite or poultry shield to keep the mites down. Lino is easy to clean, but you (again) need to seal the edges on walls, and shove loads of anti-mite stuff underneath.
Essentials to have handy
Apple cider vinigar-goes in drinking water, good for allsorts
Garlic powder- add to food to entice picky eaters or help with colds
Respite-garlic based I think-colds again
A wormer-Flubenvet is well recommended on here
Mite powder, or similar
Poultry Spice-general tonic and entices poorly chooks to eat
And of course Rule the Roost-helps with anything inc. whats up with my chook, am I doing this right, can I feed this......my favourite emergency kit!

[sqweek01]

Thanks for the reply

It's now finished, I put the last panel on the the roof tonight & bought a feeder, a drinker, straw & some food after work. I'm so excited!

Every nook & crannie I could find has been sealed before painting, same with the lino. If I find any more they'll be getting the same treatment! I never thought of putting anti-mite underneath before sealing.

You're right about Rule the Roost, it's amazing the things you learn on here. I'm going to pick up a few of the things you mentioned tomorrow so I can get it all anti-mited before the hens arrive. I'm assuming that you can use the garlic powder that humans use?

I did get a concerned look when I mentioned bark chippings on the floor but that was more due to the fact that it's a paving slab floor which can't be helped, once the girls are acclimatised to the coop & run they can go in the garden

Regards

Clare

[frias]

Some people don't like bark as it can go mouldy. I put some in my run to start with, then got it all up when I read it could be bad. Some people use it without problems though. Once you let them in the garden they will love it. You won't have any garden left for long though. Fence off any plants you value!
Good luck. You're about to become an addict.

[sqweek01]

Ah, so that's the thing with bark chippings, I did wonder. I wanted to give them something to poke & dig in in their run. They do have some muck to dig in which I've grassed but that wont last long!

I grow most of my veg in my back garden & most of it is fenced off to keep my cats off, I've just got to cover the herbs & where the beans & peas will be going. As for grass, pah! who needs it?!

I fear that ducks may be next but that depends on if there's enough space in my run....

Regards

Clare

[Bramble-Poultry]

sqweek - wood chip is ok for the run, but bark chip isnt as it goes mouldy. wood chip can be a pain blowing across the garden. i would prefer to use some good straw to let them scratch about in the compost it when you clean them out.

wood chip and bark chip can be a pain to compost, but straw wont take long to rot down in the compost bin. besides, something magical happens to organic matter such as straw when covered in dung of an animal - the enzymes heat it up quickly and break it down into wonderful compost for the garden. infact, running something through the gut of the animal is even better, so if you chuck in the veg peelings etc from the sunday dinner let them eat on those, not only will you get good rich orangey yolks, the manure will be top grade too.

Ducks - need totally different conditions to your hens. Yes they will live in the same run, but ducks dont perch so if sharing the same house will sleep on the floor under the perches and get cr&pped on from the roosting birds above. They also need access to water (can be as little as a stacker box) just so they can get their heads under the water to help preen. Problem with this is that occasionally a chook blunders into the water and cant swim. Hate for you to wake up one morning to find your hens floating upside down in the duck pond.

as for a first aid kit, we use the following:

- 5ml syringe, with a piece of 3mm silicone tubing on the end, about 6" long (for tube feeding reluctant birds) ask us how to do it before yo ugo don that route please. its easy to do it wrong!
- packet of Organic baby rice (emergency feed for poorly birds)
- bottle of Frontline Kitten Spray (gets rid of all crawling mites etc)
- packet of cornflour (to stop bleeding)
- vaseline (to rub on their combs to stop frost bite)
- tweezers - very handy
- cotton buds - as above
- purple spray (from feed merchant. antiseptic spray)
- large stacker box (big enough to put a chicken in), with a home made plastic mesh lid if possible
- clip on light with a 60w red light bulb (use with box above to isolate poorly birds in the house and provide them some warmth)
- packet of virkon s discinfectant powder - for sterilising equipment
- ***** fluid - only discinfectant rated against bird flu
- flubenvet worming powder
- seaweed extract
- apple cider vinegar
- garlic granules
- wooden lollipop sticks
- rubber bands
- surgical tape (micropore or similar) this and the above two can be used to make emergency splints on hens and chicks alike

put all of the above into the stacker box and put safe where you know where it is. write the phone number of the vet on the top of the box so that you dont need to hunt it out.

you probably wont use any of this kit before it expires, but i would rather it expired than got used up!

[its hilly]

I have runs for the purebreeds for part of the year, they are on concrete. Im using woodchip rather than bark as it doesnt break down and go mouldy as easy. I fork it over and wash it through regular, if/when it gets too messy I take it all out and start again. Its when you just leave it compact and wet that it goes mouldy dead fast.
Whatever bedding you use in the run, dont put any around the water/feeders. Chooks are mucky little beggers, but clean up much better on paving slabs etc.
And talking of mucky..ducks smell a lot more than chooks and will mess up the run faster than you can clean it out if thay are sharing.
Oh yeah, purple spray is handy too.

And dont forget, chooks can be a serious cause of addiction....just read back through this forum for a warning.
My name is Hilly, and I'm a chookaholic..

[sqweek01]

Thanks again! Still thinking about ducks, if I did get some I'd get them their own little house & have their water-time supervised. I certainly wouldn't want floating chickens...

Regards

Clare

[Hinksy]

One thought on the Duck front, if you can then go and look at ducks and their behaviour at you're nearest farm before you decide to get them, it might just change you're mind slightly.

Before we got the Hens we was 100% getting Ducks so we took a trip to our nearest farm just to have a peek at both Chickens and Ducks, Ducks look funny and seem great but they just looked too messy and destructive.

If you go with Ducks though, then try and get Campbells or Cayuga, from all the reading up I did these were among the better ones for Gardens with noise and behaviour.