Solving 3 problems at once?

[shine388]

I've just stumbled across an interesting article by a chicken keeper on how he tackles the 3 biggest problems with his chickens:

They get up early,
They poop a lot
and they waste lots of food..

I'm not experienced in chicken keeping but he seems very clever and thought this may help someone out there

Blog: Backyard Chicken Coop Designs| Plough & Stars Project

[Lumpy]

I am on a learning curve of...how to be controlled by your chickens and the food idea sounds good.

I shall wait to have a read of what the other hen owners have to say as they probably know the best way for doing everything hen related.

[shine388]

Yes, me too. I'm trying to research as much as pos before hopefully convincing OH 😊 I liked the idea of the food tray to catch wasted food, in the replies to that post someone mentioned putting the tray on an angle so that it feeds the wasted food straight into another feeder..genius!

[Bigmallly]

To catch wasted food, I have fastened a wooden louvre door to a gravel tray & placed it under the feeder. The louvre door can be removed & the contents put back in the feeder.

[nellie-m]

One of the first things I learned from the old timers was: feed twice daily, and no more than what they eat up in ten minutes. That was about twenty years ago, and I've done it that way ever since. Nothing gets wasted, I don't feed mice, rats or sparrows, and the hens don't get fat. (I don't keep hybrid layers though who might need a bit more)

Droppings board: again, that was in my coop design from the start, but I must admit that cleaning it once a MONTH is not nearly often enough in my opinion. What's great is, it's easy to clean, ten minutes is enough to do three coops - no straw in the manure, if you clean it often you can spot problems like diarrhoe very early, and dusting it with diatom is a great way to keep red mite numbers very small.

Automatic door opener: is a fine thing to have. I badly mistreated mine by attaching all three sliders to it so it gave up after ten or so years of service and I couldn't be bothered to install a new one.

One ingenious thing I saw with chicken breeders in the former GDR was a mechanical opener that worked when the first hen stepped on a board in front of the pop hole. I don't really remember how it worked but the great thing was that it didn't need electricity. I found it quite fascinating. Of course it didn't close the coop at night but at least the hens could get out as early as they wished.

[veggiechicken]

I have 3 chooks and they all roost together at the same end of the perch, every night. I keep a gravel tray lined with newspaper beneath their roosting spot and it catches most of the overnight droppings. Its easy to pull out and empty straight into the compost bin that's outside their run.
I would be very alarmed if my chooks knocked out of their hanging feeder the amount of food in the picture. I keep a tray beneath the feeder but very little falls into it.
As for letting them out early, that's one of the delights of having chooks. Opening the hatch and let them mob you. We have a little chat and a stroke and I leave them to get on with the important things - like eating and laying

[Guest]

I feel a bit mean to my birds but they all seem happy enough. They get feed once in the morning(I stopped feeding at night due to rodents). the odd afternoon treat of grass, weeds or gone over veg etc. if I am in the garden that is it. They get shut in at night when it is dark and let out around 7.30am-ish (I have cockerals so like to reduce the noise factor for neighbours). Then they get mucked out once a week and I put woodshavings in the coop to keep it fresh (er) although in winter they might get a midweek clean.

I better go find the naughty step for not fussing my chooks more

[shine388]

I'm enjoying all these tips, you guys seem very experienced in chicken raising..I'm still trying to convince OH but I'm hoping the more I learn, the easier it'll be maybe?

So I get the impression that they poop a lot, is this a constant thing or just at certain times? :/

[Stan79]

I use a treadle feeder at BB's reccomendation on here. It allows access to the feed whenever they want and can't be accessed by rats, mice, small birds, etc. They don't throw food around and are free ranging for the majority of most days so eat what they fancy.

They perch on removable perches in a biggish open plan hen house with newspaper on the floor. Once a week, the paper and droppings get rolled up and put on the compost heap and relined with new paper. Easy peezy.

We also use a VSB Automatic door closer which works a treat!

Biggest complication is remembering to collect the eggs everyday.

[janzbro]

Chickens do indeed poo lots and most the time!
the best things you can do in my opinion is get a poo board under your perches, chickens do their business while on the perch at night and I second the use of newspaper on the board, you just gather it up and throw on the compost pile, takes no time at all, but if you get a ready made coop it will have a metal tray in it to collect the poo, if this is the case get a wallpaper scraper, it will come straight off.
I also have sharp sand down on the coop floor, this gives a number of benefits, it coats the poo drying it out and it allows it to clump, this allows easy cleaning using a cat litter scoop( personally I use a riddle as I have a 6x4 converted shed and its faster), they use the grit to help grind up their food, they use it as a dust bath and it dries their muddy feet off if its been raining, one of the best things I ever did, also its cheap and your not stuck with tons of shavings to get rid of and buy every week as these dont compost readily.