An important part of henkeeping is making sure your coop stays clean. The girls love having a clean space to lay their lovely eggs. Keeping happy chickens will reward you. Just before Christmas we had a fox come and take my entire flock of 13 hens. Over the following months, the time was used to take a break from the chickens and have a good clean out of the coop- ready for my next flock! As you can see from the following photos, my coop was taken over by my kitchen scraps starting to take seed and grow!
An important part of having a chicken coop is making sure that there is plenty of room for the number of chickens that you intend on keeping. Most advice is that you will need about 4 square foot of space per hen. But you need to look at it realistically and ask yourself....Does this look like there is enough space and would I be happy in there?
My coop has a hen house with a perch and nesting boxes, a large run, but, I also let my chickens free-range most days. There is plenty of room inside the hen house, space outside to scratch around in, logs to jump on, a pit with sand to fluff their feathers in, an undercover area and there is also jasmine and passionfruit vines growing over part of the coop to provide shade.
When building your coop, it's important to remember to build it so it is easy to keep clean. You will need to clean out your coop every 4-6 weeks. Having a side of the coop that opens is useful. When spring cleaning your coop you will need to scoop out all of the sawdust and give it a good sweep before replacing the coop with new sawdust. After you have done this, treat your coop, the perches and nesting boxes with a good lice treatment. You should also change the sand in the sand box and shake some lice treatment into the sand and mix it around.
It's important that you provide plenty of space for your girls to nest and lay their eggs. Nesting boxes need to be roomy, comfortable, warm, ventilated and clean. They should be easy to access to collect the eggs. You don't want to be rummaging around trying to find where your hens have layed their eggs each morning.
Hens will also need a perch where they roost of a night. You will find that on dusk your girls will make the trek to their perch automatically and go down to roost. I have to admit, I did go a little overboard in my coop and provide the girls with a window to look out of and a window box. Very spoilt hens!
Lastly, as I've discovered personally, you will need to make sure your coop is predator proof. When giving your coop a clean it's the perfect time to just walk around the perimeter and check that everything is secure, that soil hasn't washed away and that ther are no weak points in your fence. Believe me, a crafty fox will find a spot to get through!
A great way to keep predators away is to add bunting or flags to your coop, make a scarecrow and plant mint to use as a natural deterrant for rats.
So, this weekend, get out have a spring clean of your coop...or perhaps even start building one!
In the next raising chicken blog post we'll be giving you tips of how to keep your girls happy little hens.
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