Rural Gardening: How Do I Feed My Chicks in This Contraption??, 0 by Daylahmnas

Daylahmnas wrote:
We live next to a chicken farmer and when we had many problem with our chickens in their yard, coop and condo he asked us a few questions.

Are there too many in a small space? are they fighting each other? and is there enough stuff in there to satify their curiosity?
Are they too hot?
Are they too cold?
Is there a way for them to get shade or to get warm?
Do they have enough food and water to last the day even if it just sits there?


The last thing he said is this....

Chickens are like 3 year old children....but they will never learn more vocabulary that a one year old. So as adults we have to look at our kids and wonder what is not making them happy cause a happy three year old will stay where we put them. What is motivating them to get outside of their coop when we want them inside? Two thing must be there for motivation....a reason I am unsettled and I am seeing something that will make me happy for a minute. This is why big chicken producers keep their chickens in the dark..they can't see anything to fight about. Chickens are descedants of the dinosaurs ans their atural tendancy is to fight...fight their way out of something..fight each other... they basically look for reasons to fight. If they are happy and occupied ad their curiosity is nurtured they wont try to escape.

He was nice about it but he did't answer any of our real questions. We built a larger coop for them and kept them separate from the big guys until they were older and of size and then all of them now co-exist with each other. the first two weeks of introducing them to each other was like gang wars though. They dont make new friends easily. I think that your problem might be due to space. If you have only two in each side of that tractor there would be eough room. We try to make sure that we have four square feet of space for each chicken and we have 70. thats 280 sq ft of room they have in the back yard except when they are housed for the night. They voluntarily go into two ten by ten structures that have many roosts, cross beams and places to sit in the loft of each 'condo'. They seems to be satisfied and dont try to get out of their coop anymore. When we have chicks we divide the coop so the new ones can have the right floor space ad we let them grow until they are of size. When they are little they like huddleing together so providing them overnight shelter is easy with a child sized outdoor dollhouse. We also feed all with freshly mowed grass ad leavings from the gardens cause that is for the most part what they are after when they escape and we provide them with dry sand once a week so they can dust bath themselves when they feel the need. There is also a hole that they have dug themselves uder each coop in order to provide shadeo the hottest days. We would have done that ourselves if we had thought of that...but sometimes the chickens are smartere than we are when it comes to providing their own needs.
LOL.

Hope this helps. Day

Oh, the shiny surface in the background of this coop is mylar in order to refract the heat lamp light durig winter..it helped keep them warm on the coldest days. It was destroyed in a month but during the cold spell it was great...we are now giving them solar heat and water retentive heat with large barrels of salt water in their coops painted black to help keep them warm. They will also have electricity and of course the baby monitor to help us recognise the predators. We have recently gotten geese to help with the predators and it has helped a lot even though the geese are only a month old.