Greetings! I’m new here!
I just got notice from the city that a chicken license (one of 10 for a town of 15,000 people) came up and I’m first on the waiting list! So exciting! Please excuse the excited tangents.
We had chickens when I was 8-14, so I have a rough idea of the care involved, and am not overly concerned about the long-term maintenance. Since that was like 20+ years ago, however, I’ve been doing a lot of looking, just to brush up. Ultimately tho they have been kept for most of human history so I’m sure I can manage. :)
However, my experience, and most resources, are for larger flocks than I’m allowed, as well as more… comfortable climates… so I’m here to ask some questions and learn.
This question is about the coop, because the run and access to various things is pretty well handled, but building it right is going to be important. I’d really rather not wake up after a snowstorm to clucksicles.
The location for it is going to be next to the garage, on the northeast side near the back, close to the warehouse behind me, and my house shadow falls there in the morning, garage afternoon, so the coop itself will be blocked from direct sun year round (there’s nowhere I can put it in the sun and be compliant with city regulations). They will have a huge run in full sun, however, and this location, coupled with the warehouse behind my property, is an effective wind block for the direction wind usually comes from.
I live in usda hardiness zone 4 (coldest temp between -20 and -30 f (-28 to -34 c)), and will be choosing a breed with that in mind, but I want to provide them with a really good shelter, too. I don’t want to use a heat source, so I’ll be insulating it quite heavily, but since I’ll be hatching them myself and interacting with them heavily, I’m not opposed to bringing them into the basement if the weather is looking really bad.
So my question given that I can have up to 6 (so I’ll have 6) and it gets really cold sometimes is this: should I build a full size coop I can walk in, so that if it’s amazingly cold they can comfortably exist inside for however long they want? Or should I build a smaller elevated coop with space under it for them to use, so they have a smaller space to warm up with body heat? Can they be trained to use doggy doors?
My parents had chickens. Maybe 10 or so.
They just had a shed basically and they could walk into it from a door.
There was a panel they used to let them into the yard. The yard was contained completely with chicken wire, sunk into the ground maybe a foot.
They knew to go inside at night, but a doggie door won’t keep out raccoons and other predators. You’ll need to let them out during the day, have a dog around, and put them in at night.
Oh yeah no the entire run is going to be fenced in, I live in town and that’s a requirement. I’m going to have the run tall enough that I can exist in it with them comfortably, but they won’t be able to go anywhere and raccoons aren’t a concern.
My property only qualifies for this due to being next to a commercial use property, so I don’t have residential neighbors on one side and behind, meaning I conform to the distance-to-neighbor-dwelling rule. It’s all very strict.
The doggy door is for air insulation purposes, install two of those in a small tunnel and you have an airlock of sorts. Not perfect, sure, but helpful for drafts until it needs to be locked down.
Chickens are pretty dumb I wouldn’t expect them to understand a doggie door.