I am not seasoned by any means. Do you free range? I wasn't sure from the picture if you were talking about an additional run or or the screened area on the front of the house. My chickens are now confined to the back third of the yard. We purchased a coop, which has hardware cloth over all the open areas. I think you need to have the areas where they sleep completely secure.

Alexis, we are building a coop too. I'm excited about getting it finished. I have 5 day old chicks right now. They are so cute. A couple have managed to jump out of their beginner brooder. We just bought a stock tank and I am about to move them over. I had to break the news to Tom--they are staying in the extra bedroom until we move them outdoors. Hopefully that will motivate him to finish the coop in a hurry.

Here's what we did on our last coop. Because I'm over-the-top protective, we wrapped the lower part of the pen in the smaller "hole" hardware cloth. I read something about raccoons putting their paws/claws in and taking chunks out of chickens. Hopefully the chickens would avoid that by moving, but I don't know. Do raccoons even come out during the day? The upper portion is wrapped in the "bigger" opening hardware cloth as is the top. It also has a metal roof on it, but it's at a slight slant to let the rain drain off. The coop's windows and ventilation are covered in the smaller opening hardware cloth. In hot weather, I don't close the windows, so the hardware cloth is necessary.

In my mind, the predators to worry about in the daytime are hawks and dogs. So, their pen needs to protect against those. And then at night, out comes the other critters, so their indoor coop needs to be like a fort. I am worried about the shed we are repurposing into a coop. It's nice because it has electricity, a new shingled roof, and a concrete slab, BUT mice and a snake have managed to get indoors. However, we are taking down the walls and rebuilding them as there are gaps...and some mildew too. My brother-in-law is an architect and he has given us some suggestions to make it resistant to getting wet...and to prevent unwanted animals from coming in.

I want it to be cute as well as functional and safe.

Congratulations on your new coop!

Yes, Amy I was referring to using the larger fencing for the front "run" that's part of the design linked above. The actual roost area/ boxes are enclosed on all sides with wood except the top which I would use the 1/2" hardware cloth for, so the girls would be safe at night. Ill probably price it both ways, but after building my chicken tractor coop with hardware cloth i already know its going to be painfully expensive to use 100% hardware cloth. But probably worth it. If the entire coop has it, the girls can roost inside or in the run and i dont have to close the chicken door at night. It may be worth it just for that convenience. And I don't free-range per se considering I have a chicken-murdering dog lol but I rotate the dogs in and the chickens out a few times a day when I'm out with them.

HJ, aren't new chicks fun?! By the time they are ready to go outside, it is definitely a relief. Cleaning the brooder gets really old lol but they are adorable. I used a stock tank too. After raising multiple batches of chicks now, (thanks to the 2017 bulldog-chicken massacre) I'm ready for some eggs and no more babies for a while lol I bet your new coop made from the shed will be so cute! I want to see pictures for sure. What kind of bedding did you use before?

So, did you decide to use 1/2" hardware cloth all around? It would be nice to have the convenience of not having to shut the coop door, so that the hens could take themselves to the pens without your assistance.

About bedding...I've always used pine shavings. I like the way they smell. In the pen area, I really don't use anything. It's just dirt. It's a little messy in really rainy times, but not too bad because of the roof. And, honestly, it doesn't smell too bad except on the rainiest of days. In the upstairs coop area, I just throw down some pine shavings and sweep them out once a week or so. Their nesting boxes have nothing. I spent a ridiculous amount of money for "roll-away" nesting boxes. They are plastic and easy to clean.

When the dogs are indoors, I put the hens in the dog yard to "free range". During the winter months, they can range the entire property. Once the garden is planted, they can't. Someday, we'll fence the garden too.

I have 2 chickens waiting for me as soon as I can get a chicken tractor built. I just need them to till my garden and hopefully scratch the bind weed to death. And some careless weed. I plan on moving them every day or two depending on how big the tractor is. I have seen some awesome plans but I definitely need it to be heavy enough my 2 hunters can't tip it over.

Reading through this thread reminded me of what happened to our chickens in more than one "learn it the hard way" experience. We had two chicken houses... one for winter that gave more weather protection, and another that we called the summer house. It had three sides of chicken netting... corrugated metal roof on a concrete slab. It was basically a pole barn like structure, so DH built a ceiling of chicken netting to keep predators out. Since it was not very big and he was tall, he put the roost too high up. The nest boxes were homemade from sawmill lumber and fastened to the wall. The hens would fly up onto the top of the nest boxes and then hop up onto the roost, which put their heads too close to the overhead netting. We lost one hen to a raccoon reaching through the wire.

If you happen to live near a lake or know that you may have mink or weasels about, be very careful of any little opening they can squeeze through. I was told that the males kill for sport... have no way of knowing for sure if we were visited by a male, but I do know it was mink because I shot one and trapped the next. We had broilers within 2 weeks of butchering for the freezer... we picked up 46 dead birds the first time. Only one had a bite taken out of it.. the rest had a single bite to the back of neck. The second time this happened, one managed to get into my hen house . A few escaped that time. I was able to set a live trap, which perfectly fit their little outside door. I placed the trap inside the chicken house and put a large rock on top. The place where he had squeezed in the night before had been fixed. No bait was needed... he just wanted back in.

If you compost, using pine shavings for bedding and the floors would make a good brown ingredient... and it comes with manure. : Good luck with your chicks. They are fun to keep when all goes well.

I'm going to put this out there, for what it's worth. My chickens are now contained, but they spent last summer in my garden and no one got sick. My notes from the Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens say wait 120 days for root crops and 90 days for crops that don't touch the ground to avoid salmonella. Since you're selling to the public, it might be something to think about. The chickens dug up every flower in my flower beds. Even the four o'clock from last year has not come back. The bindweed has come back. The bermuda has come back. They ignore Johnson grass.

I always thought, if I was going to clear an area using animals, I would first pen goats there, then pigs, who are supposed to "root out" the roots, and maybe finish up with chickens. Someone who raises goats or pigs might tell me I'm crazy.

Mil, that's heartbreaking. So far we haven't lost a chicken, but I know one little oversight can result in death and disaster. Our neighbors have lost a few hens to a possum.

Amy, I didn't think about salmonella. My peppers are now planted where the coop sat last summer. But, that spot sat bare for months before we built a raised bed on it.

Kim, our "tractor coop" is on the large side. It requires a truck to pull it. The chickens do a great job digging out the grass. Some of their pine bedding falls into the pen area. The pine, along with the poop, should make a nice area for planting. This spot is sitting in half shade. When the new coop is finished, I'll probably build another raised bed there.

So...what to do with the old coop? Bunnies? I really can't take care of one more thing right now. But I want bunnies.

Amy, we bought 12 acres of what was left when Table Rock Lake went in on the White River, West of Branson, MO. The last person to live there died in 1946... we bought from my parents who had acquired it in 1965 from his son. My folks only wanted a camping spot on the lake. So the majority of the property had lain idle for about 40 years, as I am sure the elderly man had not been keeping it in use as his age increased. It was nothing but trees, vines, brambles, and brush. The lane in had stayed clear enough to drive in... probably due to people using it to get down to the lake. Brush scraped both sides of the truck... I am talking pickup or jeep country here. LOL It was months before we discovered what all was hidden in there. Nearest neighbor was 2 miles away... I'm talking about nearest full time neighbor.. lot owners came and went back to civilization.

We found a goat dairyman in Northern Arkansas who was giving away unwanted kids. We intended to take 4... came home with 8 because the fella was pushing to get rid of them and said "half of them will die". We raised 7.. one bloated during the night and we found it dead the next morning. (Milk replacers are not the best way to go) While they were little we built an electric fence around the area we wanted to clear first. They ate the vines, brush and cedar leaves off 7 feet high. (We kept one neutered male who could stand on his hind legs and reach limbs 7 feet high...he pulled them down and the girls helped him eat anything they could chew. Once we could actually walk in there to work, we moved the goats over to another section. We cleared underbrush, vines, and unwanted trees... some were scrubby and others just not desirable. Kept mostly, ash, maple, red oak, some hickory, persimmon, mulberry, dogwood, redbud, and various others. Found two ancient pear trees. After we had all that under control, we changed to sheep to keep the pasture grass down. Never had an urge to have pigs... saw too much damage from wild hogs to want to endure that. We chose to clear by hand rather then use heavy equipment. Hilly land is too prone to erosion.... needed to keep the native grasses to prevent that.

The real treasure we found was an old Ice House that we could repurpose for use as a root cellar. Walls were 24 inches thick (actually two walls with rock rubble in between)... roof had fallen in, but once restored it would hold summer warmth to keep canned goods from freezing all winter. By that time it was very cool in there and that would hold until fall, when the whole process started over again. It had a date of 1898 traced in the interior plaster. We let Virginia Creeper cover it and that probably helped keep it cool in summer.

Whee, I have made myself tired just thinking about all that we did... good thing it was 35 years ago. LOL

H/J, I want bunny poop, but DH says if I'm not willing to eat them we're not doing it. My next project will be worms.

Millie, I admire your fortitude. I couldn't have done what you did, even 35 years ago.

Millie, Wow! That's such a cool story. Thanks for sharing!

Amy, worms are a great idea. I want to do that too! lol

Amy, I doubt that it was fortitude... just took it one day at a time. DH was having migraines and I knew it was the frustration of his work situation. The problem went away once away from the stress. No doubt he worked twice as hard, but it was doing what he wanted to do. We were fortunate to have a retirement that allowed us to do that... barely.

Another bit of luck, at the time. Back then there were a lot of people in MO who raised rabbits for meat. Pel-freez (not sure about spelling, but was pronounced pelfree) in Rogers, Arkansas processed rabbit meat... sort of like the chicken industry. Anyway, we had neighbors who had 400 producing does in four houses. They complained that they lifted 2 tons of rabbit feed per week and scooped out 4 tons of poop. LOL They trusted us to not destroy the bottoms of their dung pits by digging too deep... (they had very fine ground limestone sand hard packed in the bottom that allowed excess moisture to drain away). We could get all we wanted to scoop out and haul away. Rabbit poo is the very best manure because their feed is mostly alfalfa and they were not allowed to use antibiotics in the rabbits intended for food. No weed seed and it did not burn like many other manures. DH would use his Troy Built tiller with the hiller/furrower attachment to throw open a deep trench... fill it with poo... tell again and then we would plant our sweet corn directly into that mix of soil and fresh rabbit poo.

None of this happened overnight as it sounds when recounted here. Remember, we were just doing what we wanted to do... did not mean to imply that anyone else should do the same. Actually, we had talked about homesteading in Alaska for years when we got disgusted with the politics of whatever life we were living at the time. I suspect we were lucky not to have had the opportunity to try that one. LOL Have you ever heard of allowing your Blue Jay mouth to overload your canary behind? It might have proved to be a Blue Jay ambition. You all have a good day.. think I have probably said way too much. LOL Take care. Millie

Loved reading your thread, ladies!

Love reading all these threads especially the experience ones. It's how I learn what I might want to do. I study what works for others and what doesn't. I have one bunny. She makes enough fertilizer for my flower beds. The chickens actually will be in areas that wouldn't be planted until next spring. After they vacate I will cover in plastic. No more hoping for help. My help is going to be black plastic : )

Luvncannin, it will all work out, especially if you can stir that chicken poo in this fall. Soil organisms will take care of the rest. I have read that some of the E-coli problems has been distorted by folks doing the cya thing. If you claim that it is from wild pigs and not that you used pig manure from a corporate pig operation where they are confined to a small area and fed a diet that has a lot of grain, you can make it look like it isn't your fault. That is what I have read really happened. A veterinarian told me that animals who are allowed to range free have little trouble with producing the bad forms of E-coli. He spoke of horses in particular, but I am sure it applies to many animals. We confine them to feed lots and feed all grain to get the marbled fat that people want. Trust those soil organisms to do their job. The problem is mostly direct contact. We were deployed to Germany three times from 1958 through 1968... the only produce we could get was mostly local. They still used human waste... sprayed directly over some crops... seen it... smelled it... yuck. The Veterinary Corp. was our Health Department. They placed packets of powdered chlorine in the Commissary, with instructions for use on any vegetable that was to be eaten without cooking... such as salad makings. Don't remember ever hearing of anyone getting sick. A lot of what we hear on the news has to do with improper handling of food and the effort to cover up. I remember one instance when it was baby applesauce... turned out they were using "wind fall apples". I still don't know how that could have any effect. Sounds bad, but anything canned would have gone through the high heat of the canning process... makes me wonder. I don't think it was the apples, but the handling by humans.

We old folks talk about how in the world we could have ever survived if we believed all that's in the news. Then we ask each other, "do you ever remember hearing or knowing of anything like this happening when we were young"... nope, no one remembers anything like what we hear these days. What was practiced back then had been handed down from one generation to another... think about it, if someone mishandled food and it killed them, there would have been no "passing it down". LOL

I agree 100%
Personally my own food garden area and herb area are treated a little differently. Rabbit manure from my strictly organic fed bunny, Sable is used regularly. However the law is very strict in Tx concerning market gardens. I read the law and made note of the length of time between application and harvest for sale. Since I have over an acre I decided to divide in sections. Each section is divided by driveways. I hope its enough for legalities. No one is probably going to inspect my place but you never know in market world.
The feed lots I have been close to are so nauseating its no wonder the meat is so nasty. I only eat organic grass fed beef from my friends that pasture their cattle west of Dallas. I ran out and had to eat regular beef, I couldnt do it. I fed it to the dogs and apologized to them.

I'd use the hardware cloth everywhere. You'll be amazed at how small of an area a weasel can squeeze through, and it will be a shock to come out to your coop and find a bloodbath occurred when you didn't even think there were weasels anywhere near you. Even with 1/2" hardware cloth, if coons get into your coop or run, they can somehow stick their fingers (claws?) in through 1/2" hardware cloth and pull the feet off your babychicks, killing them all in one night. Been there, done that. Now we have solid wood bottoms and tops on the brooders and use 1/4" hardware cloth for the side walls. Likewise, snakes and rodent can squeeze through 1/2" hardware cloth, but the rats, field mice and snakes, at least, cannot squeeze through 1/4" hardware cloth.

We prefer pine bedding to everything else precisely we can compost it.