We have some aged hens, which are kept all together with younger ones, and also some juveniles that are not ready yet to go in with adults. We also need to make decisions about which hens to put with which rooster for breeding season in early spring. So, we needed more pens, mostly for short-term occupancy (not over the entire winter, like these).
The Project
We inherited an old shed which, in the six years we’ve lived at Storybook Farm has been (by turns) a grain and tractor storage shed (its original purpose), a tack room and one-stall barn for my first horse here, sheep stalls during breeding season when new mamas needed warmth and quiet, a general-purpose chicken coop for a small laying flock, and now it’s to become the nursery/observation poultry barn.
In the right picture, you can see it before we started work this week. The vertical divisions were what the original builders used to store grains and seeds. They had boards that slid down through grooves such that they divided this space into three (or fewer, larger) bins, each about 4′ x 4′. (Both sides of the aisle had these dividers.) When we turned this shed into a general purpose coop for layers, we created the windows (using old storm windows found in a different barn) by removing the exterior and interior siding. Then we had one perch high up, and their food and water there, but otherwise, it was just open floor space.
This week, we cleaned out this right side of the overall space entirely, except for the dividing posts. Then, we set to work dividing each bin horizontally, at about 3′ off the ground.
Our goal is to create six pens in this space, each about 16 sq. ft., with a perch, 2 laying boxes, and a modular feeding/water station that traps food debris and uses small feed/water bowls like those we’ve loved in our hoop coops.
In the picture at the right, you can see one bin that is finished into two new pens (bottom and top). Two nesting boxes for each pen are permanently built in (stacked on the right of each space). Feed/water stations are on the left, and are removeable for access to the pen behind. Each pen has a permanent perch built into the rear right corner. The top pens have full windows; bottom ones are cozy and darker, but we installed electric lights.
The Build
In each bin, we started with a clean out of old litter, down to the rubber floor matts we installed over the old wooden subfloor when sheep were housed here. (We figured the old floor would last longer without coming into contact with urine.)
Next, we framed the new shelf using 2 x 3’s and 1/2″ exterior grade plywood, and screws. Then we painted the new shelf with white exterior paint (see picture, left). The coat of paint is intended to help the plywood last longer. Chicken poo is powerful stuff, and though we intend to continue to use deep litter methods, we know that liquids (of all kinds) rot plywood over time. As an added bonus, when the floor shows through the litter, it makes the space brighter.
After paint, we installed needed items working from rear to front. First came the fixed perch. Then the overhead light fixtures: upper pens get a heat lamp; lower pens (which are warmer, especially at night) get simple 100 watt bulbs with metal shields to protect from fire and concentrate light/heat downward.
Next, we built the two stacked nesting boxes.
Beside these, we make a space for modular feed/water stations. These have several fine features.
- They catch wasted feed in a bin that easily slides out so that food can be either disposed of or reused (depending on if it gets wet from the water bowl)
- They employ a wire shield that prevents chickens from scratching and scattering feed, or sitting in the feed/water bowls. As you see in the picture below right, birds of all ages (these are 4-week-olds) can stick their heads through the wires to easily eat and drink.
- They allow us to clearly see the birds as they are eating (giving us a great way to observe their heads, combs, breasts, stances, and eating habits, etc., easily)
- Each night, we quickly and easily empty the bowls and catch bins into a nearby metal trash can and store the bowls in there, too. This gives the rodents less to gnaw on.
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Young pullets eating In winter, the water in these small bowls freezes in a few hours, but they are also easy to dump (iced over water just pops out of the heavy rubber bowls) and refill from a nearby heated bucket cistern. We water three times a day in winters; twice in summers, because with only 2-3 birds on each of these bowls, water doesn’t go very fast in summers.
- Finally, the whole wood-and-wire structure slides out so that we can clean the pen, access a dead bird (God forbid, but it does happen) or change it for a different kind of feeding/watering set-up (like for really young birds who need feeding right in the shavings). In this last case, we have a simple wood framed wire barrier that we put up in the space vacated by the feeding station pictured here.
As for costs, we used up a lot of old 1 x 1 and 1/2″ plywood that we had hanging around in building the nest boxes. We did buy the 2 x 3’s and the 1/2″ plywood horizontal dividers and the poultry netting new. We had some of the hardware cloth, and the feeding station frames are made mostly from old fencing. All it all, it’s been a pretty cheap way to have six new pens for mult-purposes.
Multi-Purpose Pens
So, how are we planning to use these pens? So glad you asked!
First, as winter comes on, we have been wondering which of our older hens are still laying. Ours is a mixed flock. We have collected (and hatched) hens from different breeds over three years as we were figuring out what we really wanted to stick with, so they all lay differing sizes and colors of eggs. (I love having a rainbow egg basket!) For the purpose of tracking laying frequency, the new pens will house 2-3 hens for a week or two. We can easily collect their eggs, and keep track each hen’s current production. As an added bonus, we can worm them easily. This kind of tracking will become more and more important at we get serious about breeding show birds.
Second, we grow birds out in all seasons, and with fall coming on hard, we don’t have enough pens to keep our young juvies in. We like for them to get Vitamin D as soon as possible, and we like to be able to see how they’re developing and if they have any obvious deformities, beginning at about 4 weeks old. The top three new pens are great for this.
Third, we need to establish breeding matings each year. For this, we need to have the ability to closely observe pullets and cockerels for both faults and strengths. The top three pens are ideal for this: there is lots of light, they are
Finally, if we have sick birds that need to be isolated and treated easily, these pens are great for that.