What makes a chicken coop easy to live with?

[Richard and Jo]

We had 4 chooks until the fox came - they all hunch in one corner of the eglu and there is loads of room left. We have a run extension and let them freerange whenever we are home.

I want to replace Amber but feel 2 new chooks would be better than 1. I dont see 5 in the eglu being a problem ( I read a posting about people with 2 eglus but all the chooks go into 1).

Anyone else have 5 in one eglu?

[Guest]

Until quite recently I had 5 in my Mark2 eglu - full size chooks of varying breeds - a huge Bluebelle, a Starlight, Amber Star, Bovans Nera and a White Star. All were quite big girls, apart from the White Star, and if you peeked in at night when they were asleep, there still seemed like there would be room for one more!

 

The only thing is, you have to clean the nest box out every day, as one or more would always end up sleeping in there, and the run definately isn't big enough to keep them in - mine were out in the garden all day, every day.

[Richard and Jo]

Thanks for that. We really want another Amber Star and Gingernut ranger - they seem to be so friendly.

[chocchick]

Ahh lovely, just like mine (2 amber stars 1 gingernut). They are all sweet in their own different way.

[melcotton]

we had a large maran, 2 hybrids and 2 bantams in the mk 2 eglu and there was definitely more room. Cleaning out is definitely more regular though - go and get some more chickens - you know you want to

 

Mel

[Richard and Jo]

Going to get 2 more tomorrow. Our normal guy hasn,t got any because his supplier has gone bust so I am looking for another now. We discussed it a lot on holiday last week.

[ubereglu]

I only get snapped at if I talk about chickens...I talk insecently!

 

How do you spell that?????

[Lesley-Jean]

Do you really talkd incessantly Liz

[Mel (& Paul)]

Our record is 8 chickens in one eglu............ But I would say that I dont think the standard run is big enough for more than 2 or possibly three chooks all the time.

We now have three eglus and 10 chickens, but they have a very large pen for when we are not about and a large section of the garden (Hey, who needs grass............) for free ranging in when we're about

[Aunty e]

I normally have three fat hybrids, an araucana (bit smaller), a silkie (smaller again) and two pekins (tiny) in my eglu and there's tons of room. You do end up with someone sleeping in the nesting box, but I've never found it a bother to pull out the dirty straw in the morning and stuff it in my compost bin. I have an extension to the run, and my chooks go out for a lot of time, but I go away and leave them for a couple of days and they manage fine. I won't be getting any more though!