Single hen

[Minnie&Moose]

Currently we have 4 chickens and 2 eglus in an area enclosed with electrified netting. All girls sleep together in 1 eglu and all lay in the other eglu! Originally I intended to remove the 2nd eglu once the intros were complete but because of squabbles over nest box access perhaps I should switch to a cube to ease the situation (they refuse to lay in the 'sleeping' eglu even though they always pile into that one to sleep!)? However, and here's where I'd like some advice - the eglu the girls sleep in has a run + converter. We keep the electric fence on all night but shut the girls into their eglu run over night - so that we don't have to get up at the crack of dawn to let them out (Also, I know we have foxes - 1 left me a particularly lovely present beside the fence energiser this morning . If we had a cube plus the standard run do you think this would be enough space for 4 hens? If I put an extension on the cube they'd all be able to launch themselves over the netting so I don't want to do this. They wouldn't normally need to stay in the run for very long but I do like the security of knowing that if there's a disaster with the electric fence I have a secure, temporary alternative for them.

 

Thanks.

[Plum]

I have 3 in a cube but the still argue over the nestbox. However, with only a few chickens you could take one set of roosting bars out to put another nest box in. Fussy women.

I think if they are out in electrified area they'll be fine in the basic cube run as a holding area - lucky chickens.

 

Yours seem happy with their arrangements with the two eglus. Why not leave them?

[Minnie&Moose]

Yours seem happy with their arrangements with the two eglus. Why not leave them?

 

they keep squabbling over the nest box in the 'laying' eglu and whoever's last in the queue ends up laying outside - even when there's a second empty nest box So, I'd wondered whether having 2 nest boxes side by side might reduce the squawking