What makes a chicken coop easy to live with?

[Alfred]

I have recently moved house and no longer have much garden. I have managed to get an allotment and am allowed to keep my chickens there on condition that the coop is raised off the ground. They have previously had problems with rats at the site and want cats to be able to get underneath.

 

I have a standard eglu and can't work out how I will raise it off the ground and still fit it onto the run. I thought about digging a hole under it and propping it up on bricks?

Or another alternative was to sink some fencing into the ground so that hopefully rats would not be able to tunnel under it. Will be quite difficult to do though.

 

I read a post once on here that mentioned putting a paving slab under the eglu to stop rats tunnelling. Was this effective?

 

Has anyone else had problems with rats or have any ideas about how to arrange things?

 

Thanks!

[Egluntyne]

Why not put it on paving slabs?

[Olly]

I think it's pretty much impossible to raise the Eglu unless you raise the run as well, and digging a hole underneath it sounds like an invitation to rats, to me!

 

If you put the Eglu on paving slabs, then nothing will be able to tunnel under it, and that sounds like the best solution to me. You might need to explain to the allotment people that the Eglu is different to wooden coops, and once it's on the slabs there will be nowhere for rats to hide. Good luck with it, quite a few people keep chickens on their allotments I believe.

[Jools]

Any rats will still tunnel underneath the paving slabs though, just as they would under anything not raised off the ground. Do they insist on sheds and compost heaps being raised off the ground too? Rats are just as likely to hide there. I'm not suggesting that raising houses off the ground isn't a good idea, in fact all of mine are. Rats are attracted by food (not chickens), so they'll be after any spilt food or feeders not taken in at night.

 

Just one other word of caution - eglus are valuable and portable. Allotments are not the most secure of places.

[sjp]

Speaking as an allotment chairman that’s reasonable for rat control on our allotments it’s odds on that if your site has rats then they’re in the compost bins and under the sheds

We’ve got the under a least 2 sheds and 3 compost bins as well as at least 3 places in the bank that runs down the side of the site I’ve put down just over 6kg of rat bait since early Augus

[Redwing]

Hazel on here has (or at least had last time I heard) got an Eglu and run that has been screwed down to some pallets that have casters on - you could consider the same sort of arrangement, some sturdy boarding with lots of legs would do it too, dont raise it up too much or it will become top heavy

 

If you screwed the run down and put some bolts with large washers on through the drainage holes and through the wood it would also make the whole thing less portable and would protect it from at least the opportunist thief

 

The other option would be to sell the Eglu and get less desireable housing already on legs - I rent a field and the chicken houses there are all wooden

[Alfred]

Thanks for all the advice. The paving slab idea will be by far the easiest, as I want to move the eglu around fairly often. I don't really want to get rid of my eglu - it suits the chicks and it's easy to clean and move.

 

My allotment is quite open and not close to any bushes or buildings - I was hoping that any rats might prefer to hang around the compost heaps and sheds instead.

 

With the paving slabs do you put them just under the eglu or under the run as well?

 

Has anyone actually had rats living under their eglu?

[Christian]

I have my eglus and runs on top of slabs. We had no problems with rats until horses moved into the field next door. Within a couple of weeks, rats were tunneling under the mesh skirt and into the run.

 

Slabbed have been down for a year or so and work really well. I fill both runs with aubiose to give the hens something to scratch around in when I can't let them free range.

 

Putting down a bait box would be a responsible thing to do. I leave the bait box out all year, just in case.

[Egluntyne]

I do the same as Christian.

 

If ever I notice attempts to tunnel under the slabs, I flush the tunnels out with a water, and then fill the holes in.

 

Bringing the food in at night makes the biggest difference, but that isn't an option on an Allotment.