Ammonia smell in coop-first time owner

[The_eggwards_family]

Hi there

 

I'm new here! I visited a friend last week and discovered she had an eglu! That was it! I was hooked, so last night we won a lovely red eglu on ebay.........so excited. We cant collect it till the weekend, and I've ordered a couple of gorgeous girls from a local supplier I found on here. Never had chooks before, but we (me, dh and 5 boys) are sooo excited.............have emptied the local library of all chicken related books

 

Nic

[the-real-tinkerbell]

super congrats its the best thing you will ever do

but i will warn you its very addictive i stared with 4 in a little wood coop i now have 5 in a cube and walk in run 1 broody in my eglu classic and a eglu go waiting to be filled lol

im also trying to buy the piece of land that joins on to my house so i can have more lol

 

you have been warned

 

make sure you post some pics when you get your girls we love pics on here

[Tiggy]

welcome to the forum & the joys of chicken keeping, chicken keeping is great fun, you'll learn loads on here, and maybe about a few things not chicken related

[Tutti Frutti]

Welcome and congratulations!!!! And only 2 chooks? I'll put a fiver on it that you come back with three (lots of people recommend three in case 1 dies, then you won't be left with a lone chook - they're flock birds and, if that happened, would get lonely, bless'em!).

 

 

PS Plus it'll reddress the gender balance a little more

[The_eggwards_family]

Welcome and congratulations!!!! And only 2 chooks? I'll put a fiver on it that you come back with three (lots of people recommend three in case 1 dies, then you won't be left with a lone chook - they're flock birds and, if that happened, would get lonely, bless'em!).

 

 

PS Plus it'll reddress the gender balance a little more

 

I like the way you think! Not sure I can convince DH to have 3...............are 3 ok in an eglu?

[the-real-tinkerbell]

3 are perfect in a eglu ,most places wil recomend you have 3 so you dont end up with a lonely hen if the worst happened

[Jules.]

Yay a

My first eglu was red

I'm trying to up the gender balance too, there's female me, & 3 male humans & 2 male cats in our household

 

Welcome to the forum

[Bertrum]

3 are perfect in a eglu

 

If you have the run extension or let them free range most of the time that is. With the standard run the advice is usually to only have 2.

[The_eggwards_family]

3 are perfect in a eglu

 

If you have the run extension or let them free range most of the time that is. With the standard run the advice is usually to only have 2.

 

Ah thanks for that. We only have the standard run, and although they probably will be let out to fr, having not done it yet Im not sure how often/if/when/how well it will go, as far as toddlers, neighbours, cats etc go so we are probably safer sticking to just 2.

 

How easy is it to introduce a 3rd one later on? Are they likely to s"Ooops, word censored!" with a new girl on her own?

[Jules.]

It's better to introduce 2 hens to 2 existing ones- strength in numbers for the newbies. That's what I did with ny secong lot of hens.

BTW I had an extension on my run with 4 hens & it was ok for them. they did FR alot, though.

[ISCA]

How easy is it to introduce a 3rd one later on? Are they likely to s"Ooops, word censored!" with a new girl on her own?

Yes they often resent a new addition and will fight/ peck, hence another reason to get 3 BUT I also feel that the standard Eglu run is too small for 3 hens (to be honest I think it's too small for 2, but thats my personal opinion!).

 

Godd luck with them.