Eglu Cube Coop For Sale

[Joolz1965]

Help, we have a Classic with 3 metre run - my three chooks were out free ranging in the garden and sadly Mr fox paid a visit and sadly two of the chooks are now no longer - this was about 10.00am and is too traumatic to go into however my dilemma is what to do about my sole remaining chook Holly. We are now terrified of letting her out so she is in the run pretty much 24/7 although we manged to let her out yesterday for an hour or so when we were working in the garden but she is pretty much alone and in solitary confinement at the moment. She has not laid an egg since the incident about two weeks ago and although it was pretty horrific for her - she had a bite in her back she seems to have recovered pretty well. My dilemma is - although i love keeping chooks I am not sure if there is enough room in the classic even with extended run to keep more than a couple of chickens locked up all the time. I would love to buy maybe another one but Holly out the the three hens we had was the most bonkers and got herself into all sorts of problems with her antisocial behaviour so i am not sure if i could go through the trauma of having to go through introductions etc and integrating a new hen in with her, my other option is to just keep her on her own and see how it goes which is i think cruel as she is alone or I have a friend who keep hens who may want to rehome her but as she is not laying then would probably not want her. Does anyone have any suggestions??

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Sorry to hear about your fox attack and your poor girls .

 

It's probably not fair keeping your remaining girl on her own long-term but if she is really antisocial it might be best if your friend can take her (if she has lots of laying hens, surely one non-layer wouldn't be noticed and she probably wouldn't be so antisocial being the new girl in an established flock ). That way, you can start again without the potential trauma of introductions.

 

I used to have 3 girls in an eglu 3m run but they did have freerange time each day. Could you get some Omlet netting (which can be electrified) to allow them time out of the run and give you peace of mind?

[Olly]

Sorry to hear about the fox attack. A classic with an extended run is fine for three hens - it's good if you can let them out for supervised free-ranging, but I kept three in this set-up for the first two years of hen-keeping with no problems, I am at work all day so they only get a few hours in the evening and much less in the winter. Of course we'd all like to free-range them as much as possible, but they really won't suffer if they have to spend more time in the run.

 

I think rehoming or getting two others are your best option - she will be very lonely on her own. Integrating new hens can be tricky but it's not impossible - lots of advice on the FAQs section about how to do it, and there are things you can do like separating the run with garden canes and so on. I hope you can find a solution.

[Joolz1965]

Hi, unfortunately have contacted my friend and she is unwilling/unable to take Holly. Have had a long heart to heart with hubbie and he says that we may have to consider a WIR - which would solve the problem of having more chooks and more space for them to roam even if we are no longer able to let them out. Watch this space at least Holly will not be alone and if we get more than one more hen then hopefully Holly will have her work cut out bullying two or three newbies!!

Maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Fingers crossed. Need to look at WIR's now!

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Result .

[Willow_Warren]

WIR... sounds like the perfect solution