Pro - Does anyone else's nest boxes get soaked in rain?

[memphisto]

We've had much too-ing and fro-ing between OH and myself over getting more chickens.....various breeds have been mooted, opinions sought and after considering the risk of Mareks as opposed to not getting any birds at all, we came to a joint decision....

 

2 Pekin Bantam Ladies

 

We're on the hunt now, OH is laying turf this week and then we're ready to go.

 

I'm not really bothered about the colour, although I do like the Millefleur and Lavender colourings, but mainly we want them as decent pets for our littlies.

 

It's just a case of waiting for a few people to get back to me.

 

I have heard they can be noisy though.....good job we have no neighbours where we moved to!!

 

Just a Q though, for the first few weeks, we have the coop with a run underneath and a 10ft metal pen OH fashioned out of 2 5ft pens last year, they won't be able to FR as we have to wait for the rest of the garden to be finished off, is this going to be suitable short term for them? With our last girls they FR all the time only going back in the pens when we were going out, so we've never used them as a proper 'housing' system.

[Adelochick]

Hi Memphisto,

 

I've got pekin bantams, five in a 2x2m omlet WIR, four in eglu with 2m run, and they get to FR under supervision when possible. Planning to get a much bigger run for them all, but from what I've read medium-sized poultry require 1 square metre of run each (so bantams should be ok with slightly less than that being smaller). Obviously the largest run possible would be best for any hens kept in an enclosure, from reading your post I'm not sure if your "coup with run underneath and 10 ft metal run" are joined together, but if you are starting with two pekins I think that this would be a big enough space for them to live happily until your future plans happen.

 

Pekins are just full of character and although I'm still new to chicken keeping, I've not once regretted getting my little flock. They take up quite a lot of time in caring for them, but give me so much joy and pleasure back! Sadly, I've already been afflicted with morehens disease and plan to expand my pekin flock asap. Good luck to you, Jx.