What makes a chicken coop easy to live with?

[angeluk69]

Hi guys and gals, just thought I would upload a pic of my little house ready for its guests which will arrive on Wednesday...

 

 

I am planning on extending the run to the left and forwards as at the moment I have to clear the rest of the patch ready for my veggies. I am soooooooo excited!!!!!

 

(apologies for the size, nt quite got to grips with uploading)

[Jules.]

It looks lovely & I like the veggies plan- just keep your girlies away from them!

 

I notice from your signature that you have a Basset Hound, do you have any tips to help us to get our Lily to sleep through the night? She is 7 months old & we love her lots but are really tired with getting up at 4.30 to let her out!

[angeluk69]

We haven't had many problems trying to get Chester (who is 3 and a half now) to go thru the night. He uses the dog flap, is only allowed in part of the house at night. Why time of day are you feeding her? When is she getting her last walk of the day? I had to rehome my other Basset as he and Chester kept clashing but didn't have any problems with him in the morning, he was a 'midnight howler' lol.

 

As you have probably been told a thousand times, they are stubborn and creatures of habit. The hardest thing is breaking the habit. Let me know how you get on.

 

Thanks for the comment re the henhouse...is it a definite no-no to have the chooks around veggies?

[Jules.]

Its only a definite no no with regards to chooks & veggies if you want to have veggies left to eat yourself Hens will decimate lovely young veggies in a flash as they are to hens !

As long as you keep the hens & plants separate then you will have no problems though. We use netting to keep our hens away from our veggies.

 

Thank you for the hound advice. Lily is crated at night in the kitchen. She goes to bed around 11.30 with no problem but sometimes starts whining not long after she has gone to bed, & at that point she doesn't usually want to go out when we go down to see her. Its not every night that she wakes up around 4.30am, & she is an early riser at about 6am, when she goes out & will go back to sleep but not in her crate, so one of us needs to stay downstairs with her. That's quite hard for us to get used to yet. At least she doesn't howl yet

 

Her evening walks are a bit haphazard, sometimes yes she has one, sometimes no. She always gets a long walk around 9am after our youngest child has been taken to school. She plays in the park with her bff a 6 month old Beagle boy, & then she's zonked out for a while in her crate. We use that time to go shopping or do any out-of-house jobs which need doing.

As for her last meal it is 7pm at the latest. She doesn't really drink lots in the evening, but may drink about 10pm if she's awake. Do you think we are letting her feed & drink too late?

 

Sorry for hijacking your thread

[angeluk69]

Hey don't worry about hijacking it, love talking hounds too

 

Is she left out of the crate during the day, and its only used as a bed at night? My first thought is that she could be bored of the crate. I only had mine in crates for the first 5ish months (basically once they had been castrated and healed they were out of the crate), then they moved onto a bed, or in typical hound style, the sofa. I'm a complete softie and do allow Chester onto the sofa, but like I say, they are stubborn and if they want a seat on the sofa there is no stopping them.

[Jules.]

She is only crated when we go out, usually in the morning & for no longer than 2 1/2 hours, usually shorter than that. The rest of the time she's on the sofa too She's there fast asleep next to me now. When we leave her during the day she has her Kong toy to keep her occupied which we stuff with peanut butter, but we know that all she does is sleep when we are out as we've filmed her just to make sure she is being quiet & not annoying the neighbours. We take her with us if we go out in the afternoon when we can.

 

She is a good dog really, loves people & all animals except for dogs which are much taller than her, & Jack Russells We're just hping that she'll grow out of the night waking. BTW she used to be able to fit through the cat flap once upon a time which was very funny. How big is your dog flap ?

[angeluk69]

Hmmm, may just be something she grows out of. The dog flap I've got is a safewell one, I think it's the largest one they do...I'll see if I can find my tape measure and sort that out for you.

she must be a November baby too like Chester at a guess

Does she mind the chickens?

[Jules.]

Lily's birthday was 5th October, so she's nearly got the same birthday as Chester. She's fine with the chickens at first in the garden then she wants to herd them up & they don't like that. I have a WIR & Omlet netting to keep my chooks off of the grass, they can free range around the run & behind the shed when Lily is in the garden & they just ignore her.

 

Is the dog flap secure against burglars?

[LottyJ1]

Fab house - you must be excited! What chooks you getting?