Wendy Bedwell-Wilson - Starter Coops: For Your Chickens First Home

Lead Editor: Jennifer Calvert

Senior Editor: Amy Deputato

Senior Editor: Jarelle S. Stein

Art Director: Cindy Kassebaum

Book Project Specialist: Karen Julian

Production Manager: Laurie Panaggio

Production Supervisor: Jessica Jaensch

Production Coordinator: Leah Rosalez

Indexer: Melody Englund

Vice President, Chief Content Officer: June Kikuchi

Vice President, Kennel Club Books: Andrew DePrisco

I-5 Press: Jennifer Calvert, Amy Deputato, Karen Julian, Jarelle S. Stein

Copyright 2012 by I-5 Press

Front Cover Photography: Furtwangl/Flickr

Back Cover Photography: (top) Furtwangl/Flickr, (bottom) Ruthdaniel3444/Flickr

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of I-5 Press, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bedwell-Wilson, Wendy.

Starter coops : for your chickens first home / by Wendy Bedwell-Wilson.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-935484-77-6

eISBN 978-1-620080-34-4

1. Chickens--Housing. I. Title.

SF494.5.B43 2012

636.5--dc23

2012011721

I-5 Press

A Division of I-5 Publishing, LLC

3 Burroughs

Irvine, California 92618

Printed and bound in the United States

18 17 16 15 14 13 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Dedication

Greenhorn chicken keepers, this book is dedicated to you. I hope it helps you create a cozy home-sweet-home for your hens and sets you up for success with your new hobby!

Acknowledgments

This book really exists because of one person: my farmer husband, Ryan. The main man in charge of our livestock and land, he has been my go-to guy for all things chicken. Starter Coops is steeped in his hands-on experience in raising and keeping chickens and building henhouses and chicken coops for them. His love for the hobby has truly inspired this book.

Besides Farmer Ryan, my second go-to resource for chicken keeping is Gail Damerow and her books Storeys Guide to Raising Chickens and The Chicken Health Handbook. These indispensable reference books are packed full of everything you need to know to raise hensand then some.

Id also like to offer a big thanks to our local feed store owners Mike and Stan Jackson from Central Feed and Supply in Sutherlin, Oregon, for their on-the-ground chicken advice, as well as Roger Sipe, editor of Chickens magazine, who planted the seed for this book when he asked me to write a regular column, Coop Corner, in his bimonthly title.

Of course, Starter Coops behind-the-scenes crew deserves a nod too! Special thanks to lead editor Jen Calvert and copy editors Amy Deputato and Jarelle Stein, who turned my manuscript into an easy-to-understand guide for new chicken keepers; editor-in-chief Andrew DePrisco, who believed in the idea; and the production team who made this book a reality.

Finally, Id like to recognize Jerry, Larry, and Lance, our roosters. Those bad-ass chickens kept our ladies clucking and laying safely and happily. Thanks for being such great guardians and alarm clocks, boys!

Contents

Introduction

Welcome to the Henhouse!

T hroughout history, humans have raised chickens for both practical and pleasurable purposes. Families and farmers across the globe kept flocks of birds for eggs, meat, and by-products such as feathers and manure. Extra birds became tradable goods to barter at markets. In short, chickens were a nice commodity to have around.

Ill never forget my first encounter with domesticated chickens. While visiting my familys farm in rural Iowa in the 1970s, my cousins and I were tasked with gathering eggs for breakfast. As a six-year-old California native raised in the Silicon Valley suburbs, I had never gazed upon a live chicken, walked into a henhouse, or reached into a nesting box to harvest freshly laid eggs. But once we stepped foot inside the sprawling chicken coop, I marveled at the little birds scurrying and scratching through the soil for seeds, seemingly unperturbed by the young human interlopers. I watched, fascinated, as the cackling roosters steered their ladies toward wriggling earthworms and bright-green grass shoots. I wondered why in the world they didnt fly away. After we gingerly transferred the still-warm eggs into our woven-willow basket and delivered them to my great aunt, I declared that I, too, would have chickens one day.

Chickens are some of the most rewarding creatures to keep, not just because of the eggs they provide but also for their entertaining personalities.

That day finally came not too long ago. In 2008, my husband and I, relatively inexperienced at the whole farming thing, moved to an 80-acre piece of Pacific Northwest paradise in southern Oregon. Our first order of business: order some fuzzy peeps and raise a chicken coop. It seemed simple at the timebut boy, did we have a lot to learn. First was the matter of housing the baby chicks and keeping them warm and cozy while pinfeathers replaced their downy, dusty fluff. Then, when the birds were mature enough to graduate from the brooder to the newly built henhouse, we discovered (through trial and error) precisely what chickens needed to be happy and healthy as well as to stay safe and secure from resident raccoons, skunks, and coyotes.

Admittedly, the learning curve was steep. But thanks to the helpful feed-store staff, some weathered farmer friends, lots of reading and research, and a few close calls, our entire six-hen-and-one-rooster flock of Rhode Island Reds and Plymouth Barred Rocks survived and thrived through the first season.

Today our flock has grown to twenty-two hens, two roosters, and two Peking ducks. (Heritage breeds are next on our chicken wish list.) Needless to say, weve had to make room for our ever-expanding poultry brood. As weve deepened our knowledge of chicken keeping and poultry housing, weve relocated our chicken yard, made changes to the henhouse configuration, and experimented with nest-box designs. We even have plans to build a chicken tractor so the ladies can fertilize our nutrient-sapped pastureland.

Few things are cuter than a box full of peeps, but these fuzzy little guys will require plenty of attention and effort from you.

While chickens can, of course, provide meat, many keepers feel squeamish about picking off their well-kept flock. Eggs, however, are a natural (and nutritious) by-product of chicken keeping that everyone can appreciate.

Au naturel

Compared with industrial eggs, eggs from hens allowed to feed on pasture contain four times more vitamin D, three times more vitamin E, and seven times more beta-carotene.