Questions about Chickens

[SCinPNW]

I really want to raise chickens. In fact, I have asked our HOA if I could raise chickens. Their first answer was to quote the CCR's to me where it said no "No animals or fowls shall be raised on any lot except for domestic dogs, cats, or indoor birds...." I replied back that I wanted to appeal their original answer and would be happy to formally outline the many examples where the CCR's explicitly say something is not to be allowed, however, exceptions were made.

Anyway, in the hopes of being able to raise chickens I have a question. One of my biggest concerns is the many predators we have here, i.e., bear (I see their foot prints in the dirt in our backyard), racoons, bobcat, coyote, possum, rats, and domestic dogs. Anyway, I am wondering if it makes sense and would even work with the chickens if we had an outside coop for them during the day, but at night we had a place setup for them in the garage. Would that work? Have you ever heard of anyone doing that?

My thing is I don't want to spend a small fortune on a chicken coop just to make it bear proof. Plus, I don't want the chickens so stressed out all of the time because of all the animals hanging around licking their chops trying to figure out how to get a free chicken dinner.

For those of you who have lots of predators and chickens, what do you do? Also, a dog is out for us since my dh is EXTREMELY allergic to them.

Thanks for any ideas or adivce you may have for me.

SC

[Karen]

I have chickens. i don't know anything about bears tho. We do have lots of coyotes, but they haven't been a problem. Our chicken pen and coop is on side of our house. The chickens have access to the coop 24/7, but we make sure they are in the coop and the door is closed at night. Our fencing is regular wooden fence panels. We still haven't finished the back side of the fence line so it's just chicken wire back there. The chickens we have are heavy breeds so they never fly out of the pen. I have seen hawks checking them out, but so far we haven't had any losses. I can add some chicken wire over part of the pen so my chickens can have some protection from the hawks if needed. We have 29 chickens, but most of them will be butchered in the fall. We plan to keep any hens for eggs.
If predators are a problem for you, you can dig down about a foot and bury some metal sheeting around the pen to deter digging. I really don't think there is much you can do about a determined bear tho. Maybe someone else here will have some ideas for you.

[WILL]

You don't want them inside your garage because they make a mess & poop alot. Generally people will have a chicken run, which is a fenced in area for them to get some outdoors leg stretching time. On the end of the run, a pest proof coop is built for sleeping and egg laying. Generally, coops aren’t that big, so building a hardened one shouldn't be a big deal. Unless these bears are tearing into your house to get at your cat's bowl, the same type of building materials used there should suffice IMHO.

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Aint no bear but this is how I handled the neighbors chick stealer today

[SCinPNW]

Thanks for the info Karen and Will. I have been looking at lots of different chicken coop designs online and realize that they need a coop attached to their run/yard area, I just wondered if anyone had ever heard of moving them into a different nighttime coop type setup. It is most likely not a very practical plan. I will keep researching and give my brother a call as he has raised chickens before. Besides, maybe I can talk him into building me a nice coop. ;)

As for the bears tearing into the house, fortunately we do not have that problem. ;) I have not seen a bear this year, only bear prints in the dirt at the edge of our grass. They could very well live in our backyard because after our grass there is a strip of dirt and then some very thick/dense woods behind our house.

Matt, is that a rattlesnake? I cannot tell for sure from the picture. Whatever it is, it looks pretty big. Fortunately, in the part of the state that I live in we do not have any poisonous snakes, however, we do have some decent size garter snakes. I saw one about a week ago, which I like since I know they help with the rodent population.

SC

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Matt, is that a rattlesnake? I cannot tell for sure from the picture. Whatever it is, it looks pretty big. Fortunately, in the part of the state that I live in we do not have any poisonous snakes, however, we do have some decent size garter snakes. I saw one about a week ago, which I like since I know they help with the rodent population.SC

corn snake, the lady who i was helping wished it dead, so i killed it. i dont mind them but she has lost alot of chicks recently to them

[SeldomSeenSlim]

Too bad about the dog as they are the best tool for predator control.

In any case, what Karen said about burying the fence a bit will keep out the vast majority of predators. Around my chicken yard I have 2"x4" wire mesh 5' high around the perimeter. On the bottom I put chicken wire 1' vertical and bent in an L shape with the other 1' buried about 6". Most critters will come up to the fence and start digging there, but won't back up 1' to dig under the edge. Small mesh chicken wire also helps with snakes. They can fit their heads through but get stuck and the mesh hooks their scales so they can't back out. I do the same thing around my dog kennels to help keep out the rattlesnakes.

I wouldn't worry about bears. They'd likely be more interested in your chicken feed than the chickens themselves. Skunks, racoons, fox, bobcats and other small predators are going to be your main enemies. A good fence will keep out most anything. The only predators my chicken yard is prone to are my own hunting dogs. everything else has to go through them. The fence does the trick.

If you really need to you can always hook electric fence tape to the top and bottom of the fence. I've seen this done a lot and nothing will go through that. Though if you have small kids around it might not be viable. This would be an extreme measure if the fence isn't doing the trick and you can't trap a problem animal.

For the coop itself, I'm partial to storage sheds. I have a 8'x8' Tuff Shed brand shed for my coop I bought off of craigslist. In your situation it might be particularly nice because it doesn't look like a chicken coop which would make the HOA happy. Aside from adding in nesting boxes, roosts feeders and water, the only real modifications were installing a door for them to get out into the yard and to cover the floor. I covered mine with linoleum that I then covered with a few inches of sawdust. It makes clean up easy and the sawdust/manure makes for great compost.

Minimum space you need per bird is something like 1.5 sq ft, but that's bare minimum legal for commercial egg production. 3 sq ft of indoor space and an outdoor run makes for happy birds. My outdoor run is 8'x12' making for a total of 160 sq ft. Which is huge for 20 chickens and a turkey.

One other thing to consider when deciding where to put the coop is that chickens and gardens go hand in hand. My chicken run butts up against a garden bed. In the fall I'll open it up and they'll pick through the garden and clean it up as well as fertilize. Then I plant a winter cover crop and in late winter I let them clean that out. Not only is it great for the garden, but it's no work farming. They get fed and provide eggs, garden gets fertilized, weeds are plucked and the only work on my part is opening a gate.

I hope the HOA jack boots let you have a coop. Keeping chickens is great bang for the buck. They don't take up much room or cost much to keep and provide a steady supply of protein rich food.

[SCinPNW]

Wow Slim, that is great info, thank you! I really like the idea of using a shed for the chicken coop. That would be very doable for me to set up since I am still a very notice builder. The entire setup that you have laid out sounds very practical too. I am off to check out shed possibilities.

Thanks again, I appreciate it!
SC

P.S. Someday I hope to move out of this house and into a place with a littlle bit of acreage that does not include an HOA. Then I can really go to town on my homesteading. :)