After reading a recent post here at Ranch Ramblins entitled Non-Toxic Fly Control, Duane of Geek Acres asked if I would give a tour of our hen houses.  If I were to choose a time to give such a tour, I probably would have waited until this coming fall, when I am scheduled to make repairs and repaint our out-buildings.  Since Duane asked so politely, I couldn’t refuse his request, however, like a guest who arrives unannounced, I will ask you to kindly overlook the unkempt appearance of the hen houses.

But first, a disclaimer of expertise.  Most farmers in the Ozarks, especially in Arkansas, have forgotten more about poultry and poultry housing than I will ever hope to learn about the subject.  What follows comes mostly from my limited, but enjoyable observations over the past several years.  Having gotten that off my chest, let’s go look at the houses.

Hen house #1 is a free-standing structure that is located beside the loafing shed we maintain for our horses’ shelter.  The hen house is constructed in such a manner as to provide protection from predators and shelter from inclement weather.  The south facing portion of the coop features an outdoor courtyard for the fowl, which is sheathed in chicken wire and hardware cloth.  The walls to the north, east and west provide protection from the prevailing wind in our area.  To keep rain and snow at bay, this coop is built with a simple pitched metal roof, utilizing rafters of sufficient strength to support the snow and ice which accumulates in the winter.

To avoid respiratory problems and heat-stress among the fowl, the coop features adequate cross-ventilation provided by two large openings, which close tightly for protection in the colder months.  In the following photograph, besides the ventilation openings, notice that the coop has been constructed on top of concrete footings, designed to keep predators from burrowing underneath the coop to gain access to their prey.

The following photo shows the screened soffit that the coop utilizes to provide adequate ventilation for the fowl even with the windows tightly shut.  Also notice that the coop has been screened with hardware cloth wherever possible, as thinner chicken wire can be penetrated by many predators. 

There are additional things to consider when the coop is to be located in a cold-climate area, such as the Ozarks.  In the following photo, you can see that the coop (on the far left) is completely enclosed from the northerly weather, and is sheltered by the loafing shed to the south when the breeze blows from that direction.

Even though the coop is sheltered by the loafing shed, it is still equipped with a partial wall separating the courtyard from the house proper, which provides additional winter warmth for the birds.

Even with all these precautions to protect the fowl from the cold, the nesting boxes have been installed along the northern wall by first affixing a sheet of plywood, which creates a dead-air space and provides additional protection from the cold winds of winter.  The poultry feeder has been suspended from the rafters, to help keep mice away from the feed.

This hen house originally was constructed with home-built nesting boxes, but they had deteriorated over time.  Rather than rebuilding them out of the same material, we opted to purchase ready-made metal nesting boxes, which are available at many local farm stores or from Internet merchants.

Both guineas and chickens prefer a perch to sleep on whenever possible, so we have provided them with ample places to do so.  Besides placing perches in all corners of the pen, as shown below, we have also placed an old ladder from our milking barn into the coop.  This has turned out to be the favored perching spot for many of the birds.  Notice that the interior of the coop is bedded with wood chips, which acts as a compost medium for the litter produced by the poultry.

It is important to supply the fowl with perches in the courtyard as well, in order to allow them the opportunity to perch outdoors in fair weather.

Although the coop is built with a full-height entry door in the front, it also contains a mini-door in the rear.  This door serves two purposes. If you free range your fowl during the day while the fowl are young and still in their learning stages, they are sometimes too dumb to go around the coop to find the front door.  By providing an additional door at the rear, you can save yourself a lot of aggravation when trying to herd the flock back into the coop in the evenings (see previous post To Free, Or Not To Free (Range Your Chickens).  The second purpose is to provide an escape route for poultry that might be in the coop during the day, should a predator find it’s way into the hen house.  Without an alternate escape route, these fowl would become trapped inside the coop, and probobly meet their demise.

On to hen house #2, which we have built into our existing equipment barn.  The style of coop is different from the first coop, but the basic principles remain the same; shelter from the prevailing weather, protection from predators, wood chip flooring, insulated nesting boxes, and plenty of perching space.

This hen house was relatively easy to construct, as the major portion of it is comprised of the existing structure of the barn.  We simply added a couple of walls and a door, and after agreeing to abide by the rules of the house and signing the lease, the birds moved right in.

The following photograph shows a different style of nesting box than the boxes contained in hen house #1.  Notice that they are still attached to the northern wall with a sheet of insulating material, to help provide warmth in the winter months.

In concluding this tour, I would like to point out that there are no strict rules to follow in constructing a hen house, just common sense principles that will help ensure the well-being of your poultry.  And there is no one *right* way to accomplish this task.  Use your imagination, and let your own circumstances dictate the design of your coop.

I woke up with the intention of writing a post regarding Independence Day, 2006.  Before doing so, I began scanning the blogs that I regularly read, and came upon this post by Pablo, at Roundrock Journal:

Independence Day

I hope you will click through and read his post, as it states in a very cogent manner feelings that I share and value, but could never state as eloquently as Pablo has.

Have a safe and happy 4th of July!

There are few things that can disrupt the enjoyment of your 4th of July picnic as much as the constant annoyance caused by uninvited guests – namely flies.  Because this holiday weekend is now upon us, I thought it appropriate to outline a few simple measures that can help to alleviate this problem in a safe and sane manner.

First, a little background on our perspective of insecticides (and other toxic compounds).  As we look around at our friends, family and neighbors, we see a distressing occurrence that crops up with an alarming regularity – individuals diagnosed with cancers of various types.  I suppose if we knew why this was occurring then the medical community would have already found ways to prevent such occurrences.  But that is not the case.  One by one, researchers identify compounds that appear to be carcinogenic, and in a piecemeal way, these compounds are either restricted or taken off the market.  But in the meantime, we seem bent on solving many of our problems with the use of toxic chemicals.  Have you got a problem with insects in the house?  Have a pest control company spray the premises every other month.  Are dandelions and crabgrass overtaking your beautiful dichondra lawn?  No problem, Ortho has a host of chemicals that you can spray to control these nuisances.  Tired of having to clean up brush that inevitably grows along your fence lines?  Roundup to the rescue.  Just spray the unwanted growth and it will no longer be a problem.  How about those pesky chiggers and ticks, do they bother you also?  The solution is right on the shelves of your local convenience store.  Saturate your clothes with a magic chemical solution, and then slather your skin with DEET (a chemical that destroys the functioning of an insect’s central nervous system).

When you examine the label of any of these products, do you really know what all those 17 syllable words mean, and what serious long-term studies on their safety have actually been conducted?  It seems to me (based only on gut-feelings, I confess) that we have become so complacent in the use of toxic chemicals and compounds to solve a myriad of common problems, that we don’t even think of the possible consequences of exposure to these items any more.  When was the last time you saw a weekend gardener wearing a haz-mat type suit when spraying or dusting their tomatoes?  Never, I’ll be willing to bet.  And yet, if you carefully read the labels on these products, you will find all kinds of serious warnings, along with application recommendations that go unread or ignored.  Meanwhile, people seem to be dropping left and right from cancers and diseases that we cannot say for certain what is the causation.  It is in this light that I offer a few recommendations for the control of fly populations around the small hobby farm or ranch.

The first recommendation is to manage animal manure.  It is a task that is not the most pleasant to perform, but is necessary in order to control the breeding of flies, and is also vital to the health of your animals.  In the hen house, consider using wood chips on the floor.  By laying a sufficiently deep layer of wood chips, and frequently turning the chips with a rake or shovel,  you are in effect composting the litter, thus depriving flies of their favorite breeding material.   In the following photograph, you can see that we have created a 6″-12″ bed of cedar chips on the floor, which serves as both a compost medium and deodorizer.

In the pastures (and stalls, if utilized) manure must also be dealt with.  Mucking is not a particularly pleasant job, but it must be done on a regular basis.  We do not stall our horses (except in medical emergencies), but the manure in the pasture must be managed for the control of flies.  We have settled on the use of a tine-harrow (also called a field drag or scotch-harrow) to cope with the horse manure in our pastures, as pictured below.

The use of the harrow serves several ends at one time: breaking up and spreading manure, which deprives flies of a breeding medium; fertilizing the pasture with the pulverized manure; and ensuring ground contact for germinating grass seed.

After all the manure management tasks have been accomplished, you may still find that a sizable population of flies exists.  To handle the flies that do manage to exist, despite your best manure management efforts, safe, non-toxic remedies can be utilized.  One method involves the use of our avian friends to help with fly control.  Guineas and chickens love to eat flies, so keeping these fowl in your grounds will help alleviate a fly problem.  Another species that will consume abundant quantities of flies, as well as other flying insects, is the Purple Martin (see previous post).  By placing Martin houses along the perimeter of your pastures, as shown below, you will not only get to enjoy the aerial acrobatics of these wonderful birds, but you will be helping to control fly populations.

For those nasty biting flies that harass you and your horses, you can use a simple, but effective biting-fly trap, as pictured below.

For all other types of flies, a safe disposable fly trap will work wonders.  The type of trap we use consists of a container filled with water which is mixed with a non-toxic scent that attracts flies.  Like the famous “Roach Motel”, flies can check in, but they cannot check out.  Into the trap they fly, only to meet their doom through drowning or by being baked in the heat.  It looks gross, but believe me, they work!  When this trap is filled with flies, simply toss it and hang another.

Using these, as well as other fly control methods that you may already know about, will hopefully lead to a more enjoyable holiday weekend for yourself, your family, and your friends, without those hordes of uninvited guests!