Monday, April 16, 2012

Chicken enclosure designs - be creative

“Jason I love your set up. Do you think you could do a post where you take pics of your garden again, especially your chicken run and the house? I'm looking for ideas for my own place the girls roaming free is starting to get a bit wearisome! Thank you.” - Mrs Bok - The Bok Flock


I know what you mean Mrs Bok when you say you are getting wearisome. The idea of having them roaming free is very romantic. However all romance quickly died for us when they just stood on the back step wanting to come in the house as if they were a cat or dog. The difference being cats and dogs don’t shit where they stand. I still don’t know why they were so keen to come indoors.


Our first enclosure was a rectangular fenced area, that I think was 2 x 4 meters (8 square meters) in size. I however felt quite mean keeping them trapped in such a small space. When I first put them in there the grass was long and they seemed to be quite happy and content pecking around, but what I learnt was that chickens will soon strip a small area bare in no time. Once there was nothing to peck and scratch their behaviour seemed a little neurotic and  the number of escape attempts increased. I also read that the small area would become a breeding ground for parasites and other nasties.


The hen house I made from old wooden pallets. It was fairly simple to make by leaning two pallets together and filling all the gaps with boards from others. The girls do use it, but I question whether they like being perched so close to the ground, and I would be reluctant to have more than 4 in it. So even though it looks cute, I don’t know if I recommend it.


Thanks to Linda Woodrow we were inspired to use a chook dome that despite being smaller in size is actually larger in area as it can be moved around the garden giving the chickens access to new and fresh ground. I have found the chook dome to have many advantages over the other enclosure. The biggest being that you get to use your egg layers as gardeners. Nothing beats their ability to prepare an area for planting.


The second biggest benefit of the chook tractor in my opinion is that you don’t need to do that dirty job of cleaning out the hen house. Their poo drops straight to the ground and as part of their daily scratching around it gets worked into the soil, fertilising it. If I had a second mandala garden I would have nothing but the dome and move the chickens onto the second set of beds for 6 months out of the 12. As we don’t have enough space for two mandalas we needed somewhere else to keep them during the off months.


What we did, was to utilise the area around the perimeter of the garden creating a thin but very long chicken run. Hopefully you make out the chickens and the fence in the background of the above photo.

What is amazing about this design is it's like Doctor Who’s tardis. From the outside it appears to not take up very much room at all, but from the inside it is surprising roomy. In length it's about 25 meters and averages 1 meter in width, that’s 25 square meters compared to 8 square meters of our first enclosure. But let me ask you... which looks to take up the most space in the garden?


This illusion of space is well known in the interior design domain. Look at the three equal sized rooms above. Which one has the most furniture in it (blue area)? The answer is at the end of this post.

Being long and thin the girls seem to really enjoy, they actually get to experience running. 25 meters is quite a distance for those little legs, and I love watching them do it at feeding time. The race is on to see who can get their first. Alas poor Gerty is always last.


What I love most though, is that you can barely notice the enclosure and it feels like the chickens are roaming freely. Whenever Melanie and I work in the garden the girls follow us around and are ever only a few meters from us.  While I am working I talk to them and throw them any weeds or bugs I find. It is just like they were ranging freely, just without the hassles.


The fence can be even more concealed and integrated into the garden by growing climbing plants over it. This also hides the ugly galvanised fence behind.

One possible example (not mine)

Once you let go of the old fashioned rectangular chicken enclosure way of thinking your mind is open to be creative. There is no need to stop at just having it running around the garden perimeter like ours. You could have it running in any array of different designs. Let your mind be free from constraint, and so will your chickens.

I hope that helps Mrs Bok.

Answer: A - it has 1/3 more. Did you guess right?

14 comments:

  1. Fantastic designs, great that you can still move them through each enclosure to alleviate boredom and turning the ground sour. I especially love the 'non poop cleaning' options ;) Take care, Yollie

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    1. It's a real pleasure moving the girls, they seem so happy and excited when we do. With the first design the ground did go sour and it stank.

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  2. Thanks for the eye-opening insight. We are thinking about these things at the moment because the free-range things is getting tiresome for me too - they have decimated the back garden - they have even dug up my flower bulbs! I want them to be happy, but sheesh!

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    1. You are welcome it is always a pleasure to help. With a bit of creativity you should be able to come up with a design that keeps the chickens happy, the garden happy, and you happy. Let my know what you come up with.

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  3. G'day Jason,

    I am surprised your Hen House is so close to your back step. I am not surprised they live close to your back door. Our pen is as far away as possible, requiring something of a walk and actually discourages them from spending too much time on our back veranda. There is plenty to eat without pecking on our full length windows. Plus our girls have found that wonderful spot behind the greenhouse that has choice weeds and plenty of harliequin bugs. Also I have found a unique way to get them back near their own home; fresh corn off the cob. Brings them running from all directions. Ok, they ruin your garden, and we are developing methods to defeat them (more on that in my own blog soon). But with plenty of eggs, manure and the best poo soup in the world, they can be forgiven. But we do protect seedlings and the greenhouse is a godsend.
    Just enjoy them. They give as much as they take.

    Regards,
    Steve

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  4. TERRIFIC! Thanks so much for posting! I'd love a mandala in my garden. One day we will get there. I love the idea of the chook dome too although I'd have to take them into the hen house each night, the local fox still prowls our yard regularly. Even though our henhouse is on the far side of the garden...they love running to the backdoor and hanging about on the deck hoping we'll come out. CHICKENS!

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    1. p.s. Yup I'm going to give the chicken moat a go! All the way around the perimeter is such a great idea!

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    2. I am please to hear your are going to give it a go. Being a simple fence it is really easy to make modifications. A gate is also easy to make, see here.

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  5. Great post Jason and I spotted your lovely garden on the permaculture day website. I hope you get lots of interest.

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    1. A friend suggested I should do it and it had instant appeal, as you may well know I do enjoy talking about the garden :) It will be interesting to see how many people attend.

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  6. Hi Jason, firstly, thank you for your comment re my whitefly infestation (on VeggieGobbler's Blog).

    Can I ask, how do you transport your chooks from their usual pen to the dome? Are they tame enough that you just pick them up and relocate them? My (3) chooks run a mile when I try to pick them up, I suppose I should have handled them more when they were younger, though they are only about 4 months old just now. I'm usually not home through the day so there aren't many opportunities to handle them and tame them more.

    Any hints?

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    1. Our chooks are fairly tame. Most of the time they squat down and let you pick them up. That said, Henny Penny did give me a good run for my money the other day. We have also found it possible to move our girls into the dome without picking them up, so my tip would be:

      Skip feeding them breakfast and let them get nice and hungry. Using a cup of their feed, you should be able to lurer them anywhere you want them to go. You may find the lower ranking chickens falling behind but if you keep the door open they will eventually follow the leader in. Just keep up the supply of food to the leader otherwise they will try and escape.

      The dome appears to be an attractive enclosure for our girls. Each time they are made to go in it is filled with lush fresh food. So it doesn't take a lot of effort to get them in.

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  7. Thanks so much for taking the time to respond. I'll give 'starving' them a go! But maybe I need to organise myself a 'dome' first. :)

    No matter what, my chooks give me so much pleasure, just watching their antics. They are real time-wasters. I could watch them all day (if I were here!).

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    1. It's my pleasure. If you can get a couple of people to help you the dome is quite easy to make. I assume you have read my building a chook tractor post?

      Our dome is currently very close to our outdoor living area and we love sitting out there with our cup of tea just watching.

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