Beginner’s Guide to Maintain Your Chicken Coop
There are so many things to keep in mind when you’re in the process of building a chicken coop and setting up their living area. But once you’ve got it all set up, maintenance is straightforward and easy. I’ll take you step-by-step to help you figure out what to do and how to approach it.
Where to put the coop?
First thing, you’ve got to figure out if it’s legal for you to have a chicken coop, if it’s only legal in certain areas, or if you even care about local zoning ordinances. Unfortunately, HOAs and ordinances often prohibit people from owning chickens. Aside from the legal aspect, the practical rules are as follows.
Avoid areas where water pools up. Mud and wet bedding breed disease and make the chickens smell even worse than they already do. Chickens don’t like being wet. Look for areas with good drainage, and be cautious of where snow accumulates and melts, especially if you receive a lot of snow.
Again, chickens are smelly, so keep them away from the house. I would recommend at least 20ft. Also, keep it at least that far away from any neighbor’s property that you may have nearby. Chickens are also noisy, so place the coop far enough from your bedroom so they don’t wake you up every morning, and far enough from your neighbors to avoid being a nuisance.
Place your chicken coop and run in a sunny location. Morning and mid-day sun will dry out the area in the morning; chickens prefer a dry environment. And if you can, make sure they have some shade in the afternoon. You can do this with a tree cover or a tall fence. What we did was cover half the run with a tarp. This keeps half the run dry after rain, and they always have shade if they want it.
Finally, we have to account for predators. Where you live will determine your threat level. My brother in law doesn’t have to worry about any predators and has never had a chicken killed. We, on the other hand, live in the country and have to take that into account. Avoid areas where predators are likely to go, such as woodpiles, creek beds, tree lines, and game trails. Ensure there’s no thick cover right next to it. Open sightlines help deter predators. Try to place the coop and run in areas with human activity. We have our coop and run inside our fenced-in backyard, where our dogs run around and relieve themselves. That helps a TON.
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Security
We’ve discussed where to put the coop; now we’ll discuss how to place your coop. Place the opening toward the open yard and where human activity goes on. Bonus points if you can get lighting on it. Even some of those motion-activated lights can help deter nocturnal predators.
Snakes
I recommend placing the coop on legs to elevate it at least a foot and a half above the ground. This will help keep snakes from getting in and eating your eggs. However, snakes are slippery little creatures; you’ve got to check for them when you collect eggs because they can always find a way.
Rats
Ensure there aren’t any small gaps or cracks anywhere for a small rat to enter. They can climb the raised legs, and if there’s even a small 1-inch hole anywhere, they’ll figure out how to get through it.
Dogs/coyotes/foxes
This is where it starts getting more complicated. DON’T use chicken wire for the walls of the run. I know it’s in the name, but that is designed to keep chickens in, not predators out. Use hardware cloth instead. It’s much more durable and robust, and can keep even a large dog out if it’s been appropriately attached. Possibly the most crucial defense is preventing predators from digging under the run wall, or coop wall (if it’s sitting on the ground).
In my opinion, a ground apron is the best choice, as it’s neither labor-intensive nor ineffective. Just lay down more of that hardware cloth on the ground around the run/coop, about 2 feet, and cover it with soil or gravel. The predators will dig right at the edge of the run/coop; they won’t back up 2 feet to dig. If you live somewhere with determined predators, you can instead bury the hardware cloth vertically about 2 feet down and backfill it with soil or gravel. That’s a lot more labor-intensive, but slightly more secure. Spreading gravel can be enough if you don’t expect predators at all, just as a precaution, but it only discourages digging; it doesn’t prevent it.
Birds
You MUST have a roof on your run to protect your flock from hawks. I also recommend hardware cloth for this purpose; cheap garden netting can be torn through by hawks. This is also dependent on where you live, and whether hawks are even a problem. I know many people let their chickens free-range, but it’s still essential for them to have somewhere to retreat to for safety from aerial threats. If you want to free-range, consider letting your chickens out in the late morning, as hawks mostly hunt in the early morning. Roosters help, but don’t prevent strikes.
Food & Water
There are many ways to set up food and water dispensers for chickens, so I’ll focus on our setup and explain why. The size of your flock and personal preference will determine what you choose.
For water, we have a 5-gallon bucket with automatic chicken waterer cups attached close to the base. The bucket is raised a few inches off the ground on a stone. We did it this way because it is straightforward, and we don’t have so many chickens that we need to refill it every day. Usually, I go out every four days, dump the old water out, and refill it. This prevents the water from stagnating for too long, allowing bacteria to grow.
For food, we have large-diameter PVC pipes set up vertically, 3-4 feet tall, with a 60-degree angle at the bottom for the chickens to eat through (something like this). We have that opening at about chest height for the chickens. This setup features a lid that screws on and is watertight, holding a decent amount of food. You can easily add more, depending on the size of your flock and how often you want to refill their food. We have two for our 8 chickens, and that sets our flock up for about 4 days of food. It’s simple, inexpensive, out of the way (attached to a wall), and easy to scale. We have the opening far enough off the ground for small animals not to be able to reach it.
Egg production
This is mainly determined by chicken breed; our leghorns produce about 2 eggs every 3 days. This is significantly better than our other breeds, which produce about one egg every three days. However, there are several factors that can either increase or decrease egg production. Happy chickens make more eggs. Chickens prefer sunlight, dry conditions, a diet rich in protein, and clean nest boxes.
Additionally, they enjoy snacks such as carrot peels and yogurt. The factors that slow egg production include a lack of sunlight in winter (which can be mitigated by using a low-watt LED), stress from predators, and overcrowding. Heat can also slow egg production. Generally, above 85°F, they enter survival mode, and egg production takes a back seat. Peak egg production occurs between 6 and 18 months old and gradually slows down each year. Parasites bother them, but are almost entirely taken care of if they have access to dirt to take dust baths. Recently, our Leghorns underwent their molting phase for two months. During that time, they lost and regrew many feathers, and egg production completely stopped.
Daily Care
We have it set up so there’s nothing we have to do every day. Water and food are refilled every 4 days, and the coop door is automatic. But every day, I’ll just take a look at them out there just to see how they’re acting. If they start acting differently, I know something is up.
Quarterly Care
Just about every 3 months (or less sometimes), we’ll open the coop and change all the bedding and “clean” it out. We don’t wash anything; we just replace the bedding, scrape out the poop, and clean up any spider webs.
Summer & Winter Care
You’ve gotta make sure your chickens aren’t too cold in the winter and don’t overheat in the summer. When winter comes around, we’ll close their windows most of the way so there isn’t a breeze and layer their bedding thicker for insulation. There are several ways to prevent water from freezing. Heated water base or bucket, a 5-gallon bucket inside a 7-gallon bucket with insulation, etc. Lots of ways. Luckily, chickens’ feathers are insulating, so that’s all we have to do in the Texas winters.
Summers are the issue here. We open the windows, so they have as much breeze as possible inside the coop. Ensure they have plenty of shade and water. Drinking water is how they regulate body temperature, so they’ll drink significantly more in the summer than in the winter. The run features a tarp on top for shade, but its sides are open. This is designed to help with airflow. Heat is more dangerous than cold, so watch for the signs that your chickens are overheating. Open mouth panting, holding their wings out, wobbling, or lethargy are all signs that you need to cool them down.
Personal challenges & highlights
It hasn’t been easy getting to where we are; we have to account for some determined predators. Also, neither of us grew up on a farm, so we had to learn everything from scratch. We’ve had 2 chickens die from predators, 2 run off, and one died from egg binding. It’s sad every time. But we have 8 chickens that, although they aren’t “pets”, are a part of the family. It feels like I am a part of the earth when I collect eggs and cook them up. Taking my daughter to see the chickens and watching her reaction has been worth it all.
What would I do differently?
The only thing I would change, apart from making it more secure from predators early on, is choosing to buy the coop instead of building it. My husband was able to build a large coop, as we wanted, but it didn’t save a lot of money, and it was a lot of work. Given our busy schedule, it would have been worth the extra expense to avoid all that effort and time.