New to chickens - take a look at this coop for me

[pigsinmud]

Have been looking at various coops - in other words I have spent most of yesterday online!
I like the eglu cube, but dh doesn't - he wants a wooden one.
Looked at Forsham Boughton ark and midi dell - both have 28 day wait for delivery and I am impatient.

So what about this one www.pandtpoultry.co.uk/product/categoryid/10/productid/55 not sure this link will work on iPad app....

I am wondering what wood it is made from, you need to check - cheaper wood and it won't last a winter.

I can't remember which way round it is - either red or white wood is best. If it's made in China give it a wide berth.

Otherwise looks ok to me.

Are you ok with it being so hard to move?
What are you planning to stand it on? How many birds are you getting? Are you going to free range them most of the time? It's not a very big run. The wood (not roofing felt) roof is good because mites hide in roofing felt apparently.

Is your dh volunteering to do all the deep cleaning and pest-controlling, since that's harder with wood than plastic?

It will go at the end of the garden - don't have huge garden. We wanted one with a door on the side of the run rather than one end. Dh will make a covered run extension. Can free range when I am there.

We want to get 4 hens. It would be a permanent place so would be standing on grass which will disappear - we'll put down some slabs and some bark chips. Hope that works!

Have emailed them to ask what wood it is made from and where it was made.

If you can recommend a coop that would be great. Dh is happy to get the cube - he just doesn't like the look of it

Tbh I am totally confused. Have read so many negative and positive reviews of so many different coops- plastic vs wood etc...

I think it's important to stand it on solid ground - so slabs are fine, or if not slabs inside then they need to go all round the edges to prevent foxes digging under the wood, iyswim...

We built our run onto an old shed we use for the house, and I dug around the perimeter about a foot down and sank the wire into this before filling it in and slabbing over the top, all round the perimeter.

Never had a fox dig in so far (two years-ish) and they have a nice, dusty, dry earthy floor which sadly has zero foliage but they can use it all year round.

I covered the roof with some scrap corrugated sheets I got from the builders merchant so even when it is snowing or raining, only the wire covered area (round a huge tree) gets muddy.

Hens like dry and dusty - I would free range ours still but plenty got taken by the fox when we used to, so that's why I built the run - it's about 2.5 metres wide (same as shed) and 5 metres long so three chooks have loads of room even if it's a bit boring for them. We had six in there, lost some to illness etc. but you could keep probably 15-20 in such a space.

Oh and also, if it's on plain ground it will rot so put the slabs unde the sides too to protect it from getting damp.

And don't use standard bark chips from garden centres etc as they contain a toxin that will make the birds ill - you can get special ones from somewhere I imagine, I never found any so ours just have dry earth and I never have to clean the run as it self-cleans I think. It all just recycles into dusty ground.

I am quite lazy

Woodchip rather than barkchip. Bark chipping is more prone to fungus which causes breathing problems.

As I understand it, it's healthier to be able to move the run to give the ground a rest - it would be hard to get rid of parasites if they were on the same heavily-used spot all the time. Obviously we don't all have that option and I think that's part of the point of the woodchip - if you can't move the run to somewhere else you can at least shovel the woodchip off and replace it.

I have an Eglu, personally, and if I wanted any more than 4 small chickens I would get a Cube, for the ease of moving and pest-eradication, but I don't have experience of wooden houses and lots of people are perfectly happy with theirs.

I made a woodchip base for my Eglu and run and will be free-ranging my new birds with moveable netting in different parts of the garden. My old ones had the run of the garden at times and were confined to the run at other times and neither situation was ideal - they weren't half as happy stuck in the run as pottering about, but when they had the whole garden there was poo everywhere and especially outside the back door, which is yucky when you have small children to tread in it. It's trial and error what works best for you. I wouldn't rush into it though - better to wait a month for the perfect coop than end up stuck with one you hate.

I'm feeling muddled again. I am keen on plastic as it looks easier to clean. The eglus are so expensive though. Been watching some on eBay and the price rockets- mind you dh said at least we'd get our money back via eBay if we hated it. Are they worth the money?

If I move them around the garden they will destroy all the grass won't they?

I can see what you mean about parasite eradication - but tbh we've not had any (touch wood) as they're not exposed to wild birds at all, I suppose.

Never had red mite, or worms or anything else that I know of unless I'm missing something!

I've had a hen house from that company before. Well made but the sliding floor was a pain. Didn't work very well. Once there was some poo on top of the sawdust there was too much stuff on it. So as I tried to slide the floor out everything got scraped off and landed on the floor under the hen house.

That sounds like fun

I always envied the sliding floors until I read that!

Sliding floors are a pita in my opinion. Maybe if there had been a better clearance it would have been ok. I sold it.

I sold my Forsham ark. I can't remember why, now. I think because of the fox attack and also the pointy roof, the farmer said he didn't like the way they were stuck up in a tight space all the time till you opened the ramp - he said it was more likely they'd get respiratory problems.

I dunno - they seem to have a fragile grip on this mortal coil already. One day they just seem to keel over.

I have an Eglu and I love the easy clean of the plastic. There are other plastic houses I've come across recently. I think they are on a par pricewise with wooden ones.

They are made from recycled plastic. If you google recycled hen house you will find them. The company is called solway recyclying.

That's good going re parasites Ed.
Mine got scaly leg mite which luckily was very easy to treat.

I moved my Eglu round the garden for a year or so, before I made the woodchip base. They spoil the lawn a bit at a time but it recovers quickly enough. Ultimately it ended up in better condition than before, because they'd helpfully fertilised it and pulled up all the moss, but it meant that at any given time about half the lawn was patchy.

Right now I've got it on the lawn with the new chickens in it. I'm giving the fixed base a few months rest before putting it back there; at this time of year the grass recovers fast but it's slower in the winter. And in the depths of winter when there's snow you can't keep moving it, so moving it round a small lawn seems to me to be fine for some of the time but not a permanent solution.

A big garden is Very Hard Work especially when we have had so much rain, and I've been laid up with morning sickness for a few months - it's like the amazon! It scares me tbh - not sure if it will ever be under control again!!

Re Eglu/Cube resale value - yes, they do keep their value much better than wooden coops. Most people wouldn't want to buy a wooden coop second hand in case it has an ineradicable mite problem.

My cube is full of mites. Worst house I've ever had for mites. The plastic surface has lots of little air bubble holes and I think they live in there.

I give up. Dh won't talk to me about chicken coops - bit like when he was obsessed with floor boards

I just don't know what to buy!

I think you should try and find a local-ish stockist and go and have a look.

That's what I did - and I found our Forsham Boughton ex display which was a bit cheaper. And sold it on without losing out too much.

It was very very good - even if I had to jack it in because our chooks were no longer free ranging. I'd buy from them again without hesitation.

Also scats sell chicken runs very similar, that look very solid to me - have you got a scats near you?

Thanks to you all for help. I think we have decided on a cube.

About to order soon....
Is it easy to put together?! Not going to get hens from them as we'll go to a poultry farm nearby - hybrid hens in different colours!

They take a good few hours to build, I think, and it's possible to do it wrong if you're not careful. The Omlet forum probably has lots of advice.
How exciting about the different hens! Which ones are you getting?

I might leave it to dh then. I tend to get to the end of an ikea build and realise I've fitted something the wrong way round.

We're going to go to Golden Valley Poultry and have a look.

I put our cube together on my own, took about an hour. Thought it went well.

2 years later in a big storm the roof blew off. DH said I'd put something on upseide down, not sure what. But that's why I couldn't clip the roof down!

Quite good that it lasted 2 years without roof blowing off!

Got my girls from Golden Valley Poultry. They're lovely there and you can go back and ask lots of questions if you have any problems. Mine are all different hybrids too, although I have ended up with two Black Rocks (due to restocks and increasing from my planned 4 to 6) but they're different enough in markings to tell them apart easily.