Chickens anyone? Finally set up my hen house, and I'm bringing

>>2347113
That is cool

>>2347113

Chickens should be inside at night in a well secured room with plates 50 cm down the soil to keep out foxes

Let them roam free during the day

>>2347113
Why are the water containers suspended?

>>2347164
Having them suspended means that the chickens can still stick their head in but it's less likely anything else gets in there. If they're on the ground, they're more likely to get straw/feathers/poop in them and also in the case of food containers having them suspended makes it harder for rats to get at it.

>>2347113
Get the one with the quiff near the back-right.

If foxes are even slightly a problem, you'll want to ensure chickens are cooped up. Nothing worse than finding feathers everywhere in the morning, trust me.

I imagine they also develop a routine so I would set a fixed time to close their coop, rather than just whenever you go to bed. When it gets dark, they tend to go inside anyway so it's not like they'll really appreciate the extra freedom.

In terms of bonding, I would just try and do stuff in the garden near them. Take a book out and read or whatever. Find some juicy snacks (worms) and hand feed them if you're comfortable. Fastest way to a chicken's heart is its stomach.

Chicken Stories
>Cockeral (creatively named Cocky) broke his leg so we put him in a confined henhouse in the front garden
>Rest of hens have mostly free reign of the back garden with a henhouse at night
>That night, fox visits and tries to get under the henhouse fence
>Cocky hears distressed hens, breaks out of his henhouse, flies over the wall and attacks the fox
>fox barking wakes us up
>we see Cocky perched ontop of the henhouse while appreciative hens cluster below him
>no sign of fox

>Another fox attack, this time no Cocky to protect them
>No hens left
>feathers everywhere
>Everyone's very sad but then
>Gentle cooing from a nearby tree
>Hen (creatively called Grey Hen) is perched at the top
>She was the lone survivor

Chickens are great but foxes are the worst. After that last incident, we stopped keeping chickens. It didn't seem fair given that the foxes were so committed and plentiful.

>>2347211
>you'll want to ensure chickens are cooped up. Nothing worse than finding feathers everywhere in the morning, trust me.
This. Foxes are smart and vicious bastards and will stop at nothing to wipe your entire flock out. Considering he's getting bantams even a reasonably large cat could be a problem.

I have a few short stories from my agriculture teacher dad. It's a good thing he turns up to work early in the morning.
>After years of dealing with foxes, the main chicken cage is built to be pretty damn sturdy
>thick concrete base
>2m high chicken wire fence
>roofed off so even if the foxes climb the fence they still can't get in
>just one small problem
>15cm by 10cm hole about a metre and a half off the ground so that you can reach the lock through the gate
>fox manages to leap through the hole, wipe out the entire flock and then leave the same way he got in
>now there's a metal flap covering it

>Had some bantams entered in the local agricultural show
>Don't get the chooks back to school until late evening and dad can't be bothered to put them away so he leaves them in their small transport cages (about 30cm cubed for a couple of birds) with some food and water intending to put them back in the morning
>comes back the next morning to a bunch of headless chickens
>cages have bars over the front that is just large enough for the chickens to fit their heads through
>overnight a fox came along and bit their heads off when they poked their heads out through the bars to try and see what was happening.

not chickens related, but I've got 2 pet ducks, if I wanted to make a little hen house in my yard for them to live in would that be a bad idea? Should I take a different approach? Right now they're living in my grandpa's hen house with his chickens and they're doing good, they're even laying quite a bit of eggs, but I'd still like them to have a personal space for themselves