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As of Tuesday, we now have 2 lohmann brown chickens :) We confimed then to their house for the first 24 hours to imprint home, and then started opening the pop hole. They are happily scratching around the run as I write this :)

Their food is now in a covered area at tha far end of their run, but i'm unsure if I should be moving this into their house for the night. Do they need access to food/water during this time?

I have water in both the open and in the house. I have a feeder in the house (keeps it away from rats), but also give the birds a scattering of feed outside in the afternoon. Just enough to fill their crops but not leave any for rats or birds (and the pen is netted anyway).

They also free range in the afternoons (no eggs, no play!) when I'm around. There are too many predators to let them free range all the time - had a kestrel try to take an eight-week old hen yesterday even though I was out there with them at the time.

Congratulations, Jon! I've read that hens don't need food or drink at night, but like Stoney I keep mine in the henhouse to prevent vermin from helping themselves (and widdling on it). Can you post any pics of your chooks?

Well done Jon! Most instantly rewarding bit of SS you'll ever do (apart from possibly overdoing courgettes).

Rats will inevitably be a problem if you don't Take Steps. My own solution to this problem is a henhouse up on stilts (nowhere to hide under). The feeder is out all the time but hangs on a wire above ratty reach, and since I'd gone to the trouble of making a hanging arm I put the drinker on it as well so it should theoretically freeze less often. I don't feed them in the house, and although they get snacks from time to time I never do this less that two hours before dusk, to be sure it's all hoovered up.

If your precautions are inadequate you'll get away with it for a while until Ratty happens along and finds the food/shelter source - usually in autumn/early winter. They breed fast, so take action at the first sign of rattiness!

I think I'll put it in the house overnight to avoid the rat issue - there's plenty of room.

No pics yet, but i'll post some as soona s I get round to it :)

It's quite odd - I'm not sure how they're meant to act, so I analyse everything they do trying to work out if it's normal! They've been hiding in their nest box part of the house for a large chunk of the morning, and not sure if they are hiding from the cats, considering laying an egg (should be a couple of weeks yet though), or just having a sit down!

Hedgie:

If your henhouse is on stilts, how do you let the chickens go in without letting the rats in?

I've got pet ratties, and they'll climb anything given half a chance (and the promise of food...) so i don't get how its rat and hensafe!

the.fee.fairy wrote:Hedgie:

If your henhouse is on stilts, how do you let the chickens go in without letting the rats in?

I've got pet ratties, and they'll climb anything given half a chance (and the promise of food...) so i don't get how its rat and hensafe!

Drop the sliding hatch at night and then drop the plank. Nail cut and flattened cans on the underside of the floor above the stilts. Nail more flattened cans along the weather strip that the door closes against.

That's a 1950s henhouse BTW, but on new foundations and stilts, with new steps and a new row of nestboxes around the back. I've put guttering along the back and started putting up a water tank, next is the guttering at the front and a hosepipe to the water trough.

i see i see.

So the rats aren't likely to try to get in during the day then?

the.fee.fairy wrote:i see i see.

So the rats aren't likely to try to get in during the day then?

Not so far - just after dusk and just before dawn is when they're most actve. That's when I'm out with the air rifle.

The worst problem with the rats on our place is not with the chickens or livestock feed (which is in metal or hard plastic bins), but with the damage they do to stone walls. They happily eat their way through lime mortar and can cause sections stonework to fall apart overnight.

Cement mortar is not a good idea as it doesn't breathe and is too strong for the old stonework, so it's constant repairs with ground glass mixed into the mortar.

Our rats seem to thrive on the various baits we've tried so far and they're getting too clever for traps, so all that's left is filling in runs as we find them, cutting their food supply and shooting them. Head shots out to 20 feet or so are fairly effective, although some of the bigger rats stagger under the impact, shake it off and run for cover!

Stoney, would you care to explain the cut and flattened can thing? I haven't had to defend against rat attack in the new house yet, but coming into the winter just not having food around may not be enough. I'm hoping that they'll ignore the house because it's high enough up to provide no cover and there's never any food in there.

This is how the chooks get in and out - I drop the hatch at night but so far haven't bothered taking down the ladder.

i'd quite like to know about the can thing too, i have an aviary on stilts.

I know how you feel bot the rats and the bait. As much as i love my pet ratties, those wild things ar so ugly!!

We put the hose down one run and left it over night so that it was well and truly flooded. Apparently this not only kills any babies/rats too small/frail to run, but it stops them coming back to that particular run because they see it as dangerous. We've only got the garden to defend, but it seems to have worked so far.

hedgewizard wrote:Stoney, would you care to explain the cut and flattened can thing? I haven't had to defend against rat attack in the new house yet, but coming into the winter just not having food around may not be enough. I'm hoping that they'll ignore the house because it's high enough up to provide no cover and there's never any food in there.

This is how the chooks get in and out - I drop the hatch at night but so far haven't bothered taking down the ladder.

Cut both ends out of a can (dog food, cat food, chopped tomatoes, baked beans, brewing kits), then use a pair of tin snips to cut the side of the can from top to bottom.

Slightlly unroll the can, then lay it on a piece of heavy wood and bash it flat with a heavy hammer. That gives you a rectangle of steel.

Nail these to the bottom of your chicken hut or wherever you need to reinforce it. Flattened cans can be used for lots of other purposes as well.

aah, so its like metal sheeting type stuff. I was envisioning the cans as nasty spikes ready to get the rats if they tried to break in...

the.fee.fairy wrote:aah, so its like metal sheeting type stuff. I was envisioning the cans as nasty spikes ready to get the rats if they tried to break in...

Yes, you can do that too. Take the flattened can, an old chisel and a hammer, then with the flattened metal lying on piece of wood chop a zig zag line along the centre. You want fairly steep and long triangles with not too much space between the points.

When you've finished, you'll have two pieces of metal with serrated edges. Curl these into semicircles and nail like an inverted crown around the stilts (points down).

This is not so much for rats as stoats and weasels.

The house is on skids, and maybe high enough to stop rats living under it. I'm going to move it frequently too, so hopefully that will help stop them.

How often would you expect the chickens to be outside? They come out for an hour or so and have some food/drink in the morning when I open the pop-hole, but then spend most of the rest of the day stood in the nesting box area at the back of the house. I expected them to be out for most of the day, so this is concerning me a bit, although I'm probably worrying about nothing as they could come out if they wanetd to.

I was hoping to get soem pics to post today, but want them to come out for the photo's ;)