The First Rule of Chicken Coop Design

I read this rule in old poultry books but have never seen it in newer ones:

“A chicken chicken coop needs to be big enough to walk around in, or small enough that you can reach into any part of it from outside.”

Coops that are somewhere in the middle — too small to walk in, too big to reach across — are nothing but trouble. Chickens need good care, and (let’s face it) we give better care when it’s convenient to do so.

In addition, coops that are hard to service usually provide limited visibility. Is that waterer in the back really working? Hard to tell. Is that an egg in the shadows? Everything works better if you can get up close and personal.

Predators and Daily-Move Pens

Keeping predators out of daily-move pasture pens can be difficult, since predators are motivated and can dig their way into the pen. Some things that help:

  • Having a dog close to the pens. I’m told this always works. We haven’t tried it.
  • Electric fence surrounding the area with the chickens. This mostly works. See my Electric Fencing FAQ. Most people think that electric fencing has to be way more elaborate that is really the case.
  • Electric fence wire on the pen itself. Does anyone do this but me? Hammer in a few nail-on fence insulators around the perimeter of the chicken pen, about four inches off the ground, add wire, and attach to the fence charger of your choice — possibly a battery-powered one attached to the pen itself.

These precautions are fairly effective, but sometimes you get a predator who isn’t afraid of an electric fence and wreaks havoc in spite of it. I’ll talk about that in another post.

New, Improved Norton Creek Farm Page

I’ve been shamefully neglecting my Norton Creek Farm Web page. This is the Web page aimed at folks who are interested in buying our farm products, as opposed to raising their own.

So it’s actually up to date for once, and has some good info on it, including where to buy our free-range eggs and pastured broilers. (Hint: The Corvallis Wednesday Farmers’ Market has moved.)

And the page doubles as a dollar-off coupon if you print it out and bring it to the Farmers’ Market.

In other news, Corvallis has rung down the curtain on its free downtown Wi-Fi network, much to my disgust. How am I supposed to keep the kids from each other’s throats without Wi-Fi? I bought all those laptops for a reason! I am looking into alternatives…

Oystershell

One thing that amazes me is how fast hens go through oystershell, even if you’re feeding them a complete ration that theoretically has enough calcium in it. This is probably a good sign, meaning that they are getting some low-calcium nutrition off my pasture and eating less chicken feed.

They had run out of oystershell, and when I took a bucketful out to them today, they fought over it.

That’s the thing about nutrition — it’s hard to tell what the chickens lack. You short them on something, and they’ll be less productive, but you can’t tell by looking.

I recommend providing hens oystershell 24/7, regardless of what else you’re feeding them.

The Three Stages of Feature Development

When I worked at Activision, one of the vice presidents told me that when he suggested a new feature to a game designer, there was a three-state process:

  1. “It’s impossible!”
  2. “It’s too hard.”
  3. “It’s on your desk.”

Note that the process doesn’t have anything to do with getting a commitment out of the game designer. Just plant the seed and occasionally ask if he’s figured out how to do it yet. If the idea is a good one, it will gnaw at the designer, and eventually a solution will appear as if by magic.

That was great management. The designer’s own desire that his product be cool was the only tool required.