So funny! My sister literally was just gifted baby chicks a couple days ago, unexpectedly. She's been looking at chicken coops nonstop since and instantly sent this video over to her once I saw it pop up in my feed. Thank you for being so thorough with the coop tour!
I also have chickens and their two things that I would recommend this is my second flock that you feed the baby chickens scrambled eggs it is good protein for them and it will teach them to eat out of your hand the second thing that and they will be very friendly and you can pet them and touch them and they will fly to you and land on your shoulder. Also mealworm treats are such a great way to get them to come if you want them to get back in their Coop you shake the bag they also love to eat it out of your hand and as they get older I don't use the eggs as much but the meal worms and then of course with the corn the scratch and I also give them fresh vegetable scraps and blueberries and strawberries good luck with your chicks
Growing up my next-door neighbors had 4 buff orpingtons in their yard, and they were awesome. They would run to the fence to say hi to me when I got off the school bus and I even became the neighbor's "chicken sitter" and would go sit in the coop with the girls and cuddle them! I can't wait to have my own chickens in a beautiful little coup like this one :)
Your golden chicken really loves you. I spotted her looking at you from time to time when the other chickens are looking elsewhere. She is studying your facial expressions. Very sweet girl.
We are currently building a coop/run from mostly reclaimed wood our neighbor threw away after a remodel. It is definitely more challenging to “make it work” but also rewarding. My husband is a master repurposer, lol. We have enjoyed some very useful and beautiful “silk purses” in our 40 years of marriage. I’m grateful! Thanks for the tour.
It is a much much more involved process when nothing is straight and flat to begin with haha. It is indeed a significantly more rewarding end product though.
9:00.... 30 year carpenter here. The direction if your diagonal doesn't matter that much. You're right that the other way is proper, and might matter a bit more with a larger or heavier door. It does what it needs to in this case.
I am so impressed with you and your girlfriend. I applaud you both for doing all of the research before building the chicken coop and which type of chickens you were adopting. There is so much detail and care into having your own chickens and what they need. Your detailed information was amazing 🤩
We live in SD County as well, Santa Ysabel. My family is building our own coop, we just got our first chickens a couple weeks ago (Wellsprings). Thank you for your info and detail, helps a lot!
I agree with all of your security features against raccoons. We've had them invade our coops several times, and they kill everything they can catch, and will return for the carcasses later. One even chased a 20lb. goose back into our barn and killed her in a stall. I set traps, which it evaded, around the carcass, and the dang thing dragged the body over a 6 ft. stall wall to get it out of the barn, if that gives you an idea of their strength and determination. When 3 ducks went missing I found the remains up in the barn loft which doesn't even have a ladder to reach it.
I raised chickens for many years, strictly for eggs and coincidentally for entertainment, pest control and making soils richer. Your thick wood shavings in your coup, with 6 months between changing? To me that would seem like a lot of ammonia build up...I hope you did your research. I love chickens and often get choked up when I see a happy flock...I miss my girls terribly! Keep the great videos coming J!! Thank You!
Its for sure something that we are playing with but the deep litter method seems pretty popular. We stir it up and add fresh shavings on a fairly regular basis.
A coop built on high ground and built up to avoid water not on low swamp land. Makes a big of difference. Love the windows for adjustable ventilation. Great job!
My chickens were great mousers, and rats that snuck in didn't always make it out. My Barred Rocks were the best hunters, protectors, hardy, great layers and the friendliest. I love your coop and area. Great Job!
Love this! I've got one of those cheesy pre-made coops - that I attempted to "beef-up" with more hardware cloth. It's still hangin' in there (including my "redneck repairs!") After 8+ years. If I had it to do over again, I'd do something more like this. But I'm loving the flock and sharing the bounty with friends and neighbors ❤ That's all that matters!
It’s awesome. I watch the channel The Chateau Diaries and they have a walled garden with an old orchard on one side (most of the older fruit trees that don’t bear are getting replaced, but a couple large old ones have been there!). They decided to move their chickens over to that side, add some coops, and fence in some large runs, to keep them from disturbing the veggie garden (and keep the males separate as well). Seems like an orchard is the ideal place for chickens, since they clean up dropped fruit and eat bugs/pests, and provide constant soil fertilizer!
Chickens and orchards absolutely go hand in hand the synergies just make so much sense. Those French walled gardens are quite the sight, very cool that they have such a deep culture for gardening.
@@crochetingaroundnewzealand I don’t know that they have a whole video just on it. It’s probably in one of the regular vlogs; they built a small new coop and put the fencing in the orchard this year. Their chickens were previously on the opposite side of their walled garden, in part of an outbuilding (some of the chickens might still be using that space? Unsure).
Wonderfully detailed and instructional video! There's nothing better than someone explaining their decision processes, including lessons learned. Thank you for this!!
Great coop! Thanks for the tour. FYI, I use shade cloth over the top of the run. It doesn't require as much infrastructure up top to secure it. It has kept everything out, especially wild birds, which can spread disease (rare, but it can happen). As an added bonus, my cats love to lounge on the shade cloth. It's like a big hammock for them, and it keeps them on the job - they are great mousers! Finally, I'm in Albuquerque so the shade cloth does a great job of keeping their run cooler in the worst of the summer heat.
Nice video. Maybe the first one I've watched from you. I've seen you on Kevin's channel a bunch of times. Lol to the door brace. Yeah, I think we've all done that. A tip if you're interested in the chicken water bucket. I run drip irrigation to all my beds, and I live in the desert so the beds get watered several times a day from the timer. I once had my single water bucket fail due to it breaking off the rope it was on. Luckily I was home and heard the chicks squawking. It's often 110F here in the summer so that's not going to end well if I was at work all day. What I did was to install two buckets (I use the water nipples that screw into the bottom). My buckets are food grade dark black...(no light gets through so no algae grows in them). I also have swamp cooler floats installed in the buckets, and those floats are connected to my nearest raised beds via cheap 1/4" drip tube. Every time the beds get watered, the buckets get filled until the float turns them off. Long story long, I haven't had to manually add water in almost two years! Two buckets gives me peace of mind that if one fails, it's highly unlikely the other will before I can repair the first. I'm also a hermit. Have a good one brother! Nice coop, and I appreciate your nice mellow way of narrating and giving information. Any plans for some free range rabbits to go in that awesome chicken food forest? I'm thinking about trying them out in my system. Have a good one!
Rigging up an autofill sounds nice, especially once we get into the summer that would be a great idea! No plans for rabbits as we are already pretty loaded in pets now haha
Hello from North SD County. You have inspired me to create a chicken orchard and to improve the coop (to include predator proofing with more hardware cloth, proper use of reclaimed wood, and relocating the passion fruit). Thank you for sharing your chicken experience! 🐓 🌱 🏠
I've got a coop made out of old decking too. Great job on the apron! For your nesting box lid, attach a loop of string to the inside of the nesting box lid and when the lid is open, loop the string on a hook or something on the coop wall, I do that for mine.
I love that you reused as much as possible. And great tip about the carabiners. I will be getting chickens this Spring and we have lots of Racoons so I appreciate the security tips.
I like your idea about the metal mesh on the ground. I was going to do that but I heard of another idea and it’s to put flat patio block I think they are 6 inch by 12 inches can’t remember. But you put them up close to the fence and they won’t dig because they usually try to dig close the fence and it works great never had a problem. Just a tip that’s all. Great video by the way. 👍
I absolutely enjoyed this video & hated to see it come to an end. You & Katrina are applauded on doing such an amazing job on the chicken coop. I've always wanted chickens & have been so intimidated. I love y'all Coop & run. My dream is still alive & may one day be able to have my chickens too. Also thanks for being such an engaging teacher.
First of your videos to me. You are a great teacher! I really appreciate your view of finishing the wood. That somehow has gone by the wayside nowadays.
Thanks for the tour. I've really enjoyed your videos on your channel and on Epic Gardening. Looking forward to seeing more from you. I love the names your chickens.
hey Jacques, dont think we didnt notice the Star Wars font you used in this video 😂 Lovely video, especially the passionfruit comment, thats something I never heard before, now Im even more excited to have my own chickens in the future!
I love chickens!! Had Rhode Island Reds years ago and will be building a coop in the next year (most likely). Thanks so much for all the great information!❤✌
Charming and secure coop. You can get J clips to fasten pieces of hardware cloth together. Amazon and local feed stores have them. You see them used on rabbit hutches a lot. I got rat proof hanging feeders that close with the weight of a rat or mouse on them (along with a hardware cloth enclosed run). They are pricey and a pain to clean out. But, rats can jump 3 feet, so hanging feeders up a foot off the ground won't help much. Treadle feeders won't work for me because of fire ants.
Thank you for the rec on the J clips, I hadn't heard of those before! I am honestly surprised at myself for not looking up potential existing solutions. I've seen those feeders before, if we can't solve the problem through hardware cloth I will look into those!
I like a lot how informative your videos are. However, I would recommend you to keep the same smiley and spontaneous personality that you show with Kevin =) Personally, I feel a lot more attracted to channels that make me have a fun time while I learn, not only learn. Keep it up =)
Jacques what a cool coop! Good work, that looks pretty stellar, and I loved the reclaimed wood. One tiny tip is on that wooden gate, if you put the crossbar the other way, connecting the other two corners, it'll be 10x stronger. Still looks great though!
Haha this killed us because we had thought that through a bunch and then when we went to staple the backing on we entirely forgot to consider orientation, real facepalm moment.
You showed up in my feed, I liked what I watched, so subscribed! You did a wonderful job building that coop and the extra sitting/ extra chicken run. All pleasing to the eye & functional, great!
I love the video its a great help. I am building one with some fence posts i removed from a job. I have been using a mobile cart but we are transitioning to a permanant coop/run, so thanks for sharing!
If you get a crimping tool and some crimps you can secure the hardware cloth or steel mesh (as we call it here in Australia) together, looks neat too and is cheap. 👍
@@jacquesinthegarden I bought one in a local Bunnings Store here in Australia to build an instant birdcage I needed to store a tame cockatoo for a short while, worked great!
In my experience, if there is a top bar or beam on a fence the chickens will jump up to it and be over it, even larger breeds, even if the fence is very high. If there is not a bar or beam or board along the top of the fence, if it's just wire, most chickens can't seem to figure out that the fence in their way even has a top to get over. It doesn't seem to be the height of the fence at all, but what they can see or not see at the top of the fence. I currently have a rooster "confined" behind a two foot tall fence during the day. He roosts higher than that. (This doesn't count for Sumatras, which I believe have a death wish, fly well, and won't stay in a fence if they can find any way out of it.)
Did you ever have problems with your pets and the chickens? I would love to have chickens someday but I have three dogs who can be quite tenacious…the clip of your dog just chilling with them through the fence is amazing
We always kept them separated with a barrier but also would hold the chickens up to the dogs and show them they are fine. We made the decision at the start to just always have a fence in place and leave it at that and so we have had no issues.
Great video.. just remember chickens need sunshine too for egg laying. I have string strung in my backyard with reflector tape on it to keep hawks away. It works great. I keep a boom box playing during the day to keep other things away. I have 5 girls.
You did a great job on your coop! I live in San Diego, too. The raccoons and coyotes are relentless. I lost one hen a couple days ago. I thought the chicken tunnel I made was strong enough to deter raccoons. Now I’m a little worried about using only a carabiner to lock my nesting boxes. I’m going to check on Amazon to see if there is a better lock that is raccoon proof. Will let you know if I find one.
@@jacquesinthegarden Thank you for responding. I ended up ordering some carabiners to use with my hasp and latch. The carabiners have a screw that makes them harder to open. Happy New Year! 🎊 🎉🎶
Love the video! Want to warn you of 2 things though. Those auto doors are great but raccons can figure them out. I lost a whole flock to raccones in one night cause of the auto door that I had (I even took a few extra steps to make it more safe). So while they are nice for the convenience I wouldn't recommend them. Also I've had my chickens jump a 5 ft fence just to freak out that they where on the wrong side of the fence. It didn't happen to often but at least once every 2 months I had to go chasing one of them down to get back in the yard and I had cut their wings as well...
chickens like to roost at the highest level they can get to it looks like the back roost are lower so that might be the reason the all sleep on the same roost but they do like to huddle together for protection
Nice farming ❤❤❤. I saw your solar motion light at the side 😀 . Do you use the solar lighting system inside the coop ?we specialize in those lights ❤❤❤
We should be able to get at least 6 total with plenty of space if they only have access to that enclosed run but with the new orchard area we could definitely get away with even more.
I know this video is a year old but do you ever find the hens jump up on top of the other run part or the house, or hop the fences you have? Or do you clip their wings?
Just fyi. Don’t hang the bucket by it’s handle. It won’t take long for the handle to break. I put mine on a clay pot turned upside down. Worked great for me.
It for sure is worth just keeping them entirely separate, that is one reason we did the rabbit fencing on the outside fence, it has tighter spacing near the bottom.
