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Breeding pen size & construction

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Beth C:
Last year I had all of my blacks in a large run, and when I ran into the odd color popping up, I didn\'t know which hen it came from, so, after reading your various tracking systems, I\'ve decided to put pairs & trios in individual pens this year. I\'m sure this has been ask before but I couldn\'t seem to find it: what size breeding pen would I need to accommodate up to 3 birds (LF)?

And any words of wisdom on materials, construction, things to avoid, etc. will be greatly appreciated. My ideas always look good on paper, but once I have them together I quickly find out what I should have done differently. Well, maybe not so quickly. I put everything together with screws instead of nails, because it\'s generally takes at least 3 tries to get it right... ;)

faith valley:
We only do bantams now, but did have largefowl for several years.  My husband designed a breeding pen that was wonderful for the largefowl; luckily it was adaptable for the bantams so we could just tweek it when we got out of the large birds.

We would house 4 largefowl in this pen or several bantams.

http://faithvalleywaterfowl.com/chicken_tractor.html

Patty

John:

--- Quote ---what size breeding pen
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For LF I would start with a minimum of 2 square feet per bird.  The coops (pens) pictured below are about 2 feet deep and between 32 and 36 inches wide.  They are designed for one LF hen each and a cock that visits every few days.  I use LED rope lights (red or white) on a timer set for 16 hours of light per day.  

Beth C:
Patty: Love your tractor design! I\'ve always wanted one, but the horses & goats would make short work of it I\'m afraid.  :(

John: The bottom one is exactly what I need. I can\'t tell in the picture, does it have pull out trays? You said the cock only visits - do you house them together when they\'re not with the hens? I kept mine together last winter and they did ok, but wasn\'t sure if they\'d get along during breeding season. It would sure make life easier.

John:
It is about 6\' high and 8\' long.  The coops are about 2\' high.
No pull out trays and these are only used during the breeding season.  Once a week we remove each hen and clean her coop using a plastic feed scooper and 5 gallon bucket.  I use wood shavings in these so they clean out easily and quickly.  I just don\'t like bending to clean the lower coops, so my son generally gets to do those.
If the cocks don\'t abuse the hens you can keep the pair together.  Last year I had 4 silver hens in the other unit and rotated the same cock over them all so he paid a 24 hour visit to each every 4th day.  I also have some other small coops to house individual cocks and just put them in with hens a couple times per week.  
In my larger coops/pens I leave the cocks in with 7 or more hens continually.

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