Poultry Housing
In February 2002, in anticipation of getting our first hens, we purchased a Forsham Cottage Ark (model Boughton 902A) plus extension run. It's not the cheapest but it's beautifully built and we do have to look at it every day. There are lots of other suppliers - see Country Smallholding again. We liked the Boughton ark for a number of reasons. Its attributes, in no particular order are; it looks good; it's well built; it seems to be well designed in relation to hens' natural behaviour; it offers some protection to the feed and grit hoppers that we have attached to the inside of the end, under the floor; with wheels, it's pretty easily moveable by one person, once you get the "wheel flick" technique right.
The roosting area and the nest box are lined with bedding, partly for insulation and partly to make it easier to clean out. Poultry manure makes a valuable contribution to the compost heap and acts as an activator, so when we clean out the ark every week in winter and every other week in summer, all the contents of the ark go in the compost bins. We use hemp as bedding. Hemp is grown for the paper industry - the soft core of the plant is 'waste' and is made into animal bedding. Hemp is very absorbent, dust extracted and rots down in 6-8 weeks. We started off using shavings but these took an age to breakdown in the compost bins so we now use Hemcore, in the roosting area and Hemcore topped with straw or hay in the nest boxes (Hemcore on its own isn't very "nesty").
It's important to keep the houses clean to prevent disease and the build up of pests such as red mite. Every month or so, when the bedding is cleaned out, we dust the houses with red mite powder and louse powder as a preventative measure.
When we had three hens, they were kept in the ark and extension run all the time, but seemed to have lots of room. The ark and run were moved each evening once the hens had gone to roost, so the hens had access to fresh grass every day. What they haven't had they don't miss - hens kept like this don't seem to crave the wide open spaces, but if we enclose ours now that they are used to being free range, they pace to get out. So decide what you're going to do and stick to it.
Our hens are now completely free range. There are two free access, covered feeding stations with layer pellets and grit. The hens do a bit (?) of damage to flowerbeds with dust bathing and scratching around and probably have an adverse effect on the worm population. We net vulnerable fruit and vegetables but we can live with the damage to the "ornamental" areas. And they do seem to eat lots of bugs.
We now have a second Forsham Ark, this time the Boughton 904, which is the main accommodation. It has wheels so is moveable by one person with a strong back! It's about twice the size of the 902A, which we've kept as "spare" accommodation for young stock.
We also have another two chicken houses. The first is aimed at the bachelor market and has no nest boxes - we use it for the young cockerels that we raise for the table. The second is a nice house, but is surplus to requirements at the moment. Both have runs that attach but we don't use them except when we're worming and have to enclose the hens for at least part of the day.
Finally, we have a home-made, free standing nest box. We found that two nest boxes in the Forsham weren't enough for twelve hens and there was either a queue, three hens squashed in one nest box and broken eggs or eggs being laid around the garden. The nest box works well and the hens seem to like it. Our late cockerel, Hobbes, didn't seem to be able to work it, though. When he got in, he couldn't get out and had to be "freed" - thankfully, we didn't keep him for his brains!
If you want something really pretty, try The Pink Chicken House Company or The Hen House Garden Company. Also worth considering, especially if you are short of space, is the Eglu at Omlet.