The safety of hoop houses for meat birds

[cafrhe]

Hi, I have been searching threads and getting bits of information here and there, but still have some questions.

I have 30 little cornish x in my garage. It is time for them to go outside and we had decided on a hoop house. 2x4 frame with cattle panels. I decided to go with 1"x2" welded wire for the 'protective' layer of wire. I bought 4' height and am covering the entire lower part of the house with it. I will cover the top with chicken wire and then tarp the top. I am trying to decide what else to do. Part of me wants to have a solid area for the chickens to be able to sleep in--I assume they are going to hang out together in one corner or the other..

I am worried about predators. I have about 1 acre of clear land around my house. The layer flock takes up a bunch of that, so the hoop house will be fairly near my house where ever it is. I am surrounded by woods, so predators do have plenty of cover to hide in if they want to stalk my chickens.

I work from home, so day time should not be too much of a problem (I hope!). I am concerned about night time predators. What are people's experiences with predators and hoop houses? Do they dig in, get in through a breech in the wire? Reach in the holes and drag parts through? Would a 3' high corner of solid (plywood or tin?) make a difference?

On another note--it has been raining a lot lately. I have read Salatin's Pastured Poultry and have been thinking that maybe I should have some surface for the chicks to be on. The area they are on is slightly sloped and never boggy, but it has been wet! Should I be safe and get some bales of straw to layer at one end?

Thanks for all the help. They are 2 weeks old and hopefully will go out today as they are rapidly outgrowing their baby pool (too much poop!). I really want them to be able to be much cleaner.

 

[animalsRawesome]

I don't think that you really can make a hoop-house secure from predators; if they want in they will find a way, most likely will just dig under. I built one portable pen that had a solid area for them to sleep in like you mentioned, but by the time I built a "secure" area with solid walls, floor and roof that was big enough for them to sleep in, the tractor was so heavy that it was almost impossible to move. Now I just use a hoop style tractor with a tarp over one end. The entire floor is open and the sides are just chicken wire (I wasn't going to waste my money on thicker wire when I knew something could just dig under anyways).

To prevent predator attacks I keep a live trap set right next to each tractor at all times. It's not fool proof but *knock on wood* I haven't lost any yet; I know that I may eventually loose some, but that is the trade-off I'm taking for being able to move them to fresh grass everyday. I also have had some sort of animal tear through a plywood door and get into my coop that I thought/should have been completely secure. (it was old and in hindsight should have been replaced because it was starting to rot). Basically I feel that predators are like a good burglar; if they really want in, they will find a way.

I wouldn't worry about putting straw down unless it was REALLY wet, but other than being a pain to pick up, I don't see as how it could hurt either.

P.S. just a side note, but my cornish usually aren't feathered out enough that I feel good letting them outside until closer to three weeks, but maybe that's just me. I'm sure someone else will chime in.

 

[cafrhe]

Thanks! Not to be too callous, but that was my thinking--what kind of effort do I want to go through for predator proofing vs keeping the hoop house mobile vs actual risk vs ability to protect them anyway. I certainly dont want any thing to get my little sitting ducks, but I am not sure how much I can do to protect them if I want them outside. From what I was told having a coop for them and expecting them to go in and out like layers isnt going to happen. I have no problem pasturing/free-ranging them, but even now I can see that they dont have the get up and go like my layers.

I have seen between 2 and 3 weeks for going outside. It has been in the high 80s here (cooling off a little this week) with mid to high 60s at night. I havent had the lamp on them for a week (too hot in the garage they are in). They are ugly little things with out much feathering or great fluff either. I dont like how their bellies look, even with lots of shavings, they are bare--I think too much poop/ammonia for their skin. I dont want sores to develop.

 

[cafrhe]

I should mention--this is the our 1st attempt at meaties. The local processor needs 25 birds to hold a date, so I got 30...Hoping it all goes well!

 

[animalsRawesome]

yeah, they should feather out but their feathers don't always seem as nice as the layers. Mine also wouldn't go in and out of the coop like layers, but they do seem fairly active and do a good job of eating down the grass in their tractor even though I move it everyday (Maybe their level of activeness has to do with genetics, I'm not sure but lately I have been getting mine from schlechthatchery.com and I love love love them. Great people to work with and actually some of the best prices on meat birds too).

I'm sure you will do just fine with them. You know to give them access to feed for 12 hours on and 12 hours off starting around 3 weeks old, right? I like to start them on a feed with 24% protein; most chick starters are only 19-20 but the meaties will do so much better they grow fast and need that extra protein especially in the beginning IMO... Okay, off my soap-box about feed. I hope all goes well for you! Keep us posted!

 

[MichaelZ13]

I think you will be good with the 4 ft of welded wire . . . until a racoon shows up. Predators can rip through the chicken wire very easily. And racoons are just too darned smart - they can work door handles and locks so I think they will figure out that the easy wire just takes a little climbing. I had a predator (probably a coon) climb up onto an elevated rabbit hutch and rip through the chicken wire. A dog would be very helpful. I put our Australian Shepherd on the deck during my meat bird raising. The live trap is a good idea - I will try that too this year since I have the trap already. I built a 6x12 PVC chicken tractor with a 6x6 enclosed metal house that I will chase the chickens into each night. The other 6x6 portion is chicken wire but the birds will not be in this part at night.

Another thought might be a motion detector with alarm, although you would need a bunch of them and that could cost some money.

 

[ChexeeChick]

Just my 2-cents here, I've heard that you can use a hot wire fence to keep out predators as well by placing it around the hoop house or whatever you use at a low height, say 8-12 inches off the ground.

Hope this helps. It's what I'm going to place around my permanent coop for my 1-week-olds.

 

[cafrhe]

Thanks everyone. I am seriously considering a strand or 2 of wire. That should be easy and pretty cheap and I would feel better.

I do have 2 german shepherds who are outside a lot. Not at night though. But I keep my windows open (my bedroom faces the yard where the chickens will be) and do tend to hear some of the night noises. My young shepherd is fairly attuned to some noises (especially fox because we seem to either have many or one family close by). I think Ihave heard raccoon chatter a few times as well--when I hear noises, he and I go outside, so now when he hears noises, he gets excited. I hope that carries through with the meat birds. I wonder if we are not bothered by predators because the chickens are in their coops at night. The meaties will be a nice and seemingly available smell.

And yes, I plan to limit their food after 3 weeks. I had been researching the protein level to feed them and 20+ seemed to be what is recommended.

 

[MichaelZ13]

Your dogs near the open window will help a lot. If there is some commotion, they will probably wake you. I have meat birds in a kiddie pool as well, but only 12 and they are at about 2 1/2 weeks - I will move them out in a few days. I have found that you can put up to 15 per 6 ft pool. If you have 30 in a pool I can see how they are a bit crowded at the 2 week mark. They should be OK outside now for you though as it sounds like your weather is fairly warm. We had 40F degrees last night so I am holding off for them to get a few more feathers.

Your welded wire should work fine for any foxes or coyotes - it is the racoons that are worrisome. I have done stakeouts for racoons in my cats food and shed - they wait until about 4AM to strike. And no matter what I did to secure the cat food box, they got in. When I see a racoon near our home in early evening, just by coincidence odd things happen like my cat gets scared off and never returns, my rabbit cage is broken into (chicken wire), or in one case my rabbit just dies in the cage (hardware cloth). They are absolute devil animals. Fortunately, we don't have too many racoons around, but for me 1 is too many.

 

[cafrhe]

I think I am hearing them at times. Didnt hear them at all the 1st year here. I saw my 1st one about a month ago during the day. We have a pond and it was a young raccoon, I think it came to find frogs. I got my young dog and let him out (I can call him off anything, so he is the 1st line of defense). Dog is not a coon hound lol, but finally saw the critter, but after it saw him. It treed itself and both dogs got to run around sniffing raccoon scent. I hope it chooses to stay in the woods and down by the stream from now on.