The Day Ranger – Chicken Shelter
Jul 31st, 2009 | By Fritz Nordengren | Category: Animals and Livestock, Two Mile Ranch
The day ranger with front door open. Paper towels are on the bedding for the first few days.
Life on a small farm is both science and art. Designing shelters for animals, poultry, or other livestock is based on good thinking, local custom, and what you have to work with. In this case, I’m using all three and we’ll see the outcome.
In Storey’s Guide for Raising Chickens, there is a simple shelter for free range chickens depicted on page 39. Its basically a lean-to or half gable structure open on the front and side.
Interestingly, as I scouted around the Internet chicken sites, I don’t find many shelters like this. Robert Plamondon’s site on building chicken coops and shelters has many designs, but none like this.
Using left over roofing panels, I outlined the basic shape. From this angle, it could be a water ski jump.
As I considered housing for 50 meat chickens, I schemed an idea to be able to build a dual use shelter – that could be a brood house for a few weeks, then re configured to be a night shelter from aerial predators like owls and hawks. The entire shelter and pasture could be fenced with electric netting, keeping out or slowing down, raccoons, possums, and skunks.
I sketched several designs, based on a couple of limiting factors:
- I had left over roofing panels from the metal roof from the cabin. They measured 10′4″ so that became my angled roof dimension.
- I wanted to use 4′x8′ ply for the brood house floor, and also use a half sheet 2′x 8′ as the front and back panels
- I was willing to take a few risks to learn from my mistakes
With the front door closed.
What resulted is something for day ranging , a concept designed by Andy Lee. Unlike a chicken tractor, in which the chickens are confined in a movable cage every day, this allows the chickens to range (not quite free range) in a 40 x 40 pen that can be moved as they graze. At night, the chickens return to the shelter. As of today, I am undecided about whether or not to “lock them in” at night.
During brooding, the chicks will be in a brooding box built using the structure as a framework. The floor is covered in bedding and paper towel to start the chicks. The side walls are poultry wire and will be covered with foil bubble insulation to protect both from drafts and occasional rains. The front opening is sheltered by the roof and is open for ventilation.
We’ve had a cool July, actually, the coolest on record. I expect the heat will rise in August, so ventilation is important, but so, too, is keeping the chicks warm in the night. A 250 watt infrared brooder bulb will be mounted inside. The chicks ought to be able to find their comfort spot.
Through the side into a brooding area. The sides will be covered with foil bubble insulation.
Once the chicks feather out, I will take the back wall and floor out of the shelter, and line the floor with thick bedding. The front door is still uncertain, but the top 2 feet of the opening will be covered with poultry wire, slowing down predatation.
The chicks arrived this week, and are in a short term brooder in the cabin. I hope to move them outdoors in the next day or so. And then we see how this works out.
I was just looking at your day range chicken website and was wondering how that was working for you. I have 300 chicks who are ready to go outside soon and was looking for the best way to finish them off. We are going to build movable pens but then I saw this and am considering it. I want something easy but that keeps the birds safe. Have you lost very many to predetors?
Thank you,
Charlene
HI, I’m now on day 4 for the chicks in the shelter, no losses to predators, and one lost to heat or failure to thrive. I encouraged it to drink all afternoon but it wasn’t meant to be.
The difference — as I read and look — between a chicken tractor pen and day ranging is how “free” are the birds. The trade off is more freedom = less security. I’m opting for this day range approach as a first time trial. It would be possible to add wheels to this design to ease moving, if that was a desire, too.
I think the key on ground predator prevention without a tractor pen is great fencing, and my choice is the electric netting. (See Premiere Fencing – you can do a Google search) With your 300 chickens, you may have to make multiple small pens, or a bigger area with a stronger or multiple electric energizers.
This doesn’t prevent potential hawk or owl attacks. My hope is the chickens can dash under the shelter (if they are smart enough) and they will be under it at night, with chicken wire sides and a closed front to stop the aerial predators.
Thanks and I hope this helps.
I expanded the floor today, by taking out the temporary back wall, making it now 8 x 8, with the sides enclosed by chicken wire and the front fold down wooden door. The front half of the sides are covered with foil bubble insulation which I roll up and down to adjust the heat. Its 80 during the day (warmer inside) and 60’s at night.
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