Our backyard chicken coop and how we integrate chickens in our vegetable garden

[@sproose156]

I highly recommend using the metal chicken nipples for watering. I have a few screwed into a length of 90mm storm water PVC. No cleaning as its essentially a sealed setup. Love your vids 😊

[@loveofdirt]

Oh I’ll check those out thank you! The lub cups sometimes get a bit of stuff stuck under and the whole thing drains, it’s why we have 2 in the pen just in case.

[@willowgirl2635]

Straw is my favourite on a soil /clay base. It does get a bit muddy outside in enclosed run in the winter but if they are out free ranging that won’t be a problem. Straw keeps internal area nice and is great for vegie patch. I have 30 chooks.

[@loveofdirt]

Oh thanks! I did read that hollow straw was a haven for those dreaded mites but the sugar cane is mostly shredded and flat. We often throw bales in the run if we hadn’t had a chance to top up our tree mulch and we start to smell them. It does work well.

[@apmcrobert2270]

Love your cookies. We don't currently have chooks, and I'm not sure we will get them again. My kids are big teens now, and I am currently enjoying not having pets, but things may change as my husband is keen. I love all the plants you have planted along the run. I agree about the fence line being a highway for rodents. I always found 4 chooks sufficient for a family of 4, enough for baking and for breakfast. 😂

[@loveofdirt]

I hear you enjoying not having pets, that’s how I feel about not having a dog anymore. Sometimes I miss it then I think of all the extra work I don’t have to do anymore! I think when all our chooks were laying we had to give most away. It’s certainly hard to buy them when they stop laying for a bit.

[@MrsSBruce]

We have 6 chooks on our 600m2 suburban block on the Southside of Brisbane - they are about 2 years old. I have a wooden flat pack that is doing the job at the moment. But my dream is a metal coop and run. Currently we use wood chips in the actual coop, winter I clean weekly but as the days are now longer I find cleaning almost fortnightly works. I scatter a small amount of poultry dust before putting down the wood chips helps with insects. (We had a mite infestation when Indian mynas took over our yard last year) In the actual run we use hay every so often. I really don’t like our wooden frame as the chooks like to dig themselves dusting holes we get holes near the side of the run. I like the idea of digging down, laying some pavers then putting sand on top.

[@loveofdirt]

Those wild birds are certainly a nuisance. I guess it could be worse than mites 🐦 🤧

[@SwiftRabbit-w7g]

😆 I was wondering about the fence height. Our naughty crew would be out of there, wreaking havoc, in 5 minutes (apart from our pendulous lavender girls 😆) I've got a photo somewhere of our OG's perched on a fence exactly like this one, at my old place, in spite of their clipped wings 😂 Love the overall idea though! We're currently re-doing our chicken areas (almost finished 😵‍💫😅) and have fenced off in a similar fashion. It's wider though, but only because it was an existing garden bed with large trees. We've gone metal for the primary run and chicken house now too, after the old one rotted out. Sand as bedding too, and yes, we've also gone with extra roof covering over the run, due to the deluges we get 🫠

[@loveofdirt]

Oh sounds like we’re on the same track! The extension fell down and we never bothered putting it back up. It was only the little Australorp who used to clear it, the others were too chunky.

[@SwiftRabbit-w7g]

@loveofdirt 😆 You're lucky!!! We've got 6 all up, and only 2 that wouldn't get out 😵‍💫 Our oldest girl got up over our back gate (much higher than the cyclone fencing) and came into the house via the cat door. Found her eating the cats breakfast 🤣 She's 10 now, and I wouldn't put it past her to try again (she was due for a wing trim 😆)

[@loveofdirt]

Cheeky! My concern with moving them out the back is they’ll just stand at our back door 😂

[@SwiftRabbit-w7g]

@@loveofdirt 🤣 At my old place, we didn't have them contained, and the kids were young and NEVER shut the back door properly (old Queenslander) So they didn't just stand at the back door, they'd walk right on into the kitchen. They'd hear me coming, and I'd hear them scattering 😆 I was visiting a friend who also had chickens, and they were perching on the window sills, looking in lol.... Pressed right up against the glass

[@loveofdirt]

@@SwiftRabbit-w7g They are such characters! Even with my aversion to birds they are my favourite pets.

[@jennyfindlay3576]

I love my chookies. We use woodchips in the base of our coop and it really helps with the smell. We have 8 chickens. I don't think we have any problems with rats and mice due to having a cat and two dogs. We have Isa Brown chooks that lay really well and they are super friendly.

[@loveofdirt]

Oh our cat is useless! She used to be good she only brings me grasshoppers now, which I guess is good.

[@sandracastle-od1lm]

Love your chookies. Cannot have chickens where I rent. I miss my chookies. 💐😍

[@loveofdirt]

Oh it's tough. We were lucky enough to be allowed 2 when we rented - the Plymouth Rock and the Wyandotte. Thankfully when we moved from that place we moved to our own place so didn't have to worry about having to find another place that allowed them.

[@ellisesmith869]

I dont use a base, we have ours on large star pickets to raise it with walls around the roosts to protect from the elements but open from the bottom which makes cleaning so easy and gives great air flow. I use either mulch or straw as bedding and put it directly onto the garden as mulch.... ive never noticed an issue 🤷‍♀️ you're in good company. Everyone says it will burn the plants but I love it.

[@loveofdirt]

I love this idea of having the bottom open for easy cleaning.

[@thesuburbanhomesteaderaus]

We have the dine-a-chook waterer and feed dispenser products like you, we found the wild birds were still getting into their feed easily, bringing in the mites etc but also we were going through feed quicker. we changed to the grandpa style feeder. It took a few weeks for them to get the hang of it, but it’s going well so far.

[@loveofdirt]

That was one I was looking at too. Do you have smaller bantams that can use it easily? I think we’ll be getting smaller chooks moving forward so wasn’t sure if they would be ok. I think they’d be better for the rodents too.

[@HighlandsMarketGardening]

Deco granite as chicken base with deep litter system .bell water system

[@loveofdirt]

I haven't heard of the bell water system I will check that out. Thank you!

[@OverlandUnknown]

Great video mate, good to see how others have their set up. Cheers.

[@loveofdirt]

Thanks ☺️ I agree I’ve been watching loads of videos on how others are setup for inspiration for the new one. So many ways of doing it.

[@denisebrady6858]

I don't have chickens but I would do anything to have them sadly. I watch a lot of chicken raising youtube channels along with Vege Gardening/ Homesteading & there is quite a lot of people that have now moved on to using sand as it absorbs their urine & droppings clump instead of getting soggy in hay/straw. It can then be thrown easily into your mulch pile & works well in the garden beds. Cheers Denise at Geebung, Brisbane. 😃😃

[@loveofdirt]

I had heard the same thing too, I just wasn't sure how long people were cleaning them out though. The fact that my son loves to go and sit with them I like the idea of it being fairly poop free, but another weekly chore would probably break me.

[@denisebrady6858]

@@loveofdirt No it is not a weekly chore- they use it for quite a long time.

[@SwiftRabbit-w7g]

@@loveofdirt RE the sand, we cleaned ours out after 8 years 💀😆 Seriously though, we just rake it when it's getting lumpy or smelly, to even it out and to clear out any leftover plant debris. It's from our original set up here. We dug down and put in a couple of layers of concrete sleepers, then filled it with the builders sand. So nothing can burrow in OR out (😆) and the sand keeps their feet relatively dry in the wet season. We took the opportunity to take out a layer and replace it with fresh sand, when we demolished the run.

[@loveofdirt]

@@SwiftRabbit-w7g How often on average do you think you rake it out? I think I would miss my free compost too much moving to sand.

[@SwiftRabbit-w7g]

@@loveofdirt every couple of weeks, if they're lucky? I should do it more often, but my health is very up and down. They're ravenous creatures, so there's not much in there to take out though. I put the raked out stuff into the compost system, to accelerate it (inevitable chicken poop in it haha) We try to only give them scraps we know they'll enjoy, so it doesn't get too gross. We use deep litter method in the chicken house section (using hemp bedding, over the sand) It doesn't need much attention bar raking and the occasional top up if it's getting smelly. It's a very lazy lazy set up, that only requires a twice yearly shoveling. We can push it to a year, now it's on the ground (we had a loft situation with the last set up) I have to go out and deal with it either today or tomorrow. It needs some diatomaceous earth raked through. I've just cleaned out the fireplace too (they love the ash in their dust bath) It's just so yucky and humid out there today, so I'm putting it off 🥴 If your method is working for you, definitely stick with that! My health is wonky, so this method suits us well 💗 We'll be chucking some sugar cane bales into their garden area once the Chunnel is in place, so they can mulch it for us 🤣