Diary

Moving houseRSS feed

Posted: Sunday 4 September, 2005

by Rosemary at 9:33pm in Poultry 1 comment Comments closed

We moved the laying hens into the small ark yesterday. Since there are now only six, the small ark is quite big enough. In fact, coming into winter (although you wouldn't have thought so today - it's been a scorcher here), they are better in a small house to get more benefit from shared body heat. It's also daft to be bedding the big ark, when the small one will do. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is going from two nest boxes to one. However, there's always the carrots and the comfrey to lay in if the nestbox is occupied!!

We moved the hens last night after they had gone to roost. That way, they know to return to the small ark tonight, since that's where they came down from this morning. You may recall our previous difficulties when we moved the ark after the hens had gone out in the morning and they couldn't find their way back at night, spending a very cold night roosting who knows where and having to be herded back to the ark in the morning.

Another reason for moving the hens is that we plan to use the big ark for the young stock from our incubation project. So it has been pretty thoroughly cleaned and will get a dusting of louse and red mite powders and probably a coat of wood preservative before being reinhabited.

I hope we're not counting our chickens before they are even laid!

Comments

mo

Thursday 4 May, 2006 at 5:17pm

Google found this page for me, as I am about to move my 4 hens into a temporary ark and treat my 3yr old ark. What did you use and how do you find something that won't harm the hens or taint the eggs?

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