The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: Bionic on March 01, 2017, 10:17:25 am
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My 5 girls are still housed at the moment but I intend to let them out into a small area soon.
It seems to me that now might be a good time to buy them a new house to move into so looking for any recommendations please.
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A friend of ours had an Eglu Cube (https://www.omlet.co.uk/shop/chicken_keeping/eglu_cube/), and found it very practical. Having just checked, I am pleased to report that they are an absolute bargain at £750, including a small run (:o Ooops! - I honestly thought they were about a third of that!).
Still, if you can sell the eggs from your five hens, you should be able to re-coop ;) that cost within a couple of thousand years.
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Not impressed with the practicalities of the Omlet Coops. They may be a fair design from an Engineering point of view, but I've heard far too many complaints. Green Frog has many recommendations but the August 2012 edition of Practical poultry had several issues, leaks and poor ventilation being two. But better for red mite and far less maintenance than wood.
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I was thinking about getting a plastic one when my homemade one falls apart - I was looking at the Solway Recycling ones, in particular the Smart Hen House or the Eco Ark. I already have a pig ark by them, and although they aren't cheap, they are well made and very robust and will outlive anything made of wood. I need to see them in person though, so was trying to find out what shows they would be displaying at this year.....
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Beware of regurgitated plastic arks - we have one and, yes, it does last but .... it weighs a tonne (takes 3 robust adults to move it), the plastic sheets have an open texture inside the sheet (red mite Heaven) and the roof sheet began to delaminate after two Winters, permitting rain to seep through. It now has a new roof and is used only as an overspill coop. It also has only one door so you have to crawl inside to retrieve eggs.
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[member=27063]Marches Farmer[/member] was make was that out of interest?
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6 Eglu Cubes and 9 Eglu Classics*, all secondhand from Ebay / Preloved / Gumtree inc several Cubes for about £200-250. Not perfect but worth their money for cleanliness alone.
*ok, one of them is orange and nicknamed the easyjet coop, but hey, it was cheap so we ignored the colour :D
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That's not bad Eve. When I checked Ebay completed listings, second hand cubes seemed to be selling for about £500.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of Eglus in your opinion then?
The 'classics' always remind me of vintage iMacs :).
(http://actualapple.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/e1f9270679dd64db6f0bf301552d94f5.jpg)
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I looked at the Eglu cubes too and they seem to hold their price on ebay. Sounds as if you did well Eve.
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All mine are green frog, easy to clean and assemble
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Well we are completely devoted to the plastic coops - never had a problem with red mite, and very easy to water hose down...
We use 'arkus' - we've had two pig arks from them, and have just invested in our second chicken coop (increasing the size of the flock!)
We've found them very easy to put together and/or dismantle - to be honest prefer the design to green frog and solway...
good luck
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Thank you all for your recommendations. After looking at everything I have just ordered an Arkus. It comes ready built so it should be simple for me to set up.
My girls are staying in the greenhouse until it arrives
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When I was looking into getting a plastic coop it was Arkus that stood out ( to me ) as the best design, I was concerned about head height in a lot of them, they mostly looked like the hens head would be right in a draft when they were perching.
Heard a lot of bad things about Eglu, great design for the human, not so great for the hens.
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I would have thought that rats can chew through (light?) plastic even faster than through sturdy wood....
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When I was looking after my neighbour's hens while she was away I noticed that rats had gnawed a hole in the heavy duty plastic dustbin she uses for storing their feed - in a single night. I can't remember which company supplied my henhouse - it's dark grey with flecks of other colours and made of boards about 1.5 cm thick.
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When I started with chickens 9 years ago, back yard at the time, I bought 2 eglu classics and they've been brilliant. Super easy to clean, no maintenance and 9 years later still as good as new. They now house my bantams and will eventually be used to separate broodies. Now having moved to a smallholding with more chickens and a wooden hen shed it just seems so much harder to keep things fresh and clean ( though the fact that they've been cooped up in there for the last few months due to Avian flu probably didn't help). The other thing about the eglus is they seem to hold a good value second hand.
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I would have thought that rats can chew through (light?) plastic even faster than through sturdy wood....
I have never seen a rat here so, fingers crossed, I will be ok
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I would have thought that rats can chew through (light?) plastic even faster than through sturdy wood....
I have never seen a rat here so, fingers crossed, I will be ok
Also, while they have a pretty good incentive to chew through a plastic feed bin, there's not the same ultimate feast to be obtained just by chewing through a hen house wall.
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4 years with arkus pig arks and chicken coops, and no sign of a rat gnaw yet!
We've put our coops on the arkus chicken stand, which I'd fully recommend (don't have to bend so far to clean out!)...
Oh, and no pig chewing on the arks either...
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4 years with arkus pig arks and chicken coops, and no sign of a rat gnaw yet!
We've put our coops on the arkus chicken stand, which I'd fully recommend (don't have to bend so far to clean out!)...
Oh, and no pig chewing on the arks either...
I have ordered the stand, an extra perch and an automatic door. They will be living the life of luxury :-)
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I'd love to hear how well the automatic door works... We were tempted, but then I worried that without the guilty need to let the chickens out I might burrow into the duvet for too long!
Lucky chickens, anyway. Just don't do the calculations as to cost of each egg!!!
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We already have an automatic door on their old coop and now that I have it I wouldn't be without it.
If we don't get home in time they put themselves to bed and the door shuts behind them.
Never had one not get home on time :-)
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I have 2 eglu cubes, both second hand, 1 cost £200 and the other was £350.
My cleaning regime on a weekly basis takes less than 10 mins to do both. Then every 6 weeks or so, blast it with power hose. Would absolutely recommend.
When lockdown was put in place. I wheeled coops into a field shelter then netted the entrance, job done, so that was fab!
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I did look on ebay every day for many months on end to find these like a woman obsessed, you need to be ready to pounce :D
The very best thing is how predator proof he Omlet coops are (foxes have been trying to get in for years without luck), how easy to move (I've moved a Cube with a 4 metre run attached to it over a bumpy field on my own), and how easy to clean. Plenty of ventilation, too.
I only have Cubes and Classics, though, can't speak for the Go.
We sited ours on top of 1/2 mesh so rats can't dig under, and used tent pegs in case of strong winds.
Never had anything gnaw its way in. The seller of the first secondhand Cube we bought did point out where something had tried to chew its way in, but whatever it was hadn't succeeded, didn't even damage the plastic much.
All the panels come apart and can be pressure washed, and it is really easy to find, squash and spray red mite. In our garden the coops are all firmly screwed together but on the field the coops are all inside a large fox / rat / stoat proof run and we've just slotted the panels together. When red mite strikes the coops are treated in literally under a minute.
They're not perfect, for example on the Cube, the nest box and the door handle are on opposite sides, and the pooh trays are taken out at the back with the coop door being at the front. So you need space around every side of the coop, you can't put it against a wall. The Classics would have been good on a frame with wheels, but they're not and given our lack of skateboards or similar so we just drag them.
There are a number of brackets that allow you to slightly adjust them to the ground the coop is sited on and make sure the rainwater drains properly.
Siince our garden isn't perfectly flat, one coop has dropped a bit in a corner making the roof more difficult to open. So we could adjust the roof bracket slightly so that it all opens and closes easily (except we keep on forgetting to do this as it's not a big enough deal).
I never looked at the other plastic coops, I just like the design of the Omlet coops so can only speak for those.
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Thanks Eve, that's very helpful.
One thing I noticed is that the 'perches' are really just a grid floor which lets droppings fall through. Since the birds aren't actually raised off the ground at all, don't they end up sleeping in a pile of their own wait a minute, isn't it time we had an emoticon for that [member=1]Dan[/member] ?
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We have 3 cubes 1 classic and 1 go!
They work well for us, all have been bought 2nd hand.
They live out in our field we do balance 25 litre containers full of water on the skirts to prevent them blowing away, very windy site, but otherwise do the job for us.
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wait a minute, isn't it time we had an emoticon for that [member=1]Dan[/member] ?
Your wish etc: :poo:
<sigh> What has my life become?
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:poo: :poo: :poo: :poo:
I don't know what you mean Dan! ;D
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Thanks Eve, that's very helpful.
One thing I noticed is that the 'perches' are really just a grid floor which lets droppings fall through. Since the birds aren't actually raised off the ground at all, don't they end up sleeping in a pile of their own
No, you just put newspaper in the trays to catch the pooh, then once a week take the trays out and let the contents slide in the wheelie bin. If there's a Waitrose near you: their free weekend paper is an excellent fit for these trays! :innocent:
:)