The Vancooper Hen House at the Lab

Dun­can Mar­tin from Back­yard Boun­ty joined us on July 24^th to give an infor­mal work­shop on rais­ing hens in your back­yard. He makes these tidy coops out of cedar and wire mesh. They are made to the para­me­ters set out by City of Van­cou­ver bylaws.

The “Van­coop­er” was installed at the Lab on the Fri­day before the workshop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Accord­ing to the City bylaws each hen must have 4 square feet of coop space and 10 square feet of “run.” Each house­hold can keep up to four hens (no roost­ers) for egg lay­ing pur­pos­es. Enclo­sures must be at least 3 feet from the prop­er­ty line and 10 feet from win­dows and doors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dun­can shared his years of chick­en rear­ing expe­ri­ence, answer­ing every­one’s ques­tions. I’ll attempt to recap here:

Food

He rec­om­mend­ed using an organ­ic feed rather than an indus­tri­al grade feed. These can be pur­chased at local pet stores. He also keeps some “scratch” on hand. It’s a mix of seeds and corn ker­nels and can be used as a treat to help gath­er the hens.

Chick­ens know what is good for them to eat and what isn’t. They instinc­tive­ly know what is poi­so­nous. They will also eat table scraps such as cucum­ber and zucchini.

Shel­ter

It’s impor­tant that chick­ens have pro­tec­tion from pests and preda­tors so a secure struc­ture made with a strong dense mesh is need­ed. When locat­ing the coop in your yard con­sid­er a shady area that is o.k for the chick­ens to scratch up.

Chick­ens will go up into the roost at night. They need a ledge or perch that they can sleep on — a round­ed 2 x4 will work.

Lay­ing

Hens will lay with­out a roost­er, it’s just that the eggs are not fer­til­ized. They will lay from about 6 months to five years of age. As hens get old­er they pro­duce few­er but larg­er eggs.

Healthy chick­ens will lay about 5–6 eggs per week. This can be inter­rupt­ed by nat­ur­al paus­es such as brood­i­ness (a hor­mon­al moth­er­ing instinct that can set in for a few weeks), molt­ing (renew­ing feath­ers), or jsut being under the weather.

Buy­ing

You can find hens for sale on Craigslist by farm­ers in the Fras­er Val­ley or you can take a day and attend the Fras­er Val­ley Auc­tion.  You can also join Vil­lage Van­cou­ver to see post­ings from local mem­bers on chick­ens for sale, feed runs, advice etc…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When going away on hol­i­days you will need to have some­one take care of your hens. Dun­can sug­gests get­ting your neigh­bour to pro­vide clean food and water in exchange for the eggs col­lect­ed while away.

Dun­can brought two pul­let chick­ens with him for the work­shop. They are around 6 months old which is the best time to pur­chase them. If you get chicks you won’t know if you have hens or roosters!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To learn more about rais­ing chick­ens in your back­yard or to pur­chase a Van­coop­er you can con­tact Dun­can Mar­tin at 604–329-3863 and vis­it his web­site www​.dai​lyeg​gs​.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 4th, 2011 at 4:31 pm. It is filed under Blog and tagged with Chickens, coop, Duncan Martin, eggs, Grow, hens, Holly Schmidt, Other Sights, South East False Creek, Vancouver. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.