It is time to move the adult chickens to the outdoor pens for the summer and fall. Because the coop is heated, we wait until the outdoor temperatures are similar before moving the birds outdoors. We don’t want our layers to have too much adjustment to make because their laying cycle can be impacted and we like having eggs to sell.
Presently, all the incoming air passes through the biomeiler. In the cold weather, it is fine, but it makes the coop noticeably warmer than the outdoors in the late spring. By June, the outdoor temperatures come close to the coop temperatures. The air vent has a wye fitting to allow me to add unheated air into the coop, but that side is capped and I haven’t found enough need to build the air flow control mechanism I have designed. It is on my to-do list.
Years ago, we built a large outdoor pen on the lot across the street. We call it “the triangle pen.” We joined two 8-foot legs at right angles to make an 8’ x 8’ x 11’4” triangle. A series of triangles were set with their hypotenuses on the ground and had their 90-degree corners joined by ridge poles. Wire mesh was fastened along the sides and ends to make a long pen with a triangular cross-section. It was an efficient design and has only needed minor repairs since we built it.
After I clean up the waterers and feeders, I will fix up the sleeping quarters. Because we have little-to-no night during the summer, the hens need a dark place to sleep. If they don’t have enough darkness, their egg production suffers. In the triangle pen, there is a plywood box with roosting rails inside. It seems to give them enough “night” to keep them laying at a decent rate. We still suffer a reduction in egg numbers, but it is not so bad as when they haven’t had the dark sleeping quarters.
Our rooster will stay in the coop for the summer. We want to maintain good relations with our neighbors. They haven’t complained about hens getting noisy, but it would be a lot to ask of them to put up with a rooster crowing throughout the 24-hour daylight. To keep him from getting lonely, we will leave a hen with him for company. Later in the summer, we will have a pen set up on our farm site for the meat birds. If it seems like he can behave himself with the younger birds, he can join them. The farm site is far enough away from neighbors that the crowing won’t be a problem.
