Chickens IN the barn?

[Pocket Pony]

Mr. PoPo and I want to get chickens. We're thinking of where we would like to put a chicken coop and we're thinking of putting it in the barn. We have a hay room in the back of the barn and there's a 10x10 section that we could allocate to the chicks. Is it ok for chickens to be in the barn? This room doesn't have any windows and is walled-off on three sides.

We're thinking it would provide good protection from the elements, hopefully from predators also.

Any comments?

[HalfArabian]

I am not an expert, but where I boarded before they had loose chickens in the barn during the day occaisonally. It didn't happen a lot though on account of having a Border Collie:D Personally I think it could work. You might want to look into some kind of ventillation if the area is enclosed. jmo

I am sure others will have more ideas.

K

[deltawave]

My coop is going just outside the barn, but will be attached (via a back door, a very clever concoction between myself and the guy building it) to the storage area inside my barn. So in the good weather months the chicken yard will be outside, but in the winter I can build them a little pen, accessible via the back door so they can get out and stretch their little legs a bit without being exposed to the elements.

I may let mine roam when I'm around, but am not sure I want them "free ranging" in the barn and pooping all over my hay and in the aisle. :dead:

[Chall]

My TB was terrified of those self confident little boogers. Made shoeing him in the barn an ordeal.
I would not have them anywhere I have to be for air quality issues. I am now allergic to feathers with slight asthma, but I never liked all the dust and dry poo flowing around. They are adorable animals with a suprizingly rich social life. Just not inside for me please.

[JanWeber]

Mine (when they were free-range) would go in the barn to lay their eggs in the hay stall. I wasn't thrilled with chicken poop in the barn aisle - but I miss it all now that they are penned. Lost one to a fox, saved one that had been carried away by a fox, and can't deal with the heartbreak. I do miss watching them - they DO have a great social life and adventurous spirit.

[tradewind]

you should be ok with that set up. My guys free range during the day and come in at night to a very similar set up. They have also chicken proofed the horses many who are OTTBs.

[JSwan]

My TB was terrified of those self confident little boogers. Made shoeing him in the barn an ordeal.


Your poor horse would probably die if he had to put up with what is living in my barn.

PIGS. :lol:


For the OP - if you are going to have the coop in your barn then the only thing I would pay attention to is dust and air quality. If the coop is set up so that the chickens can come and go as they please - through a door leading to the outside rather than the aisle - that might work best.

That way they only come in to lay and to roost at night. You may want to clean your coop out more often than others - I only do it twice a year - but my coop is a separate building. Cleaning a coop is pretty nasty - and you'll not want livestock in the barn while you are doing that.

But that also depends on how many chickens you are keeping in there. If it's only a few layers - it's really not a big deal. If you have 50.... it can get stinky and dusty.

Good luck!

[chestnutmarebeware]

Every winter I moved my chickens from their outside coop into one of the stalls in my barn. It had a full chain-link stall-guard door and two windows, so the air quality was fine. I attached a heat lamp to one of the walls, and would turn it on at night if the temps dropped below 20 degrees. It was very cute to come in in the morning and see the whole gang snuggled up together under the lamp.

And the sawdust mixed with chicken poop made EXCELLENT fertilizer after it cooked for a year! I had the best vegetable garden for miles! :lol::lol:

[Benson]

Our chicken coop, complete with nests and roosts, is beside the barn. It has no door, so the girls come and go as they please. They have taken to roosting in the barn in empty stalls and have made a total mess.

Make sure you can keep them confined to the space for those times when they begin to roost in places you don't want them to and need to keep them penned up for a couple of weeks.

[Calvincrowe]

Mine is in the barn. We enclosed the area under the stairs to a loft ( fairly large, as the stairs slope), put in a people-sized door into the barn and a chicken sized door in the barn wall out to their 24 x 8 foot run. We built a little "lean to" at the chicken door, outside to offer wind/sun/rain protection (wind blows directly through the little door into the barn--solved that with lean to).

No more dust than the horses, they could care less about the chickens, no chickens roaming my barn. I use the hay I sweep up from the stack to bed my chickens, and clean weekly--it is a small space.

[lcw579]

No advice about a coop in the barn but I remember when all the chickens took to roosting one of the barns. Blech! Lots of poop covered horses. The girls also took to laying their eggs in feedboxes an some other odd spots. You never knew where they were going to turn up. :lol:

These hens were pretty much free range all the time but IIRC after one too many poop covered horse they were banished back to the coop for a while so they would go there to roost at night.

[unbridledoaks]

Personally, I don't like my chickens in my barn. Between them hiding eggs and their poop, not for me. Ours are free range outside and outside only. They try to come into the barn, but we chase them out or have the barn closed down. Build their coop outside, away from the barn. They learn to stay out :)

[okggo]

Do you guys have barn cats??

We have a coop (came with the farm) with an indoor and outdoor run. We have chicks and I was hoping to let them "out" when we are home to supervise and they are older. I'm just afraid our barn cat will go after them? Or does the size of a grown chicken back them off?

[chestnutmarebeware]

My chickens terrorized my barn cats! :lol::lol::lol:

And they were all bantam breeds—not even full size!

[JSwan]

I've got barn cats. I had wire over the brooder but when they were big enough I let them out.

My dogs don't bother the chickens either. Come to think of it..... I think the chickens may actually be "top dogs" on this place. They were out in a paddock the other day looking for bugs and the goats exited stage right.

[jilltx]

Well it depends. Are you planning on keeping the "Ninja" chicken varieties or just the "peck your eyes out when you pass" variety? *snicker*

You KNOW how I feel about chickens... but I wish you well in your feathered untertakings. ;)

For what it's worth, the Redneck barn keeps chickens anywhere and everywhere the chickens damn well please. We have one very motivated cat who killed a smaller hen, but the other mother cluckers are pretty big. Coyotes and coons are the bigger problem here for us. Owner gave them a roost in her barn and she leaves a light on to deter predators from entering at night.

ANother friend has her cluckers roaming freely in/out of the barn. It's worked well for her but a weird caution; she had a gelding who liked to eat the eggs the hens laid around the barn. He died from Salmonella poisoning (though the vet wasn't CERTAIN he contracted it from the raw eggs). I've known more than one horse who liked eggs. One actually ate the chicks. :dead:

[Gunnar]

Well it depends. Are you planning on keeping the "Ninja" chicken varieties or just the "peck your eyes out when you pass" variety? *snicker*

You KNOW how I feel about chickens... but I wish you well in your feathered endeavor. ;)

I boarded Bodie at a private barn where they had vicious chickens. They would chase you and peck you legs! Not a lot of fun at the time! :no:

[seramisu]

The barn where I board has a couple chickens (used to be three... but the other day I had the misfortune of finding one of them floating in a water trough) who I love. They have total free range, have taken over one of the corner feeders to lay eggs in. They roost around in the horse poop picking out the undigested oats. Sometimes they perch on the edge of the arena and watch me ride - the day they did that was the day I became attached to them. I also like that they "bombproof" the horses to a certain extent - no more spooking when they squawk as it those squawks are a daily occurence.

I know nothing about chicken-keeping, but I can say that I very much enjoy their company!

[Calvincrowe]

To the OP, you've gotten two kinds of advice:

1) Free-ranging chickens are ok, but they make a big mess in your barn.

2) Penned chickens with no access to your barn, just living in a space in your barn (pen/coop/stall) are not messy.

You didn't state whether you were going to go "amok" or "penned". So, which will you do?

[dsedler]

My chicken coop is going to be one of my stalls. They will have access to a small run outside, but they will not be free roaming. Too many predators and I get too attached to all my animals. My barn is very well ventilated, so I don't think dust will be a problem.

[TikiSoo]

I kept my chickens in a separate section of my 2 stall horse barn which worked out perfectly. One hen thought she was clever laying her egg a day in my pony's trough. Pony thought anything in her trough was for her to eat. Took me a long time to figure out why pony's lips were bright yellow every morning!
Yes, shell & all!

[gallupgirl]

We definitely have a redneck barn, the chickens free range during the day and roost on the trusses at night.

For the small amount of mess they make it's definitely worth it. We have alot of young TB-type stock here and they aren't spooky at all. The eggs are great and they keep the barnyard scratched clean, no raking required!

[Pocket Pony]

Thanks for all the input. We were planning on having them be free range chickens. At my last boarding barn, there was a great chicken house and all the hens went out during the day and roamed around the barn and then marched back to their hen house in the evening. I'd like to see them around but I do worry about predators...specifically my Monkey Beans cat who will bring in a bird AND a gopher AND a lizard in the same day!

[f4leggin]

My chickens are in the barn in the winter, and I move them to their outside coop once the snow stops. The first winter - they were fine outside, it's just a lot more work for me to take care of them. I took a 12x12 stall and built a 12x8 coop in it. The extra 4 ft at the end of stall is a small dog or goat area, and then it leads to an outside dog run. If my dogs or goats aren't locked up - I let the chickens go outside in the kenel.

I tried free range in the barn ONE night - way too much poop everywhere for me. I had a rooster for awhile that I kicked out of the hen house because he was so mean to some of my hens, but he also attacked anyone new (and me every few days), so he went to greener pastures. My experience is hens are pretty easy to get along with but my rooster was awful, and I hear that is not uncommon.

Jill

[poltroon]

Different chicken breeds have different temperaments. Roosters tend to be more aggressive, but this varies by breed as well. Larger chickens (and roosters) will be safer against predators. My experience has been that they need to be in predator-proof (ie, solid wood or heavy screening of less than 1/2") lodgings at night, but that they do okay during the day. Your mileage will vary on this last point.

The dust and poop and related issues will be a function of how many chickens you have. The more space per chicken, the less of an issue it will be. Also, the free ranging heritage type breeds eat less and are less messy than the meat breeds like the Cornish crosses.