When I designed my large 16ft by 8ft (twin 8ft x 8ft with a shared middle wall) for deep bedding and lots of ventilation I thought I had the rat problem solved with having the coops clad with tin. Well... bad news. only one of the coops is rat proof. One I had to clad three 4x4's with tin corners to make it impossible for the rats to climb. The final building corners are going on this coming Monday. The other 8ft x 12ft coop is mostly rat proof but it has a 4ft by 8ft storage area which they've gotten into and then chewed thru the 1/4 inch ply into the coop. I am planning on cladding the inside of the storage area with tin to rat proof. Wondering is there is anything else I can do? Also best way to clean up the mess they leave to make it less toxic for chickens... does anyone know?

I bought some lemon balm seed today to plant around my coop. Does anyone have experience with this plant around the coop? I am hoping to deter rodents. I couldn’t find mint on the seed rack.

I can’t believe it but I found this beauty today at a thrift store and wheeled and dealed him right into my arms!!! This is going to be my only roo! I have a feeling he’s going to be very quiet 🤣 Now, to just come up with a name that suits him….

Congrats everyone! We just crossed the 100 member mark today and very excited to see this community starting to take shape! I hope you all find your people no matter where they are in the world and are able to get amazing information from this group. You are welcome to invite others to this community as well so post on your pages, groups etc and let's build the best chicken tender community on the web! For fun: Comment below where you live!

I got into keeping chickens back in 2020. started out with a barnyard mix flock but in 2022 I figured out which direction I wanted to go and had help building 5 large chicken coops. Going from BYM to purebred flocks. Each of my coops are 8ft x 8ft and one is 8ft x 12ft designed with maximum airflow (2ftx8ft ventilation) and with a threshold you have to step over to get into them - as then have 10 inches to 12 inches of bedding in them. (200 cu ft annually) I have for flocks: Black Copper Marans Crevecoeur's Pavlovskaya's (extremely rare breed) I am in the process of phasing out Amerucana's due to that breeds roosters being real PITAs. I did not plan on it but have a Speckled Sussex Breeding flock. and I am hoping to rebuild my Brabanter flock this year. The only new addition is getting into Silver Phoenix show birds. I also hatch myself - as I have two cabinet incubators and they are already running this year.