- Thread starter
- #111
CntryBoy777
Herd Master
....Thanks for the info!!....what is the 'Spacing' you use between the roosts?....we only have 11 and thought 2, 65" poles would do just fine...would put more but Space is at a premium for that....and if ya use 2 screws or nails on either side of the roost in the brace...it will hold the pole in place, but will allow ya to just lift them up to clean, flip, or replace...this is the system she used for raising chickens for the 50 or so yrs she raised chickens...always using 2x2s.With regard to the roosts: 2x2s are a bit narrow for the chicken's feet. 2x4 on the flat or 3" round fence poles are better because while the sit on their feet, they also pt weight on their keel. Hard to do on a 1.5" wide surface. That said, I find my chickens seem to prefer 2 types of location:
I originally started with
- against a wall or HC covered opening
- the flat junction of a single 2x perpendicular (support) to the wall and the 2x4 on the flat (or doubled vertical 2x4)
View attachment 23513
But later added 2x4s on the flat between the wall from where I took the picture and the open end of the original setup and found some birds liked to sit against the wall on the 1.5" wide perpendicular and the junction of the new boards and the perpendicular.
If it makes any difference, the round fence rail gets less poop on it and can be rotated. If you go with flat roosts, make some sort of "hanger" on the wall ends to drop them into so you can pick them up and take them out for cleaning or flipping over.
What you see are 8' long and I have seen no sag. But then I have only 12 birds and a year ago made a 24" x 48" long open "shelf" for the broody buster on the wall to the right of where I took the picture from. It has one central perpendicular support and the 2 on the outside obviously. No broodies in the winter so I took the box off for even more roost space last winter when I had 16 (not that the 24' they already had wasn't enough) and they show a preference for that even though there is NO wall on either side. I doubled up on the "on edge" 2x4s so they would have more body support.