Chicken Coop Gadgets
Chicken keeping is not cheap. I wouldn’t even say it’s economical. This depends on how you build the coop, of course. But it’s fulfilling in unexpected ways and worth the effort, in my opinion. There is nothing quite as sweet as the peep-peep-peep of new chicks in the spring, that’s for sure! Or the happy little throat gurgles of appreciation when we rearrange the electric net for green grass. And did I mention those little dinosaurs are quite the composters? We haven’t thrown away any foodstuff since we built a coop over a decade ago, which feels pretty good. So why not make chicken keeping easier?
Work smarter, not harder
Chicken Coop Gadgets, I’m a big fan! After all, why work harder when you can work smarter? First up are automatic feeders and waters. Simply put, they keep the food and water cleaner, allowing you to keep chickens with much more relaxed time constraints. In addition, the automated food and waterers create a weekly “fill up,” allowing us to enjoy the chickens without daily maintenance, besides dropping off snackies and picking up eggs.
Coop gadgets to make chicken keeping easier
Automatic Chicken Feeders
The automatic feeder below is from the How NOT to Build a Chicken Coop. The feeder worked great, kept the feed dry, and kept spillage minimal. The best part was that I could fill it up from the outside without going into the coop. What you see below is a 5″ PVC pipe fitted onto a cat food bowl. As they pecked at the food, more would come down by gravity.
When we built our second coop, The Bored Engineer’s Coop, I wanted something that would hold more food because we were going to have a LOT more chickens, so I made the automatic feeders below.
Because I like to make things myself, I found directions online and made this automatic feeder with a 5-gallon bucket and some PVC pieces. It was easy enough; you can make more if your flock grows. Also, I can put it in the coop in the winter and move it out into the run in the summer, and the feed stays clean and dry. If you’d rather skip the macgyver’ing grab these automatic chicken feeders that accomplish the same thing!
Automatic Chicken Waterers
I’m a big fan of automatic waterers. BIG FAN! You only need one season of those old traditional metal chicken waterers to have your fill of dumping poopy water all over your boots, stepping in mud, and dragging the waterer to the hose – the whole time, gross chicken water is dripping all over your legs. No.Thank.You!
Enter the automatic waterers. Basically, you attach the nipples to a 5-gallon bucket (SUPER EASY). The chickens drink out of them, similar to how gerbils or rabbits do with their waterers. Chickens are attracted to the color red, so when they peck at the nipples, a drop of water comes out. These little marvels keep their water clean, no more wet legs from poopy water, and (depending on your flock size) you can fill it up once a week. My flock is 13 birds, and they use about 1 1/2 5-gallon buckets a week, so I have two waterers I fill weekly. Set and forget – easy-peasy!
Winter Water Feeders
Here in zone 5b New Hampshire, winters get cold. Around here, the chicken waterers freeze from roughly November through March. This often means you bring a poopy water bucket into the house for five months to defrost, fill it up, and take it back out. Only to have it freeze again in a few minutes. The problem with this are many – the most important is that your chickens need a reliable water source! Enter the glorious chicken-warming water bucket. Before I recommend this beauty to you with un-abandoned hype, understand I’ve tried all the hacks and strategies. Insulating around the water bucket, using a birdbath heater in the bucket, and the metal warmer that goes under the bucket, all with varying degrees of success. This, however, was a 100% success. So get a chicken-warming water bucket. It’ll change your chicken-keeping life!!
Tips and Tricks
The Little Things
Ya know how those little suckers like to roost on everything? Well, the water and food buckets were approaching my poop limit when they began to accumulate an inch of poop every week. Why do they want to sit on a round, flat surface anyways? The solution? Well, it’s such a simple thing. It’s crazy, but the “No roost cap” in this picture works! They are called no-roost and, in my opinion – magical. Amazingly they don’t ever blow off, and we live on a hill in a crazy windy area. Again, before I can unequivocally recommend this no-roost cone, keep in mind I tried covering the top with metal fencing (they sat right in it like it was a crown) and hardware cloth (I couldn’t get it to stay in place). So again, silly? Maybe. Worth it? Definitely.
Calcium
How do you know if your chickens need more calcium? If their egg shells are thin or you have put a thumb through the shell when cracking them, this is a sign to pay attention. Chickens need calcium. They need calcium to make strong eggshells and circulatory, nervous, cardiac, and digestive systems, so it’s not optional. There are a couple of ways to make sure they get enough calcium. Some chicken food comes with extra calcium; you can buy calcium at your feed store, and/or you can save their egg shells, crush them up and feed them back to your hens. I tend to use a combination of strategies. Now that you have calcium, how do you offer calcium to your hens? I’ve found that the best way is to put the calcium in a regular bird feeder in the coop, and they will serve themselves when needed.
Leaves
Leaves are priceless. And free! We use leaves extensively in the garden, but they are also crazy helpful in the chicken run. A sprinkle of leaves covers the snow in the winter so that the little princesses will go outside. Throwing leaves in the run in the spring keeps the mud (and the smell )down. But maybe, most importantly, a bag of leaves in the run keeps the chicken entertained in the off-season. Grab a bale of straw for the same purposes if you don’t like the look of a pile of bagged leaves in your yard all winter.
Lights
Ready for the controversial part? Lights in the coop. First, let’s be straight chickens don’t need heat. They are feathered animals living in a flock and are perfectly happy outside, provided you have a draft-free coop and a breed meant for your location. So why do I have lights, then? For eggs. Our chickens are not pets; they are egg-producing animals who live in our backyard. So to keep them laying all year long, we put lights in the coop on a timer so they get their 14 hours of light every day, all year long, so that they will lay consistently. The lights I have been using for a decade are warm, LED, soft, waterproof rope lights that I hang up high in their coop.
~ Lola
“There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments!”
Do you have any coop gadgets that make life easier? Do tell!!
Coop Gadets to make chicken keeping easier!
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Gardens we’ve built
Why I Garden; if you grow it, they will eat it
Community Oasis Garden; exploring the passion
The Gardening Passion Expands; the garden that created a bidding war
Quick Turn Garden; two years and counting
The Empty Nest Garden; totally out of control
Coops we’ve built
How NOT to Build a Chicken Coop
The Bored Engineer’s Coop
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