I do have the coop wired inside and out, and that includes a 60 watt light outside. I go out at 6:00 (or so...) in the morning and turn on the light. I usually give the girls a bowl of hot oatmeal or corn grits in the cold mornings, or some cottage cheese in the summer; never more than a cropfull, but they do enjoy it.
Patriot, my wife recommended the bright yellow color, and what Momma wants, Momma gets. I figure it would not be hard to do an urban camo job on it if required, but until then, yellow it is. In any case, you cannot see the coop from the surrounding yards, except one. Next door can see the top over the fence, but it is not clear what it is.
As for the hens, I have 2 Rhode Island Reds, 2 Golden Sex Links, and 2 Black Jersey Giants. The Sex Links are a cross between a Rhode Island red Hen, and a Rhode Island White Rooster, which produces hens with golden feathers, and roos that have all white feathers. The Jersey Giants are decent egg layers, and their eggs tend to be larger like turkey or goose eggs, but the whites can be a bit rubbery if overcooked.
As for the feed, I am generous. I use 50 pounds of feed and about 50 pounds of scratch grains every 2 months. My hens are well fed, and they free-range in the yard as well. Locally scratch goes for about $8/50 pound bag and feed for a little more. I also buy an 80 pound sack of horse oats (about $12) and feed the hens a handful of whole oats as well.
If we were forced to, 6 hens could live comfortably in our backyard with nothing other than grass, weeds and the compost pile to live off of. It might reduce their egg production, or just reduce the size of the eggs they lay, but as long as they are well fed, healthy, and have a comfy place to live, they will continue to produce lots of very large eggs. Generally, they all lay one egg per day.
OBTW, I keep an egg book out of habit, and I weigh each egg on a small digital kitchen scale, and record it in grams to avoid the six place fractions of ounces. Since I’ve only been raising hens since June, it makes good sense to keep track of how they are doing, and so far production has been a steady curve upward. The egg book is also a good way to keep track of the health and maturity of the birds, as the size of their eggs increases all the time.
My current best layer is Laverne, a Rhode Island red, who just last week laid me 70, 71 an 74 gram eggs, three days in a row! Those are well over 2 1/2 ounce eggs, and are definitely Jumbo sized! We’ve also had a few 2-yolk eggs, the biggest laid by one of the sex-links that weighed in at 94 grams! I don’t know if that one hurt like heck or felt really, REALLY good....but she hasn’t produced another one like it, at least not yet.
Yes, I spent just short of $2 grand building a nice henhouse, but it was intended to be warm in the winter, cool in the summer and quiet. I built it over a period of several months, used all new materials, and paid cash. I am in a residential neighborhood, and noise is an issue, so the coop is double-walled and insulated. That also takes care of temperature control, and just body heat from the chickens is enough to keep the coop warm enough in the coldest weather we have seen so far. If need be, I can always put in a brooder lamp for artificial heat, but in this area that will be rare.
My coop is at the top end of coops, and there are lots of people out there who raise plenty of healthy chickens, and get lots of big eggs, with a lot less coop than I have. A few crates and a bale of hay will please most chickens...you don’t have to build a big coop like this one.
One other resource I would mention is a book that is available on Amazon: “Storey’s guide to Raising Chickens” is the best primer I have come across that covers all of the basics under one cover. Knowing how to properly raise chickens can be a real asset to you in any number of situations, and even if nothing ever happens, it’s amazing how much difference there is between store-bought and fresh eggs.
A hen named Laverne- that’s cute. Do you have one named Shirley? LOL How about Henrieta?
I love chickens. Wish we could have some in our backyard.
Seems like you feed the hens an awful lot.
The way I am reading that, you spend $850 on chicken feed every 2 months, or $425 each month. I feeed our family of five on about $650 per month and we eat very well.
My math must be wrong somewhere.