On 2010-08-19, Swingman wrote:

A stand is optional and doesn't have to used. In an urban setting with
limited yard space some folks want extra room under the coop to be part
of the run. Some use it as a good place to hang the self feeder to keep
it out of the elements, to provide shade for the occupants during the
heat of the day, or as a place to store the feed.

Makes sense.

And, as any farm boy knows, chickens prefer to roost as high as they can
get. If it's too low you will be forever going out at night to capture
(easiest way is with a broom handle) those few activist hens with a mind
of their own that never seem to get the word that they are safer locked
up inside, rather than roosting on the roof.

After all, chickens can, and do unless you keep one wing clipped, fly
.... after a fashion.

I wasn't exactly raised on a farm, but spent several Summers on a
small cattle grazing ranchette. The family I stayed with had banty
chickens for the pot and what were probably leghorns for eggs. The
banty chickens ran loose around the farm yard, with the exception of
3-4 banty's in lone cages, much like rabbit hutches, for some reason I
don't recall. The leghorns had a relatively large ground level pen (~
10-15') covered over with chicken wire and laying boxes inside a room
at one end, but it was also at ground level and the laying boxes jes a
foot or so off the ground.

I don't recall ever seeing a chicken in a tree and I don't think the
egg hens had any roosts, but the leghorn pen was covered completely
over so the hens couldn't get out. Perhaps the banty chickens did
roost in trees, they having no real coop. This was over 50 yrs ago,
so there's a lot I don't remember. I do know it was a great place to
be as a kid and I still have a certain fondness for chickens to this
very geezer day.


nb