Chicken coop question

We get one egg per hen each day. With our eleven hens, we get a dozen a day, a lot we sell to neighbors for $3 a dozen to recoup cost.

Our coop is about 40 feet from the house. It can get stinky, particularly after a lot of rain. We use pine shavings to help the smell, and scrape the manure every few weeks for storage further in the backyard (for the garden).

My only concern for you is your actual house. We let our chickens free range around the backyard, and it they in turn have caused some minor damage to the house. They like pecking at the lower part of the siding, which has exposed the wood in places, and have dug trenches up close to the foundation to take their dirt baths. Also, anything planted in the yard, they will peck at. Don't plan to have that pretty rose bush for the wife there without putting chicken wire around it.

If they are close to or can have contact with the exterior of the house, be vigilant.

 

I've a few chickens here that lay different color eggs. to find out more than you ever want to know about chickens you can go to this website but you don't have to be a member to learn. I post there occasionally as well.

Egg colors are blue, blue/green, green, tan, pink and brown. I call them my barnyard mix, because most of them were hatched here from different original sources. I have 14 layers and one rooster. We grow them for meat and eggs. For a shed, I bought one of those ready made yard buildings, probably more $$$ than you'd want to spend, but it was for a long term project, so a spent a bit more to get something that would last. Being they are all different ages up to two years old now, they don't all lay every day, but I will have about 6 dozen to sell this week, I got 12 eggs today and 6 yesterday, so average lay would be around 8-9 for 14 hens. New hens will usually lay every day, but never more than once a day for any breed I have ever owned. I have a 5' fence around my lot and the only problem I've ever had was from a hawk. He got in the coop during the day and all the hens ran outside and wouldn't go back in until I removed the hawk to the woods. I didn't harm the hawk, but the panic of being caught must have been traumatic enough for it, because it did not return. The rooster is very vigilant about protecting his flock and warns if trouble is near.

As for keeping hens under the front porch, I doubt even I could get away with that. Wife and M-I-Law would probably ban it.