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- Here at the Epic homestead,
we have a new structure on the property,
and I could not be more excited.
It is a six foot by 18 foot custom chicken coop
built by Carolina Coops,
but I don't have any chickens in it.
And you know why?
It's 'cause I don't have a lot of chicken knowledge.
I'm a gardener guys.
So what I did is not only do I have the coop,
but I called Matt,
who is the owner and inventor of this Carolina Coop,
to come on out here, sit down in the Epic Gardening,
and answer 20 plus of your questions
on exactly how this coop was built
and how coops should be built in general,
and also questions that
any beginner chicken keeper needs to know
about keeping chickens.
So how'd you get to a point in your life
where you build custom chicken coops for a living?
- I tell you it all happened an accident.
It started out as survival in '08 when the recession hit.
I was pulling wood out of a dumpster
to build things to sell 'em.
And along with that,
it was the same time I bought my first house
in the city of Durham.
Wanted chickens, got chickens, built a little coop,
chicken math kicked in, wanted a bigger coop
so I sold my little coop.
Sold in 20 minutes for $200,
which back then was like win the lotto for me.
I was able to buy some food for my family,
and really the rest is history.
- [Kevin] When we're talking about a chicken coop
in a suburban backyard,
like the one behind you, where do you place it?
Or where do you think about placing a chicken coop?
Is there an optimal location?
- There really is,
but first I wanna say with our coop design,
it can go anywhere.
But I always like to tell people,
if you have a spot where you can put your coop in the woods
that's ideal for the chickens.
They're already a woodland animal, give 'em that shade.
But the other thing we've realized
when we do a lot of site surveys,
is a lot of times there's a spot that is not being used
that can be perfect for a chicken coop.
- [Kevin] Can you mix chickens and quail in this same coop?
- No, because quail require either a very low structure
so that they can't fly up and break their necks
or has to be very tall and grassy in the bottom.
Quail and chickens just do not belong together.
- [Kevin] Is there anything you can put in besides chickens
in a chicken coop together with chickens?
- Oh yeah.
We've done ducks, turkeys, rabbits,
and I'm sure there's a couple other things
I'm not thinking of, but yeah.
- [Kevin] Question about frost bite on combs.
- Yeah, yeah.
- [Kevin] How do you deal with that?
- If you live in an area
that you have high potential for frost bites,
get chickens that don't have large combs.
Here's what I see happen.
People insulate their henhouse
and when they insulate their henhouse or also heating it up
and when you insulate something, you're trapping moisture.
So that's all fine and dandy until morning comes
and the chickens wanna go outside and be chickens,
and now they have all this moisture on their comb,
and then when they go down into the run where it's cold,
that's where you increase the chances of frost bite.
- [Kevin] What's your favorite bedding type.
If you're using the deep litter method?
- Industrial hemp.
industrial hemp is PH neutral.
It just does a much better job at the composting process.
It really allows it, set it forget it system.
- [Kevin] How about this?
Does deep litter work in a climate that will freeze?
- Absolutely.
- [Kevin] So I'm getting to question that
it's six, eight, 10 inches deep,
and part of it's frozen.
Is that a problem or no?
- It really shouldn't be frozen
'cause there's not a lot of moisture in it.
But even if it did freeze a little,
that is not a problem at all.
- [Kevin] How do you handle a broody hen
- You don't.
She won't let ya.
Here's the thing, people frown upon broodiness.
And my opinion is, let them be broody, let them be mothers,
even give them some eggs to sit on
and just let 'em go through their cycle.
People don't like when they go broody
because they're not producing eggs,
but in my opinion that's the time to let her be a mother,
give her some fertile eggs
or after 21 days go out there at night,
put baby chicks underneath her
and let her raise those baby chicks.
- [Kevin] What is the best material for the coop
and for the run if they're different?
- Okay.
Well when it comes to materials for a chicken coop,
to me the sweet spot is building everything out of lumber.
We love Doug fir.
When it comes to the roofing, metal is where it's at.
Metal reflects the heat,
it's also very safe to collect rainwater,
and when it comes to the screen,
we love the galvanized core black PVC coated.
When it comes to your faceting hardware,
you wanna make sure it's stainless steel or blue coat,
especially in the areas
where you're using pressure treated lumber.
You don't want those chemicals
in the pressure treated lumber to corrode those fasteners.
- [Kevin] What is the most quiet chicken breed
if you're trying to keep these chickens on the down low?
- I tell ya,
the thing about chickens is,
I know you can read magazines and they'll tell you about
the (indistinct) are usually friendly
and other chickens are gonna be a little bit more flighty.
I don't think you can really pick a breed
that's gonna be quiet.
Especially when they have their egg song.
- [Kevin] How much space does a chicken need,
not just to live, but to thrive.
An individual chicken.
- That's a great question.
That's a great way of putting it.
'Cause something I talk about all the time is space.
When the chickens are out of their henhouse
during the daytime, give 'em as much room as possible.
The bare minimums is 10 square feet per hen.
But I don't like that,
I say give 'em as much room as possible
and make sure that they're able to get to areas
where they can scratch and be chickens,
and eat bugs and things like that.
And also be able to run underneath trees
to hide from predators.
- [Kevin] Can you just have a few chickens in your backyard,
no coop, just let 'em hang out in the backyard?
- Oh yeah.
- [Kevin] And is there any tip
that would make that easier I guess?
- I guess to make that easier would be just to make sure
that they have easy access to food and water.
Chickens are gonna go where they wanna go.
- [Kevin] What about protection
since you've got no henhouse?
- Well, there's gonna be no protection.
- [Kevin] Yeah.
- They're at high risk.
They're gonna be go do what chickens did
before coops were invented.
They will go up in your trees and--
- [Kevin] Try to leave.
- They will try to leave.
- [Kevin] What diseases are the most common
that you're gonna deal with when you've got some chickens.
- Yeah Marek's is very common.
That's a nightmare your first year of raising hens.
Coccidiosis is very popular, very common,
especially if you have warm, wet soil.
And that's what will allow that parasite to thrive.
- [Kevin] Do breeds produce more eggs and less eggs
and if so, which breeds produce the most?
- So there are breeds designed for just pumping out eggs.
The Rhode Island Red
is one of the most popular chicken breeds
in the backyard hobby
because they're such good egg producers.
And there's gonna be some breeds out there
that aren't gonna lay as much.
But I also wanna say,
a lot of the egg production has to do with their environment
and also will have a lot to do with their age.
- [Kevin] Can chickens and dogs...
If I have a pet dog,
is that gonna be a problem or can they play nicely together?
- Depends on the dog.
It depends on the dog.
There are many times
you can have a dog and chicken get along,
if not have that dog protecting that flock.
But you gotta remember,
we've bred a lot of dogs
that their instincts are to go chase that fast moving bird,
in this case of chicken
- [Kevin] As far as kitchen scraps,
are there any unconventional things
you can feed your chickens
and also what should you really avoid feeding them?
- There's a lot of people that say, "Don't give 'em citrus,
don't give 'em apples."
Bottom line is this, chickens...
You can give chickens anything in my opinion.
What you don't do is give 'em something that's moldy.
The toxicity and the mold will kill the chickens.
You can just use common sense.
- [Kevin] What paint or stains are safe to use
inside the coop if you do want to paint the inside?
- So when it comes to paints and stains inside the henhouse,
they're all safe in my opinion,
especially once they cure properly.
What people think
is that chickens are gonna go eat the paint.
They're gonna go eat the stain.
They're not.
They might Peck at it a couple times
but they're not trying to eat it.
That is their way of smelling.
That's their way of going around and checking things out.
- [Kevin] As far as the basic daily chores required
to keep your chickens in good health, keep 'em happy,
keep 'em laying, what are you looking at
as far as the chores themselves
and how much time that takes?
- So every day, if you got the right set up, it's seconds.
You just go out and collect the eggs,
make sure or you do once over on their feed, all right?
Especially with our water system, that's 50 gallons.
You just make sure there's no leaks anywhere,
which again takes seconds.
- [Kevin] One of the things we love about a backyard chicken
is what it does to that yolk, that orange yolk.
What if I'm having backyard chickens
and I'm just not getting that orange yolk.
What's going wrong?
- The food.
Mix up the food.
If you're feeding your chickens just straight egg layer mash
and no other variety,
and they're not able to get to any bugs
and things like that...
That's what happens in factory farming,
that's why the eggs don't taste so good.
Mix it up.
- [Kevin] How do I keep, I guess raccoons and snakes
out of a coop if it's different.
- Okay so raccoons and snakes
are completely two different animals.
To keep raccoons out
has a lot to do with the quality of your construction.
Understand how raccoons think,
remember that they have pinkies and thumbs,
you gotta make sure they can't work
certain locking mechanisms.
That's why we love carabiners in all our locks.
But when it comes to snakes,
here's what you have to understand,
snakes that are big enough to eat the eggs,
they like a coop like ours,
they can't fit through, but you gotta think like a snake,
you gotta get down to their level
and that if you don't have the bottom of your coop
prepped out right and a snake can get through,
they're gonna go in and most likely they can find eggs.
However, a lot of people don't realize this.
You can have a juvenile snake make their way into our run
and go right through
the half inch by half inch (indistinct).
When that happens I'm thankful,
'cause that's free chicken food.
- [Kevin] They won't be able
to attack the chicken too small,
so the chicken just pick it apart.
- No, they don't do that.
Well okay, if a venomous snake went in there,
constricted style snake,
it would have to be a baby chick
but the mama hen is gonna protect that baby chick.
- [Kevin] Do I need to add a fan
to keep airflow in the coop or is better method?
- The better method is using physics, okay?
When air comes into a building, it will warm up
but it needs to convert.
We all have learned hot air rises,
and that allows it to escape.
That's all you need.
That is ventilation.
- [Kevin] How do I easily clean a coop,
if it's raised up off the ground
much like the one that we've got at Carolina Coops.
- Well if you have one like ours,
I always emphasize that you're using
a pulling sweeping motion,
a hack I'll never forget years ago.
A lady had what I call rock rake
which has those very hard fingers.
And she took some hardware cloth,
it was like quarter inch by quarter inch hardware cloth,
and she wrapped the fingers,
so that it could grab more
of the smaller particulates of the litter.
And it's just a pulling sweeping motion like a hoe would be.
- [Kevin] Do you have to ever maintain
or replace your coop screens?
- No.
- [Kevin] No
- No, I wouldn't use it if I had to.
- [Kevin] How much does it cost to keep chickens per month?
Let's say you got 10 chickens,
what's a ballpark on that all in cost.
- Gosh, that's a tough one too.
'Cause the price of feed is changed.
Unfortunately I don't ever look at numbers like that,
but I can imagine it's a good question.
And I think the last time I bought a bag of feed
it was like $15, and if it was like 10 chickens,
you're probably gonna go through gosh,
maybe three to four bags.
So maybe $60, $80 bucks a month.
If that...
But here's the beauty of giving 'em table scraps
or letting 'em free range.
That minimizes how much feed they gotta eat.
- [Kevin] Can you get it to a point
like say here in my garden where if I let 'em free-range
my feed costs could be potentially zero
or is it not enough food for them to scavenge around?
- You have enough food here.
Obviously you don't want 'em eating,
our cabbage patch, kids here and whatnot,
but it is absolutely possible.
There's a lot of people that can raise their chickens
just on their compost.
And you gotta remember,
they're not just eating the table scripts
or whatever you're putting in the compost.
Think about all the other bugs that are in there
that they're gonna eat.
- And this is a great one.
- [Kevin] What are the most unique,
delicate or intricate features that you're putting
in your coops at Carolina?
- There's so many features with our Carolina Coop
and the number one is the deep litter system.
It's amazing to not only be able to go over a year
without having to clean out your henhouse.
It's also healthier for your chickens.
And there's so many details on how we accomplish that
Using the food safe, high density polyethylene
All the way down to our automatic door
that we use to let the chickens free range
the rope wrap roof bars, things like that.
The heated water system...
- [Kevin] If you've got four chickens,
you wanna add two more,
how do you safely introduce new birds into your flock?
Or can you really?
- No.
So you can absolutely introduce new hens
to your existing flock safely.
Rule number one, it's not the age it's the size.
Make sure they're the same size.
And the more space you give them,
the better chance you have of decreasing them
from wanting to fight each other.
The best way is when a hen goes broody,
let her hatch those baby chicks,
and then you're automatically part of the pecking order.
- [Kevin] And you were saying that
you've seen people put in eggs
that of course aren't the mothers,
you've seen them put in just baby chicks
and swap out a fake egg.
- Yup.
- [Kevin] You've seen them put in--
- Baby turkeys, baby ducks.
- [Kevin] Yeah.
- The other day I saw two kittens under a hen
You know it was crazy
- [Kevin] Final question, oddball question.
Do you know if the chicken breed
affects the flavor of the egg?
- Do I know?
No I don't know that, but I would hide doubt it.
I think the flavor of the the egg
has everything to do with what they're eating.
There's some people that say
if you give your chickens a lot of onions and garlic
you'll taste that in the eggs.
- [Kevin] Matt, tell us a little bit about
the philosophy of Carolina Coops
and how people can get in touch with you guys of course,
and why go Carolina instead of a DIY
or instead of something else out there?
- Well, okay.
So the reason why I tell people,
if you're thinking about getting the backyard chickens
you should buy from us is because two things,
we're chicken people and we're wood workers.
We combine those two perfectly
and that's why our coops are awesome.
Also, our customer service is phenomenal.
We are available 24/7.
You won't believe the things we do to make happy.
We actually hire people...
This is gonna sound crazy.
We hire people, most people from the food industry.
People that are in the food industry, they know service.
That stays with them in the customer service side of things.
And then of course when people need to get ahold of us,
there's so many different ways.
You can call us, email us, we have a chat service,
but my favorite is just give us a call.
- And there you have it.
A font of wisdom Matt from Carolina Coops.
I'm taking that wisdom into my chickens
which will be coming soon here at the Epic Homestead.
So stay tuned, good luck in the garden and keep on growing.
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