Hi everyone
Well, aside from my introduction post, this is my first "proper" post so apologies if I sound like a complete nuffy - I've never owned chooks before and know very little about them.
We're currently in the process of renovating an old aviary in our backyard (we've only lived here for 2 months so not sure how long it's been sitting unused - it was being used to house a water tank for several years at least).
It's about 1.8m high, 1.2m wide and 2m deep and we are only planning on having 2 chooks (who will be able to roam around our reasonably large, fully secure backyard). I don't have concerns about the size of it but have a couple of questions about the renos we're doing.
1) It's wooden, has a concrete floor, a solid back and half of one side, chicken wire on the remaining walls and hinged door. The back part of the roof is corrugated iron with chicken wire over the top, and the front part is just chicken wire. We bought new chicken wire to replace some of the parts that look ratty. We also bought shade cloth as an extra barrier against predators - do we need that? It's north facing in a fairly sheltered area (behind a double garage and under a tree, the east wall is all chicken wire, the west wall next to the garage is half wood, half chicken wire).
2) There's a nesting box already in it - do chickens care about other birds having been in the nesting box? We've cleaned it out but will they only use a new one that doesn't have the scent of the previous bird?
3) We've built a shelf and a ramp - the shelf is about 1m off the ground and the ramp is on a bit less than a 45 degree angle. I read somewhere that roosting poles shouldn't be more than 60cm from the ground. We were planning on putting the roosting pole just above the shelf, so about 1.2m from the ground. Is that a problem? There is plenty of room under the shelf if we should put it there.
I'm sure I'll have heaps more questions over the coming weeks but given how long this post is, I think I should leave it there!
Thanks in advance for any advice
![[smilie=welcome.gif]](./images/smilies/welcome.gif "welcome")
Izzybella,