I didn't want chickens

TimLewallen

In the Brooder
Mar 24, 2017
45
32
44
Greetings everyone.

My name is Tim and I live in East Texas in a little town called Nacogdoches.

My father-in-law and brother-in-law both have large backyard flocks of chickens (60-80 birds) and they have been on me for months about how I needed to have chickens too. I was dead set against it.

With 4 children, three dogs and two cats I felt I was already fighting above my weight class. I didn't need to add to the hassle.

Well, my brother-in-law and my youngest son set about building a coop at his house with the plans of bringing it over to our house along with three hens. My son begged and begged, swore he would care for the birds, he would be super responsible. You know the drill.

So, one evening I get the call that the house and the birds are on their way. We got it setup and the birds installed. I told my boy that the chickens were his responsibility. I was not going to lift a finger to help. He was fine with that.

The coop-



The boy-



The chickens-



So, fast forward a few weeks. The girls got bigger and started supplying us with brown, blue and green eggs. Those dark orange yolks were delicious.

The girls started to grow on me. I found myself out in the backyard feeding them clover, talking to them and carrying them around. They won me over.

So I started on a new coop.

Several years back I built a backyard fort for my two boys and two girls to play in. They have outgrown it for the most part and I thought it would make a perfect coop. So I made some alterations, put up some fencing for a chicken run and here we are.









We are planning on getting another 20 birds or so from a local friend who is hatching several different breeds.

Now if I can just keep our dachshunds from trying to eat them.
 
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Hi Tim, it's nice to have you here! Chickens have a way of winning over the most die-hard anti poultry people around, you didn't stand a chance, lol.
 
Hello, and welcome to our wonderful forum! I am so glad you joined Backyard Chickens, I hope you will make yourself at home here and enjoy it as much as I have! :frow

~Cuz
 
G’Day from down under Tim
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Welcome!

Thank you for a thoroughly enjoyable introduction .. I love how your girls won you over; they sure do have a knack of doing that. Great job on the coop also!

I hope you enjoy being a BYC member. There are lots of friendly and very helpful folks here so not only is it overflowing with useful information it is also a great place to make friends and have some fun.

You might want to also pop in and say hello on your local thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/26/where-am-i-where-are-you ‘Find your State’s thread.

If you would like to share more pictures and stories of your flock, you have come to the right place. BYC’ers never tire of these and do not back away slowly or commence eye rolling when the photo album or home videos come out
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Hello from Kansas, Tim, and
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! Pleased to have you in our flock! Looks like you've been bitten by the chicken bug, all right!! Awesome coop, by the way! Best wishes and thanks for joining BYC!!
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Nice to meet you TIM. Sometimes you don't know what you want, till it smacks you right in the face. You were meant to have chickens. Your son sure looks happy. Welcome to Backyard chickens.
 
So last week sometime Lucy (the chicken in my profile photo) flew out of the chicken run and was quickly dispatched by the dogs.
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That brought us down to a single chicken, Emily. Since we had already decided on getting new chicks we felt it would be best to move her to my father-in-laws coop to be with his chickens and start fresh in our coop. She fell right in with them and was happy.

Sunday we picked up our new chicks. I bought 7 from a friend that is starting up a hatchery business at their home. From her we picked up

3 Easter Eggers
2 Barred Rocks
2 Rhode Island Reds

Then we headed over to Tractor Supply that had their pullets on sale for $.99 each. I picked up 20.

So that gives me 27 total chicks. They will be safe and sound in the coop for a few weeks and that gives me time to reinforce the chicken run and put up netting over the top. I hope to have eggs around the end of the summer.

 
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