New To Raising Chickens

About six months ago my wife tells me she wants to get chickens. Me as a good husband tell her sure, ok you can have chickens. Thinking this is a phase and it will pass and not actually get the chickens. We live in a suburb of KCMO. I knew the city would allow us to have chickens as for our neighbors have chickens. We are allowed to have up to 6 hens no roosters. As time went on my wife continued to talk about getting chickens. Soon I realized she wasn't going to let it go and I better start preparing myself for the life with chickens.

I knew we needed a chicken coop. So I started Googling different coops and seeing what it all entails to build one. I'm not a carpenter but I like to try to do things on my own. (To save money). I had an my sons old bunk bed frame still in storage so I thought that would be a good frame for the coop. About a month ago I began building the coop. Because I really didn't know what I was doing, as I was building it I had changed the design of the coop at least 10 times. After a couple of weeks my wife became antsy in getting the chickens but the coop was nowhere near complete. As it was now the end of October and no one in our area was selling chickens. I thought it would be spring before we got anything but my wife would not let it go. My wife was determined to get chickens this year and now. My wife found a guy selling 4 Rhode Island Reds (one of the breads she was wanting) about 30 minutes way. When she told me this on Sunday evening while I'm at work, may I add, she informs me we were picking them up on Wednesday.

So as I am the loving supporting husband that I am. I buckled down and even took a day off work just to finish the chicken coop in time. I have to admit I began to get excited about the chickens myself. I began reading more on raising chickens (thanks to BYC) who gave me a lot of information.

Well in the end I managed to get the coop done enough for the chickens on Wednesday. Then on Thursday I built them a 8'x20' run so my dog and my neighbors dog don't mess with the chickens.

I was told that it may be a few weeks before we began getting eggs due to the stress on the chickens moving from one home to a new home. But today Friday we got our first egg.

We have young kids (11,8,4 years old) they are super excited to have chickens. I'm am super excited as well. I'm looking forward to this new adventure. I know I will have a ton of questions as time goes on. And I'm glad this Website BYC has so much information and will be able to help me on the way.

Good luck, and congratulations! If you have any questions, just go on ahead and ask BYC.

That was a wonderful introduction, thanks for sharing with us! Funny, you thought getting chickens was a passing phase, lol. Don't you know chickens are addictive? Oh yeah, you start off with a few in the backyard. The next thing you know you have to move out to 10 acres in the country so you have room for the 50+ chickens, dozen ducks, who knows how many quail and a couple of turkeys. Good thing you're here so we can lend some support.

Check out the Learning Center if you haven't already, there are a lot of good articles there to help you get started right. And share a picture of your coop and birds if you'd like.

Thanks for joining us, it's nice to have you here!

Welcome to Backyard chickens. I heartily "prescribe" you go to the Learning Center and immerse yourself in all the knowledge. Some of it will stick with you even just with one reading. You can always go back and take notes. It should answer most of the questions you will have. If not.you come back and ask us. That is what we are here for.
I think I am as excited as you are. But, please do not ever underestimate the patience and cunning dogs can exhibit when they want to get to chickens. Dogs + chickens generally = dead chickens. Even if they behave well in front of you, they are biding their time until you aren't present. I am a dog lover but, the best way to have both is to NEVER let them meet.

Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock. Congratulations! It's always so egg-citing getting that first egg. ) Raising chickens is a wonderful experience for children. X2 on NorthFlChick and drumstick diva; if you haven't done so already, definitely check out our Learning Center at https://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/1/Learning_Center. There is lots of useful information there. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Cheers.

Welcome, and what a cute and funny story about how you got your chickens.

Welcome and Congrats on your new flock. Great intro, thanks for sharing.

It took me years to decide to get my flock and months to finalize my plans. Wish I could have consulted you .

Would love to see pics of your coop, run and the flock.