Hello from New Mexico

welsummerguy

Hatching
Dec 4, 2015
1
0
7
We recently moved to a rural community and although we thought about getting chickens eventually, we actually ended up "rescuing" 3 hens and a rooster that were being kept in a nearby city. The rooster started crowing and they were found out. Our daughter suggested "My parents live on a farm. They can take the chickens". Our place is hardly a farm...but, sure.

They spent the first night at our place in the biggest cardboard boxes I could find with chicken wire stretched across the front, one chicken per box. A trip to the feed store the next day and I had something to feed them. I quickly made a pen out of fence posts and chicken wire so they could play around outside in the daytime, and bring them in to a pen in the garage at night. This is working so far, but I'm building an outside coop with a fenced area for them. It was amazing that I rarely saw hawks circling overhead until we got chickens. Now they come down to 20 feet or so. The pen has a chicken wire roof, so they're ok.

The chickens were not getting along, but seem to be better now. The rooster is not the problem, it is the hens. Probably just the adjustment. They were living in an apartment somehow, and I'm not sure how much they interacted previously.

According to pictures on the net, these are Welsummers. I had never heard of these, but the ones we have are very nice looking birds. They are easy to handle as well, very tame with us, but not with each other.

One of the hens just laid her first egg - a very small one, but very exciting for us!

So I'm trying to learn as much as possible about how to take care of these birds, and I've already read a lot of the good info you have here.
 
Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock. Congratulations! It's always so egg-citing getting that first egg. I love the chocolate eggs of the Welsummers. In my personal opinion, they are the prettiest eggs in the chicken world. :eek:) 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.
 
Hi :welcome

Glad you could join the flock! That's so nice of you to take these chickens in. I'm sure you will enjoy this new adventure very much. Keeping chckens is a fab hobby that's lots of fun and very rewarding. The learning centre link that Michael left for you is a great place to start. Lots of great articles on keeping them happy, safe and healthy.

Wishing you the very best of luck in the future. Enjoy BYC :frow
 
Welcome to Backyard chickens
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I'm glad you were able to give a home to the chickens. If you have any questions about building a coop for them, you can ask here on the coop/run forum:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/9/coop-run-design-construction-maintenance
One thing about their living space, the more room you can give them, the better the chickens will get along...they hate being crowded and will turn on each other if they are in too small a space.

There's also a NM thread if you would like to chat with other members in your state:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/270925/find-your-states-thread

Feel free to ask questions, there are a lot of helpful members here. Thanks for joining us!
 

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