Congratulations MamaNini! You won a beautiful coop from Handcrafted Coops! - Page 21

I am a second grade teacher who is going a little off the beaten path. At my home I am starting a chicken coop so that I am able to learn the needed stills so that I can teach my students a more well rounded ways of how the world works. My goals is to show kids how to care for animals and how animals are such a vital factor in the world. The coop is the perfect size for me to start this at home my own and to be able to show the school how easy and able we would be to care for these animals. My goal would then to be to funraise money for a second coop for my school. I am so excited for this adventure!!

Let your chickens be the birds they are meant to be. Don't think of them as egg layers or potential Coq au Vin. They have personalities and are smarter than most people think. Let them animate your yard and enjoy watching them play out their daily drama. You will soon find your favorites, seeing who's on the bottom of the pecking order, who's the prima donna, and which are bff (best feathered friends.) One day you will notice that you have become the Mother Hen!

If you are keeping your chickens in a suburban neighborhood cleanliness is imperative!  Make the extra effort to have a tidy looking and especially smelling coop.  Food grade diatomaceous earth makes a terrific drying agent on the floor or in the drop pan under your coop.  Rake out your run and keep your tools in nice order.  Keep your extra feed in a secured area so not to attract rodents!  Happy neighbors = happy chicken owner!

My best advice is to relax and enjoy them. As long as they have food, water and shelter they know what they need to know and will do just fine !

Bob

If your poultry are your pets as well as providers of plentiful protein, you will find that bonding with them is promoted by learning to use their language. If you speak to them in words, they will look at you and listen. If you speak to them in clucks, tuts, purrs and cackles, then you will begin to have long and meaningful conversations that will cement the bonds between you and make you truly part of their flock. I find the best time for conversation is at night when they are nestled on their roost. It has become a highlight of my day, and provides another benefit of backyard chickens.

Quote:

Originally Posted by angusshangus 

 

If you are keeping your chickens in a suburban neighborhood cleanliness is imperative!  Make the extra effort to have a tidy looking and especially smelling coop.  Food grade diatomaceous earth makes a terrific drying agent on the floor or in the drop pan under your coop.  Rake out your run and keep your tools in nice order.  Keep your extra feed in a secured area so not to attract rodents!  Happy neighbors = happy chicken owner!

Yes, even out in the country it's depressing to see nasty animal quarters. Chickens come with a certain amount of mess, but I try to keep my coops from being disgusting! And keeping trash picked up, and junk(I know, it's all Repurposing Items) in one area is nice too. I have chicks in my garage and I do a lot of sweeping so my house can still stay neat. -Lee

My best piece of advice is that you NEED a really secure coop. I'm a second time chicken owner, the first time was several years ago and we only had two chickens, our coop was not secure enough and raccoons got in and killed both of the chickens. This time we made sure to make a very secure coop. We have had this coop for about a year now and all the chickens are fine. The main things are that there need to be locks, the wire should be hardware cloth as opposed to chicken wire so that little raccoon hands can't fit through, and that you dig a trench around the coop and put the wire all the way down to the bottom then cover the trench, this prevents animals from digging underneath and grabbing your birds.

My advice to achieve the best quality eggs is to give them the best quality food. Seems simple, but it's so hard even to feed ourselves these days, with all the concerns about pesticides and GMO's, etc. That's why it makes sense to me to only buy organic feed as well as feed ourselves organic food. That way the scraps the chickens get will be safe too. ...we hope. ;) Wow, that sounds so gloomy. Watching a few silly chickens run around will certainly resolve the depression!  Actually, I'm going to go watch my pet duck. I don't have any chickens...yet!

Thanks for the opportunity!

Shelly

The best advice I have concerning chickens is to just get 'em.  I started with 4 last year and they were so much fun!  I can't wait to add to the flock this year. Read and talk with people about chickens.  Learn all you can and then learn some more.  Watch 'em.  Talk to 'em.  Walk with 'em.  Have fun with 'em.

The best advice I can give is listen to others who have done it before you. They have tried and succeeded and tried and failed.   Take what you can apply to your situation and set up and run with it.  Not everything that works for other people will work for you so just keep trying.  You will figure out the best options that you can work with.  Bottom line is make it fun and easy.  If the coop is not user friendly, or the water is a pain in the neck to fill,l or you can't keep the food in easy reach you won't enjoy your flock.  If you are doing it for profit the same thing applies, make it fun and user friendly. 

Edited to add: I just realized this contest was open to 48 state only!