Congratulations MamaNini! You won a beautiful coop from Handcrafted Coops! - Page 24

The best advice I can offer is ALWAYS build your coop at least 3 times (not 2) bigger than you think is necessary!!!  I started with 5 chicks and within 1 week MY HUSBAND, not me, snuck in 1 more...didn't even tell me.  I now have exactly 3 times as many as I first started with 3 years ago and I LOVE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!!!

Also...while on the subject...if you have a broody hen and she hasn't given up, then you don't give up either!!!  I have a hen that has been sitting for almost a month (and yes, I have catered to everyone single one of her needs from hand feed food & treats, to water, to letting her out...waiting...and then holding the egg door so she can get back to her eggs on the brooder box side) and I just don't have the heart to take her eggs that I just candled and are no longer alive  So what do you do you ask???  Put more under her and sneak the bad ones out....there's nothing better than a dedicated mother's love 

Some of the most vivid memories I have of growing up on the farm originate with my father's hobby of keeping chickens.  One of my chores was to gather the eggs each day and ensure they had enough water and food.  Unfortunately, it was during these young impressionable years that I became so terrified of chickens; or shall I say, roosters.  

Now, years later, as a grown adult I have children of my own who want to try their hand at raising chickens.  My knee-jerk reaction was "no way!".  

What does this have to do with my "best advice"?   Well, since the topic was proposed to me by my children, and after I recovered from the flashbacks of loud crows, flapping wings, and quick movements; I began my quest for information.  With the help of websites like backyardchickens.com and mypetchicken.com (and the forums within them), I have learned many of the issues caused by those chickens and rooster were avoidable.

With sites like these, and the willingness to teach by their members, I am confident that I can guide my children through successful chicken ownership with a positive outcome in the end.

Thinking of a few backyard chickens?  Do your homework.  Plan for what can go wrong.  Learn from others mistakes.  Seek advice.  Then, go for it!  

What chicken is for me?

Everyone of us have all been posed by this one question at some point whether your new to chicken keeping or a pro and hears my advice on how to solve it.

What chicken to get?

When you come to this you need to think and take in to consideration how much space you have, whether it is small medium or large and whetehr your in a rural or uban enviroment and will it be sufficient to your bird you wanting to keep. There is a chicken for everyone so dont think you can't if you have a small garden (but chicken keeping is Highly addictive trust me you get one you want more)

What are you wanting it for?

Are you wanting your chicken for eggs, showing, breeding or a simple addition to the family some more questions to think about if you are wanting it just as an addition to the familly the breed doesnt really matter but for showing or breeding you need to do a bit of reasearch first as the standards and qualitiy of the birds are drematically diffrent to thoes of an everyday back garden pet. Also if you want an egg layer you would probably be better getting a hybrid specicific for laying or you could always re-home a few ex batterie hens.

Can you afford it if a chicken needs medical treatment?

Getting your chicken is great but there are always underling costs such as worming fleeing, possibly red mite in the coops or the general like food and bedding.

Finally chickens are ment to be a fun hobby so dont rush in to it because your dieing to get going. Do a little reasearch before hand it will do you a world of good and dont be affraid to ask questions if your unsure, as i always say ask stupid questions rather than make stupid mistakes, get to know poultry exsperts or people that have kept them for a few years but dont exspect to get everything right first time your bound to get something wrong but dont beat your self up it happense to us all. All that matters is you have happy healthy bird and your happy and smiling :)

What chicken is for me?

Everyone of us have all been posed by this one question at some point whether your new to chicken keeping or a pro and hears my advice on how to solve it.

What chicken to get?

When you come to this you need to think and take in to consideration how much space you have, whether it is small medium or large and whetehr your in a rural or uban enviroment and will it be sufficient to your bird you wanting to keep. There is a chicken for everyone so dont think you can't if you have a small garden (but chicken keeping is Highly addictive trust me you get one you want more)

What are you wanting it for?

Are you wanting your chicken for eggs, showing, breeding or a simple addition to the family some more questions to think about if you are wanting it just as an addition to the familly the breed doesnt really matter but for showing or breeding you need to do a bit of reasearch first as the standards and qualitiy of the birds are drematically diffrent to thoes of an everyday back garden pet. Also if you want an egg layer you would probably be better getting a hybrid specicific for laying or you could always re-home a few ex batterie hens.

Can you afford it if a chicken needs medical treatment?

Getting your chicken is great but there are always underling costs such as worming fleeing, possibly red mite in the coops or the general like food and bedding.

Finally chickens are ment to be a fun hobby so dont rush in to it because your dieing to get going. Do a little reasearch before hand it will do you a world of good and dont be affraid to ask questions if your unsure, get to know poultry exsperts or people that have kept them for a few years but dont exspect to get everything right first time your bound to get something wrong but dont beat your self up it happense to us all. All that matters is you have happy healthy bird and your happy and smiling :)

I don't have any chickens at this time because I haven't been able to talk my husband into building a coop; but it has not kept me from reading all the chicken books and magazines that I can get my hands on.  So I guess I would say my best advise is to learn all you can before purchasing your chicks, know your city ordinances about backyard chickens, and knowing the color and size of eggs you want and pick out the chicken/s you want.  Here's hoping I win the coop so I can purchase the chicks I want! As a child, collecting the eggs was one ofmy chores. I miss that chore and hope to enjoy it soon.

Being new to incubating, my best advise to not to do what i did, i purchased new incubator and turner and set it up early before eggs arrived to check humidity and temp. all seemed well so i placed my eggs in and got set, waited 18 days and then when ready to put in lock down noticed the auto turner wasn't turning and probably never did.  the hook on the side that should have been attached to the trays wasn't attached. being stubborn and not wanting to give up i left the eggs in lockdown and waited the last 3 days.  to my surprise out of 41 eggs i did have 16 to hatch. but in the future i will definitely check the turner better. thanks for listening.

Wow, her first (and only) post on BYC, too.

Congratulations..... enjoy!

Sorry it took so long to find a winner.   We had a TON of great submissions and had a handful of people reading through them.   After narrowing down the finalists we verified the ones that followed all the rules and then a final winner was chosen.

(always a much longer process than we expect, but we'll learn from the experience for the next time and expect things will go smoother)

Again, THANKS TO EVERYONE for their wonderful submissions and thanks to Drew from Handcrafted Coops for providing such a wonderful prize!!