New to Chickens

We moved to Libya in 2012 after the revolution. Here we hope to start a quiet life around family. Many raise sheep and a few chickens. As animal lovers it hurts to see care and conditions of animals raised here. Much is lack of knowledge. By starting our own homesteading dreams we hope to show people better ways to raise their animals for food supplies. We r buying a home and land and starting small. I have no clue on breeds here. But hope I can post pics soon. Food supplies r available much like my grandfather fed his in Florida. Animals and feed r cheap. I want to build first then raise. Suggestions? My daughter wants to be an animal vet so we r working with local vets as well. I love brown eggs which r very common as well as green and blue tints. This might be a year in the making but its a dream fullfilled. Looking for guidance along the way. People already laugh when I show them my coop design. It will be a challenge for sure. Here most r free range and not well kept but I see lots of fancy chickens. Cost will be different here as well. Thanks for reading.

I would love to see pictures of the chickens that you have there.

It must be very interesting.

We just bought two new chicks in hope we will get ants off our balcony. Its pretty large 3ftx30ft. We have a turtle and a rabbit there to keep them company, plus our various birds sun there until we can get our dream place. Here is a pic of them if anyone can guess their breeds and im hoping both are females! The guy had roosters too but I dont need one im sure many locals will be happy to provide us with one when the time comes.

Since we have owls, no other predators could reach them, we got a pigeon house and covered any openings on the lower part of the balcony with salvaged chicken mesh. Investment so far: 5 per chick, 7 house, 2 feeder and water troths, 1 food for month thats in dinars around less than 20 us dollars. Bucket of sand for baths free. Joy priceless! Our visiting African Grey is chatting with them lol. This is about 1/3 of the area in the pic. Rabbit house on other end. Turtle free roams.

Two weeks later and theyve done well so far. I had moved my greens and herbs to baskets wired on the balcony railing. They were being nibbled. I thought it was our rabbit. I caught the theifs in action lol. Still no clue on breed or sex. The reddish one seems to be developing a crest of feathers on its head, male? Finding info online is hard and im quite limited to usage here. Best I guess will be to document growth in pictures for future reference. I also photographed a lovely brood of chickens that free range near my home. Will try to post images as I can. He has a large harem of females and there r other males but he is the dominant male. He kept his eye on me and signaled the females to move along.[/IMG] the females are up in the rubble if you look u will see them.

for some reason it didnt post both. Here are my theifs! Any help in determining age and breed will be helpful. Sex, well like babies I dont mind the wait.

Looking online its possible I have a Buff Orpington? Both from other images around 1 month old. Wish I had time to look at more sites. Power outages and weather cutting my internet time today.

I would guess that none of the chickens there conform to any of the breeds in the US.

They are pretty though!

We get beautiful dark almost chocolate eggs here soon as they r old enough to lay I will slip a few into their nests or borrow a older hen to hatch me a few. Found some refernce sites today that show babies and adults so maybe I can show the pics to locals and find out if birds like them are here. I just might end up documenting breeds here out of curiosity lol. Especially the fancies! Ive seen a few maybe I can get eggs for and hatch my own.

Seems after the war in 2011 many industrial facilities were damaged, destroyed or animals left as workers fled. I read that new stock was brought in most likely UK supplies. So I showed my neice who is the animal tender in the family photos of chickens from this site and a hatchery page. She said she had seen most of them here. Tomorrow the souk is open and ive saved images to my tablet to show farmers what im looking for. Plus I can now haggle costs since I can better judge supply here. Most are honest but many see a woman coming and think she is clueless. Im better prepared now and maybe one day I will have a cage of chickens of my own to sell! Teach a man he feeds his family, teach a woman and you feed a village...
oh I just noticed yesterday red markings around the beaks, looks like waddles r coming in. Working on penning them in a bit poop everywhere between two chicks and turtle need to do something b4 they get too big. They already can jump 1/2 the height of my balcony and although im on 3rd floor they might get scared and fall. One did and it made it over the compound wall into a open field behind us. Thankfully not into the yard that has chickens. Found it and got it back home. Ive seen roos and hens jump easily over 6ft walls here from standing position. Ideas of a henhouse still get laughs from folks but its ok new is sometimes better!