About 18 months ago my uncle called me and and informed me that he got me some chickens and I needed to find a place to keep them. As a child we raised chickens, goats and pigs so I figured it would be easy. I let them have free run of my backyard until I had a makeshift coop built for them out of scrap lumber and palm fronds. Which worked out well until my other uncle tried to "improve" my coop and caused a domino effect that led to me just letting them have free rein of the backyard. They were a few months old, almost fully grown and I live in the middle of the city so I wasn't worried about predators.
When it came time for the 4 ladies to start laying eggs it took me about a month to figure out where they were but I didn't mind. I let them lay where they wanted, eat bugs, whatever was in my compost and scrap coconut that I got for free.
I had a free source of food and enough to share with a total of about $13 invested. It was nice until I had to move.
I moved into my uncle's house(same one that gave me chickens) and told him that he had to help me build a coop. The coop sucked and my ladies regularly got out. I had a crappy roommate and her dogs killed 2 of my birds. I was sad, but what could I do. She and the dogs are gone.
I repaired the coop so I could expand my flock and am constantly upgrading it with recycled materials. Until last week I had only ever spent $63.
Went to the feed store and bought myself 6 pullets, special chick food, a new waterer and feeder. 3 Americaunas and 3 Barred Rocks.
We had a really good storm the other night and one of my chicks got soaked and didn't make it through the next day. I brought her inside and rinsed her in warm water, towel dried her and tried to use my body heat to keep her stable, but it wasn't enough. Not sure why she ended up wet, the other 5 were fine. I made sure that they had a safe dry space off of the ground.
Here they are now.
When it came time for the 4 ladies to start laying eggs it took me about a month to figure out where they were but I didn't mind. I let them lay where they wanted, eat bugs, whatever was in my compost and scrap coconut that I got for free.
I had a free source of food and enough to share with a total of about $13 invested. It was nice until I had to move.
I moved into my uncle's house(same one that gave me chickens) and told him that he had to help me build a coop. The coop sucked and my ladies regularly got out. I had a crappy roommate and her dogs killed 2 of my birds. I was sad, but what could I do. She and the dogs are gone.
I repaired the coop so I could expand my flock and am constantly upgrading it with recycled materials. Until last week I had only ever spent $63.
Went to the feed store and bought myself 6 pullets, special chick food, a new waterer and feeder. 3 Americaunas and 3 Barred Rocks.
We had a really good storm the other night and one of my chicks got soaked and didn't make it through the next day. I brought her inside and rinsed her in warm water, towel dried her and tried to use my body heat to keep her stable, but it wasn't enough. Not sure why she ended up wet, the other 5 were fine. I made sure that they had a safe dry space off of the ground.
Here they are now.
