BYC History
UPDATES:
03/01/2007 - Bumper Sticker design contest begins
03/03/2007 - New Smilies are added
03/23/2007 - 1,000 Members!
04/01/2007 - April Fools -BackYardCows launched
04/20/2007 - BYC Personal Pages launched
04/25/2007 - BYC Chat (version 1)Is Live
05/08/2007 - BYC Bumper Stickers Finally Arive
06/21/2007 Big Category / Forum Reorganization
07/14/2007 - New "Mark As Read" Feature
07/18/2007 - BYC Personal Pages Upgrade
08/09/2007 - BYC hits 100.000-posts mark
09/15/2007 - 4,000th Members
09/26 & 27/2007 - New Forum Moderators: speckledhen & silkiechicken
10/06/2007 - Coop Design Contest Winners
11/01/2007 - Private Messages added
11/01/2007 - BYC Forum Sponsors
12/08/2007 - BYC CHAT Version II
12/16/2007 - New BYC "My Pet Makes Me Breakfast" Shirt
01/26/2008 - 1 Year after BYC forum was opened to the public we hit 6,000 members !
02/04/2008 - Double Private Messages
03/09/2008 - 7,000 Member Contest
03/10/2008 - 2 NEW BYC Moderators - MissPrissy & kstaven
03/15/2008 - NEW BYC forum: Online Poultry Show
03/15/2008 - NEW BYC Sister Site Launched: TheEasyGarden.com
03/20/2008 - PM Storage increases by 25%
03/25/2008 - Chillin With My Peeps Shirts Added
03/29/2008 - 8,000 Members
04/01/2008 - April Fools - BYC HACKED!!!
04/16/2008 - 9,000 Members
04/24/2008 - BYC snags 500,000-posts mark
05/06/2008 - 10,000 Members + Free Image Hosting Added
06/12/2008 - Buy Sell Trade Section Updated
06/17/2008 - BYC Goes Green
06/17/2008 - 12,000 Members
07/03/2008 - BYC "My Pet Makes Me Breakfast" Coffee Mugs Released
07/12/2008 - 2 More BYC Sister Sites: BackYardCows.com and SufficientSelf.com
07/17/2008 - New BYC Section: Local Chicken Laws & Ordinances
08/26/2008 - New BYC Facebook group
08/29/2008 - 15,000 Members + 50% increase in PM storage
09/20/2008 - 16,000 Members + DOUBLE Image Storage Space
10/12/2008 - 17,000 members
11/04/2008 - Huge forum reorganization
11/14/2008 - New Feature: Links To Member's BYC Pages Under Avatars
11/17/2008 - BYC Mentioned In Newsweek.com
11/20/2008 - BYC-University Clothing Available
11/24/2008 - 19,000 members
12/08/2008 - New Forum Search Powered By Google
12/21/2008 - 20,000 Members! + 30% Increase in Private Message Storage Space
01/04/2009 - HomeMade Incubator Contest
01/05/2009 - 2 New BYC Moderators! gumpsgirl & The Chicken Lady
01/10/2009 - Announcing BYC Golden Feather Memberships
01/11/2009 - terrielacy made a forum Administrator
01/14/2009 - New Feature - Private Message Select: All , None
03/14/2009 - 25,000 Members! = 25% More Image Storage Space!
03/28/2009 - Member Profiles new feature: Geographic Location Info
04/01/2009 - April Fools - Server Upgrade Good News / Bad News - Post Counts Lost
04/17/2009 - Inception of the Buy Sell Trade (BST) Feedback System
04/20/2009 - New Feature: Private Message Folders
05/09/2009 - BYC Milestone: two million posts!
05/13/2009 - New BYC Features: PM Notification & Mass Move
05/19/2009 - New Feature: Collapsible Categories
05/28/2009 - Advanced BYC Chicken Breed Database & System Introduced
05/31/2009 - New Feature: Show All Topics - All topics started by a member
06/11/2009 - Pass Along BYC Business Cards On Sale
06/19/2009 - BYC Buddy Lists Introduced (credits to Golden Feather Members)
06/23/2009 - BYC hits 35,000-member mark
07/18/2009 - Full Color "My Pet Makes Me Breakfast" Clothing Line On Sale
07/27/2009 - Raising Chickens For Dummies, The Official Book Of BYC, Released
09/06/2009 - New BYC Moderator: Wynette
09/07/2009 - BYC Wins Facebook Video Contest
10/24/2009 - BSA Listings Feedback System Upgrade
11/03/2009 - Three Million Posts!
11/18/2009 - BYC 2010 Calendar On Sale
12/02/2009 - BYC CookBooks Printed
03/02/2010 - BYC reaches a milestone 50,000-member mark; gives away 50% increased image storage space for everyone.
03/12/2010 - 55,555th Member Contest
03/16/2010 - Chicken Brooder Contest
03/27/2010 - Chicken LORE (Laws and Ordinances and your Rights and Entitlements) project launched.
03/27/2010 - New Feature: Breed Selection - Search Tool
04/01/2010 - April Fools - New BYC Store Product: The EggCell !!
04/18/2010 - BYC "Other Poultry" Breeds Database
05/31/2010 - BYC Forum Platinum Poultry Membership, Introduced
06/07/2010 - First Waterers & Feeders Design Contest
06/15/2010 - New Feature - BSA Listings On BYC Homepage & Forum Index
06/26/2010 - BYC Shirt Design Contest
07/20/2010 - New Book: Building Chicken Coops for Dummies
07/25/2010 - BYC Page Creator Update
07/26/2010 - BYC Avatar Update
08/20/2010 - BYC Chicken Coloring Book Contest
09/01/2010 - New Contest: Promote BYC, Promote Your Website & Win a Free GFM
09/03/2010 - Worst Chicken Molt Pictures Fall 2010 Contest
09/19/2010 - The Online Most Annoying Rooster Crowing Contest
09/25/2010 - New BYC Newsletter design
09/25/2010 - Official BYC Poll - How many chickens do you have?
10/13/2010 - 2011 BYC Calendar Now Available!
11/13/2010 - New Recipes Section
11/13/2010 - Recipe Picture Contest
11/24/2010 - New Order of BYC Breakfast Clothing
11/24/2010 - New BYC Temp Tattoos
01/02/2011 - Guess when we'll hit 80,000 members
01/25/2011 - Great New Forum Features
01/26/2011 - Monthly BYC Trivia Challenge
01/25/2011 - New Anti-Spam System
02/01/2011 - Official BYC Chicken Coloring Book
02/11/2011 - New Facebook Page
03/04/2011 - HUGE BYC Contest Pics W/ Tudy- FB Tags - Win A FREE Chicken Coop !
03/09/2011 - Relaunch of the Other Poultry Breeds Database!
03/10/2011 - Dummies Month = $5 Rebate on Raising Chickens & Building Chicken Coops
03/17/2011 - Coop Page Contest Early 2011 - Winners Chosen!
04/01/2011 - April Fools - NEW BYC Program & Partnership - Sell Your Extra Eggs!
04/12/2011 - Phase 2 of the BYC Awards program
04/16/2011 - Image Upload Upgrades
04/19/2011 - BYC Winter Clothing Sale
05/19/2011 - GFM Friend Appreciation Sale
05/20/2011 - 100,000 BYC Members Contest
06/25/2011 - The 2nd Official BYC Coloring Book Contest!
07/14/2011 - Winter in July Clothing Sale in the BYC Store
07/25/2011 - Coop Page Contest 2011
08/24/2011 - Coop Contest Winners Announced!
09/22/2011 - 7 Million Posts on BYC!
09/23/2011 - Rate pictures for the 2012 BYC Calendar
10/04/2011 - Official BYC Contest: Worst Chicken Molt Pictures - Fall / Winter 2011
10/27/2011 - 3rd Annual New Year's Day Hatch!!
10/30/2011 - BYC 2012 Calendar
11/18/2011 - BYC 2012 Calendar Ready For Ship!
12/28/2011 - The BIG BYC Coop Cleanup
01/07/2012 - HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT - BYC Software Conversion
01/11/2012 - The NEW BYC!
01/11/2012 - Your Picture Here on BYC
02/01/2012 - Mahonri's 3rd Annual, BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!
02/07/2012 - BYC Survey - Trying to better understand our users!
02/12/2012 - BYC Article Writing Contest
02/23/2012 - The Do-It-Yourself thread
03/25/2012 - The New 5 Year BYC Award!
03/27/2012 - Coop Page Contest Fall/Winter 2011 - WINNER!
03/27/2012 - Top Coops on BYC
03/30/2012 - Comb photo contest
04/01/2012 - April Fools - New Forums / Sections - Exotic Backyard Animals
04/11/2012 - BYC on the Front Page of CNN.com
Sorry for the huge break in updates. Here are a few big ones since the last set of updates:
01/10/2012 - BYC Conversion from PunBB to Huddler
05/21/2017 - BYC Conversion from Huddler to Xenfo
- 1999: A child gets some chickens and his dad creates www.BackYardChickens.com
- Late 2000: Around October a message board is created on the BYC website using UtlimateBB http://web.archive.org/web/20001001010446/https://www.backyardchickens.com/
- April 2001: The forum forum software is changed to ikonboard http://web.archive.org/web/20010410072809/https://www.backyardchickens.com/
- Early 2002: The forum is moved from being hosted on the BYC site to being hosted on a 3rd party site (ezboard then yuku).
- Late 2002: Cindi (chickchair) is elevated to Admin status at the new forum
- Dec. 2004: Rob (Nifty-Chicken) gets his first chickens and scours the net for info. Finds BYC and a great group of people who are crazy passionate about raising egg-laying machines!
- Dec. 2004: Rob starts two new threads on the old BYC and gets a TON of great help from super amazing members.
- Early 2005: Rob goes back to the old forum and discovers his first thread is gone... turns out old threads are automatically deleted! Rob was upset to loose all the great info he received and quickly created a backup of the second thread so it wouldnt ever be lost: http://www.nifty-stuff.com/chicken-coop-forum.php
- November 2006: Rob tries to get onto BYC and can't. Goes to the old forum and discovers it has been down for a few MONTHS. Rob becomes the new owner of BYC and is determined to grow the site and community
.
- December 2006: It takes about a month to transfer the domain and get the site contents, and upload / update the site to work on the new servers.
- January 11, 2007 The site is re-launched and the new BYC forum is unveiled: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/3/welcome-to-the-backyardchickens-com-forum-newsletter-archive
UPDATES:
03/01/2007 - Bumper Sticker design contest begins
03/03/2007 - New Smilies are added
03/23/2007 - 1,000 Members!
04/01/2007 - April Fools -BackYardCows launched
04/20/2007 - BYC Personal Pages launched
04/25/2007 - BYC Chat (version 1)Is Live
05/08/2007 - BYC Bumper Stickers Finally Arive
06/21/2007 Big Category / Forum Reorganization
07/14/2007 - New "Mark As Read" Feature
07/18/2007 - BYC Personal Pages Upgrade
08/09/2007 - BYC hits 100.000-posts mark
09/15/2007 - 4,000th Members
09/26 & 27/2007 - New Forum Moderators: speckledhen & silkiechicken
10/06/2007 - Coop Design Contest Winners
11/01/2007 - Private Messages added
11/01/2007 - BYC Forum Sponsors
12/08/2007 - BYC CHAT Version II
12/16/2007 - New BYC "My Pet Makes Me Breakfast" Shirt
01/26/2008 - 1 Year after BYC forum was opened to the public we hit 6,000 members !
02/04/2008 - Double Private Messages
03/09/2008 - 7,000 Member Contest
03/10/2008 - 2 NEW BYC Moderators - MissPrissy & kstaven
03/15/2008 - NEW BYC forum: Online Poultry Show
03/15/2008 - NEW BYC Sister Site Launched: TheEasyGarden.com
03/20/2008 - PM Storage increases by 25%
03/25/2008 - Chillin With My Peeps Shirts Added
03/29/2008 - 8,000 Members
04/01/2008 - April Fools - BYC HACKED!!!
04/16/2008 - 9,000 Members
04/24/2008 - BYC snags 500,000-posts mark
05/06/2008 - 10,000 Members + Free Image Hosting Added
06/12/2008 - Buy Sell Trade Section Updated
06/17/2008 - BYC Goes Green
06/17/2008 - 12,000 Members
07/03/2008 - BYC "My Pet Makes Me Breakfast" Coffee Mugs Released
07/12/2008 - 2 More BYC Sister Sites: BackYardCows.com and SufficientSelf.com
07/17/2008 - New BYC Section: Local Chicken Laws & Ordinances
08/26/2008 - New BYC Facebook group
08/29/2008 - 15,000 Members + 50% increase in PM storage
09/20/2008 - 16,000 Members + DOUBLE Image Storage Space
10/12/2008 - 17,000 members
11/04/2008 - Huge forum reorganization
11/14/2008 - New Feature: Links To Member's BYC Pages Under Avatars
11/17/2008 - BYC Mentioned In Newsweek.com
11/20/2008 - BYC-University Clothing Available
11/24/2008 - 19,000 members
12/08/2008 - New Forum Search Powered By Google
12/21/2008 - 20,000 Members! + 30% Increase in Private Message Storage Space
01/04/2009 - HomeMade Incubator Contest
01/05/2009 - 2 New BYC Moderators! gumpsgirl & The Chicken Lady
01/10/2009 - Announcing BYC Golden Feather Memberships
01/11/2009 - terrielacy made a forum Administrator
01/14/2009 - New Feature - Private Message Select: All , None
03/14/2009 - 25,000 Members! = 25% More Image Storage Space!
03/28/2009 - Member Profiles new feature: Geographic Location Info
04/01/2009 - April Fools - Server Upgrade Good News / Bad News - Post Counts Lost
04/17/2009 - Inception of the Buy Sell Trade (BST) Feedback System
04/20/2009 - New Feature: Private Message Folders
05/09/2009 - BYC Milestone: two million posts!
05/13/2009 - New BYC Features: PM Notification & Mass Move
05/19/2009 - New Feature: Collapsible Categories
05/28/2009 - Advanced BYC Chicken Breed Database & System Introduced
05/31/2009 - New Feature: Show All Topics - All topics started by a member
06/11/2009 - Pass Along BYC Business Cards On Sale
06/19/2009 - BYC Buddy Lists Introduced (credits to Golden Feather Members)
06/23/2009 - BYC hits 35,000-member mark
07/18/2009 - Full Color "My Pet Makes Me Breakfast" Clothing Line On Sale
07/27/2009 - Raising Chickens For Dummies, The Official Book Of BYC, Released
09/06/2009 - New BYC Moderator: Wynette
09/07/2009 - BYC Wins Facebook Video Contest
10/24/2009 - BSA Listings Feedback System Upgrade
11/03/2009 - Three Million Posts!
11/18/2009 - BYC 2010 Calendar On Sale
12/02/2009 - BYC CookBooks Printed
03/02/2010 - BYC reaches a milestone 50,000-member mark; gives away 50% increased image storage space for everyone.
03/12/2010 - 55,555th Member Contest
03/16/2010 - Chicken Brooder Contest
03/27/2010 - Chicken LORE (Laws and Ordinances and your Rights and Entitlements) project launched.
03/27/2010 - New Feature: Breed Selection - Search Tool
04/01/2010 - April Fools - New BYC Store Product: The EggCell !!
04/18/2010 - BYC "Other Poultry" Breeds Database
05/31/2010 - BYC Forum Platinum Poultry Membership, Introduced
06/07/2010 - First Waterers & Feeders Design Contest
06/15/2010 - New Feature - BSA Listings On BYC Homepage & Forum Index
06/26/2010 - BYC Shirt Design Contest
07/20/2010 - New Book: Building Chicken Coops for Dummies
07/25/2010 - BYC Page Creator Update
07/26/2010 - BYC Avatar Update
08/20/2010 - BYC Chicken Coloring Book Contest
09/01/2010 - New Contest: Promote BYC, Promote Your Website & Win a Free GFM
09/03/2010 - Worst Chicken Molt Pictures Fall 2010 Contest
09/19/2010 - The Online Most Annoying Rooster Crowing Contest
09/25/2010 - New BYC Newsletter design
09/25/2010 - Official BYC Poll - How many chickens do you have?
10/13/2010 - 2011 BYC Calendar Now Available!
11/13/2010 - New Recipes Section
11/13/2010 - Recipe Picture Contest
11/24/2010 - New Order of BYC Breakfast Clothing
11/24/2010 - New BYC Temp Tattoos
01/02/2011 - Guess when we'll hit 80,000 members
01/25/2011 - Great New Forum Features
01/26/2011 - Monthly BYC Trivia Challenge
01/25/2011 - New Anti-Spam System
02/01/2011 - Official BYC Chicken Coloring Book
02/11/2011 - New Facebook Page
03/04/2011 - HUGE BYC Contest Pics W/ Tudy- FB Tags - Win A FREE Chicken Coop !
03/09/2011 - Relaunch of the Other Poultry Breeds Database!
03/10/2011 - Dummies Month = $5 Rebate on Raising Chickens & Building Chicken Coops
03/17/2011 - Coop Page Contest Early 2011 - Winners Chosen!
04/01/2011 - April Fools - NEW BYC Program & Partnership - Sell Your Extra Eggs!
04/12/2011 - Phase 2 of the BYC Awards program
04/16/2011 - Image Upload Upgrades
04/19/2011 - BYC Winter Clothing Sale
05/19/2011 - GFM Friend Appreciation Sale
05/20/2011 - 100,000 BYC Members Contest
06/25/2011 - The 2nd Official BYC Coloring Book Contest!
07/14/2011 - Winter in July Clothing Sale in the BYC Store
07/25/2011 - Coop Page Contest 2011
08/24/2011 - Coop Contest Winners Announced!
09/22/2011 - 7 Million Posts on BYC!
09/23/2011 - Rate pictures for the 2012 BYC Calendar
10/04/2011 - Official BYC Contest: Worst Chicken Molt Pictures - Fall / Winter 2011
10/27/2011 - 3rd Annual New Year's Day Hatch!!
10/30/2011 - BYC 2012 Calendar
11/18/2011 - BYC 2012 Calendar Ready For Ship!
12/28/2011 - The BIG BYC Coop Cleanup
01/07/2012 - HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT - BYC Software Conversion
01/11/2012 - The NEW BYC!
01/11/2012 - Your Picture Here on BYC
02/01/2012 - Mahonri's 3rd Annual, BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!
02/07/2012 - BYC Survey - Trying to better understand our users!
02/12/2012 - BYC Article Writing Contest
02/23/2012 - The Do-It-Yourself thread
03/25/2012 - The New 5 Year BYC Award!
03/27/2012 - Coop Page Contest Fall/Winter 2011 - WINNER!
03/27/2012 - Top Coops on BYC
03/30/2012 - Comb photo contest
04/01/2012 - April Fools - New Forums / Sections - Exotic Backyard Animals
04/11/2012 - BYC on the Front Page of CNN.com
Sorry for the huge break in updates. Here are a few big ones since the last set of updates:
01/10/2012 - BYC Conversion from PunBB to Huddler
05/21/2017 - BYC Conversion from Huddler to Xenfo
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