Hello Back Yard Chicken forum!
My wife and I are very excited to join your ranks, we are both brand new to chickens but have enjoyed it more than we had ever thought possible.
a little about us:
Last year we moved onto some property that at one time had housed ostrich, Pheasants, quail, and chickens as well as other animals. All the pens and structures have sat unused for about 7 years though they were well constructed so they have weathered okay. There is also a large area of trees with a chainlink fence with hardware cloth at the bottom around the entire perimeter and you can see he also had bird netting accross the whole run area.
I love that security is nearly all done already but it does spook me a bit, obviously predators have been an issue. We are going to redo the coop entirely as well as replace the netting.
So we finally decided in April to get some chickens and start using the property. We have been vendors at our local farmers market with our jewelry for the last 10 years so we have long enjoyed eating local and in season, including pastured eggs.
This year the price has gone to 7 a dozen at our market, and our favorite vendor for the eggs just signed a contract with a local school system for all the eggs he can provide. I think its great that a school is taking the effort to supply a better egg to the kids but that left us out in the cold with some store bought "free range"
We shopped a few of the hatcheries and did our homework, we settled on Mcmurry as they had the breeds we were looking to get. So we put our order in at the end of april and our chicks were to arrive June 22nd.
We Ordered...lets see if I can do this by memory.
3 White Crested Black Polish
3 Silver Polish
3 Silver Spangled Hamburgs
3 Blue Andulsians
6 black Minorcas
9 Anconas
We received 2 extra: 1 white crested polish and 1 black minorca. I think the extra WCBP was the "free exotic" even though we turned down the "free rooster" several times.
Well you've been patient and I know you have read through this in hopes of seeing some Fuzzy Butts....SO HERE THEY ARE!! Gosh they were so tiny back then.
So 29 arrived all cute and fuzzy, and thanks to all of you are healthy and growing every day. We learned every answer to every question right here in this helpful community and I want to thank you for that.
They are just over 8 weeks old now and outside in a temporary coop, I hope to get some good pictures of it tomorrow or the next day as we let them out into the run for the first time.
All 29 are doing great and have been so much fun to spend time with. Here are some more pics but all these that I have at work only go up to the second week. I'll get some more recent pics posted later, I have to work on my post count somehow.
My wife and I are very excited to join your ranks, we are both brand new to chickens but have enjoyed it more than we had ever thought possible.
a little about us:
Last year we moved onto some property that at one time had housed ostrich, Pheasants, quail, and chickens as well as other animals. All the pens and structures have sat unused for about 7 years though they were well constructed so they have weathered okay. There is also a large area of trees with a chainlink fence with hardware cloth at the bottom around the entire perimeter and you can see he also had bird netting accross the whole run area.
I love that security is nearly all done already but it does spook me a bit, obviously predators have been an issue. We are going to redo the coop entirely as well as replace the netting.
So we finally decided in April to get some chickens and start using the property. We have been vendors at our local farmers market with our jewelry for the last 10 years so we have long enjoyed eating local and in season, including pastured eggs.
This year the price has gone to 7 a dozen at our market, and our favorite vendor for the eggs just signed a contract with a local school system for all the eggs he can provide. I think its great that a school is taking the effort to supply a better egg to the kids but that left us out in the cold with some store bought "free range"
We shopped a few of the hatcheries and did our homework, we settled on Mcmurry as they had the breeds we were looking to get. So we put our order in at the end of april and our chicks were to arrive June 22nd.
We Ordered...lets see if I can do this by memory.
3 White Crested Black Polish
3 Silver Polish
3 Silver Spangled Hamburgs
3 Blue Andulsians
6 black Minorcas
9 Anconas
We received 2 extra: 1 white crested polish and 1 black minorca. I think the extra WCBP was the "free exotic" even though we turned down the "free rooster" several times.
Well you've been patient and I know you have read through this in hopes of seeing some Fuzzy Butts....SO HERE THEY ARE!! Gosh they were so tiny back then.
So 29 arrived all cute and fuzzy, and thanks to all of you are healthy and growing every day. We learned every answer to every question right here in this helpful community and I want to thank you for that.
They are just over 8 weeks old now and outside in a temporary coop, I hope to get some good pictures of it tomorrow or the next day as we let them out into the run for the first time.
All 29 are doing great and have been so much fun to spend time with. Here are some more pics but all these that I have at work only go up to the second week. I'll get some more recent pics posted later, I have to work on my post count somehow.
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