[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]Our Little Piece of Heaven[/FONT]
NOTE: this page is a work in progress, as is all of life!
Welcome to our BYC page. We are new to this wonderful experience of adding chickens to our life. Before embarking on this adventure we did A LOT of research, mostly on BYC! We live on 5 acres about 30 minutes from Downtown Portland, Oregon. We have 4 dogs: Macy the Harlequine Dane, Tiff the Standard Poodle (she's a farm dog all the way), Luna the small Pit Bull (who was abandoned...and we are lucky to have her) and Tucker the tiny Terrier mix (and the only boy). The yard is about 1 acre that is fenced very well to keep the dogs from roaming the neighboring property. Our flock of 9 chickens includes one each: Barred Rock, Black Sex Link, Easter Egger, Gold Sex Link, Rhode Island Red, Silver Laced Wyandotte, Speckled Sussex, a Wellsummer and Ducky the mystery girl.
After much studying, we began by buiding a brooder in our garage for our chicks that arrived in early May 2009. As you probably know, they soon needed a hen house. I think the biggest decision was where to build it. We decided on an area of the front yard that is on high ground and safe from the dogs. It is also surrounded by trees so when it's hot, the girls have some shade as well as protection from flying predators when they are out of the run. So, after trying to convince my son and son in law to help us (and getting nowhere with that) we went to work building a fort knox for the chickens. I must admit that the hen house and run turned out pretty darn good for two women in their 50s with little building experience!