Bethandjoeyncs Page

Hi! My name is Beth(the more frequent poster of the two of us) and I am excited about my new hobby! About a year ago I stumbled across BYC.com when we were talking about wanting chickens and I figure I should start reading up on care and such, but I never registered until recently and the posts started flowing! we started our flock with 4 1-year old hens, no particular breed other than two EEs; and 16 day old chicks (mostly assorted reds). We started out with the thought back in February, of getting 4-5 hens from a friend, for the fresh eggs, and eventually meat. Once we started reading more, preparing for the hens we were going to get, we both starting thinking about chicks. We would read how easy it was, just keep them fed, watered, and the temp right and your good to go. and then we went to TSC. and it was all over! we brought home 10 chicks that day (5 assorted reds and 5 assorted pullets) and when the deal with our friend fell through for the hens, Joey then started looking on BYC for anyone that had them in our area. and in the mean time I went back to TSC and bought 6 more assorted reds

chicks. so now we are up to 16 chicks, and found someone from here in our area and bought 4 hens that were already laying! so we went from the thought of just getting 5, to having 20 in a matter of 2 weeks!! it's so funny because we just put our little ones in an enclosure in the coop and I am already trying to decide how many more I want, and what breeds. And very recently we bought 6 6-week old chicks (3 EEs, and 3 Barnevelders) from a guy off craigslist who happened to live very close to us. so now we are up to 22 chicks. Yes I am officially addicted! I never knew how much fun raising chickens could be. I watched a documentary about chickens as pets a few years ago, and thought the woman on that show was crazy for holding her chicken and petting her and talking to her....well now I AM her lmao! I tell my chickens good morning and good night, when Joey goes out to the coop to turn off the light, I asked him if he told them good night? he looked at me like I was nuts!! needless to say I went out there and told them goodnight.
Joey worked so hard to make the run, it is so sturdy it can withstand high winds (even though we rarely get super high winds). and our coop is a work shed that he cleaned out except for a few shelves. the girls love it! we recently put a sandbox in there for them to dust bathe in if they want to.

run is about 9x9 left side of coop right side (chickie food) the roost (right side) new nest boxes

letting the girls check out the new nest boxes (they kicked up some dust in there)
the run is about 9x9

Over the past few months we have learned a lot and lost a few birds. We lost Ms. Bossy, we think she fell off the roost sometime during the night. then not long after that we lost Little Bbrown, which we weren't sure at the time what caused her death, but we suspect it was worm. and we lost pretty boy , which we think might have actually been a girl, to worms for sure...but she was too sick to save, even with all of our efforts she passed during the night. then the last one was an accidental injury, thanks to our over zelous rooster. But all in all the flock is doing well and everyone seems to be healthy. We have shared our birds with family that wanted to have a few for themselves. Our girls are practically paying for themselves with the eggs we sale, so that is awesome.
Our youngest birds have started laying and our EE's lay beautiful green and blue/green eggs. Our last remaining Barnevelder is laying brown eggs with spots. hopefully in a few months she will get her colors straight and lay nice dark copper colored eggs. but speckled eggs would be fine too. so we are down to 18 birds now, and it almost feels like 10 considering we were up to 26 at our highest count, but next january we will have some chicks to raise and it will all startover again.