I enjoyed the Fluffy Butt Hut post and has inspired me to share our little farm with BYC and all the amazing people in the group.
I will try to add pictures as best I can but I'm not a techie so bare with me.
Myself and Blyth(hardheadedgypsy) have a 1/3 of an acre we plan to make us as self-suffisent as possible when retirement gets here. We have at this time 5 raised garden beds totaling 152 square feet. We decided a year ago to raise a small flock of chickens so I built Cluckingham PALACE (insert picture) it's not leaning just the guy taking the pic is.
Its 32 sqft and 4ft tall at the peak. A 3 nest box area at the opposite end of the coop
It holds 3-1ft Square nest boxes. Now on to our first flock of Girls 8 in total: 2 Orpingtons, 2 silver laced Wyandottes, 2 Black Astrolorps and 2 Amaracanas. We were VERY new to raising chickens and ill prepared. Blyth was at the Mother Earth show when she call and said "guess what I got at the show...6 chickens so can you build them something to keep them in before I get home tomorrow afternoon" I know I know I told you 8 and now say 6. One of the Orpingtons died 2days after arriving home with what appeared to be "rough handling" at the show as their space was open for ANYONE to touch them and every child did. We went to our local feed store and they would not sell just 1chick even though we explained our issue so we got the 2 silver laced Wyandottes. We have a guest room that housed the chicks after I built them a 2'x4' cage... in the end it was way to small for 8 birds even after I raised the sides from 18" to 36"and ended up covering the top to keep them in.
Right around the 11-12 week mark I had finished Cluckingham PALACE and we put them in the coop run area. They completely ate every green item smaller than they were in that 600 square foot area. We decided to make a larger run for them as they were fast becoming bored with it and perching on the 4ft high chain link fence which prompted us to clip 1 wing so they couldn't escape the run. Turns out that was a bad plan and hope whomever reads this takes heed of our mistakes. Just after clipping their wings I put up a semi portable/moveable orange construction barrier fence with 2"x4" openings. The chickens loved it, more run for them and they were too large to fit through the openings; a win-win for us and them. Then about 3 ish weeks later fate reared its UGLY head. I'm not sure what made me do it, but I came home for lunch that day which I rarely do and found what I thought were 8 dead chickens. Distraught and extremely upset I went back to work and did the hardest thing I have had to do to ...tell Blyth something killed all our chickens. We work for the same school district so we both arrived home and determined that the neighbors dogs had entered our chain link fenced yard and torn open 2 holes in the plastic secondary fence and chased down and kill 7 of the 8 girls. The 8th survived only because she was the only one we couldn't catch to clip her wings to keep her safe.. go figure. I have rambled on for to long and hope I have not bored you. The next post will be about the NEW 10 girls in our life.
I will try to add pictures as best I can but I'm not a techie so bare with me.
Myself and Blyth(hardheadedgypsy) have a 1/3 of an acre we plan to make us as self-suffisent as possible when retirement gets here. We have at this time 5 raised garden beds totaling 152 square feet. We decided a year ago to raise a small flock of chickens so I built Cluckingham PALACE (insert picture) it's not leaning just the guy taking the pic is.
Its 32 sqft and 4ft tall at the peak. A 3 nest box area at the opposite end of the coop
It holds 3-1ft Square nest boxes. Now on to our first flock of Girls 8 in total: 2 Orpingtons, 2 silver laced Wyandottes, 2 Black Astrolorps and 2 Amaracanas. We were VERY new to raising chickens and ill prepared. Blyth was at the Mother Earth show when she call and said "guess what I got at the show...6 chickens so can you build them something to keep them in before I get home tomorrow afternoon" I know I know I told you 8 and now say 6. One of the Orpingtons died 2days after arriving home with what appeared to be "rough handling" at the show as their space was open for ANYONE to touch them and every child did. We went to our local feed store and they would not sell just 1chick even though we explained our issue so we got the 2 silver laced Wyandottes. We have a guest room that housed the chicks after I built them a 2'x4' cage... in the end it was way to small for 8 birds even after I raised the sides from 18" to 36"and ended up covering the top to keep them in.
Right around the 11-12 week mark I had finished Cluckingham PALACE and we put them in the coop run area. They completely ate every green item smaller than they were in that 600 square foot area. We decided to make a larger run for them as they were fast becoming bored with it and perching on the 4ft high chain link fence which prompted us to clip 1 wing so they couldn't escape the run. Turns out that was a bad plan and hope whomever reads this takes heed of our mistakes. Just after clipping their wings I put up a semi portable/moveable orange construction barrier fence with 2"x4" openings. The chickens loved it, more run for them and they were too large to fit through the openings; a win-win for us and them. Then about 3 ish weeks later fate reared its UGLY head. I'm not sure what made me do it, but I came home for lunch that day which I rarely do and found what I thought were 8 dead chickens. Distraught and extremely upset I went back to work and did the hardest thing I have had to do to ...tell Blyth something killed all our chickens. We work for the same school district so we both arrived home and determined that the neighbors dogs had entered our chain link fenced yard and torn open 2 holes in the plastic secondary fence and chased down and kill 7 of the 8 girls. The 8th survived only because she was the only one we couldn't catch to clip her wings to keep her safe.. go figure. I have rambled on for to long and hope I have not bored you. The next post will be about the NEW 10 girls in our life.
