Ok, I am using this page as a way to document and track our plans and changes for our chickens.
April 2012 we bought our first baby chicks. We bought a total of 9 from a local guy who advertised babies for sale.
He did tell us that there was no way to sex them, and we would not know what we had till they got older....
Well we ended up with 9 Roo's. :-(
We were planning on chickens for the whole egg purpose. lol
My plan was to let them free range, we live on 118 acres, with a big old barn. The barn had what was used at one point as a feed room.
Someone in the past had "fenced" in this room with very small holed strong fence. The walls, door, and ceiling were all done with this fence. Nothing can get it!
So I thought great we already have a safe place to lock them up at night.
After we realized for sure we had 9 roo's
We had decided we were going to buy a couple of hens old enough to be able to tell that they were hens! ;-)
Long story short we found a guy who had hens and babies... we bought two hens, letting each of my sons pick out their own girl.
Then after talking with the guy for awhile, he traded us all his babies (35 of them) for the roo's we did not want.
We decided to keep Fred, as he was the first to crow, and always seemed like he was boss, but not over bearing. He eats out of our hands and lets us pet him, and overall seems to have a pretty good temperament.
So August 5th, 2012 we bought two hens, which the boys names Sally and Candie. Then we traded all of our roo's but Fred for all their babies.
So here is Fred with his new girls
And our 35 new babies, that are just a mix of breeds, and we have no idea how many boys and girls we have...
Lucy has become our favorite baby chick, as she loves to be held, and just follows us. She is Brad's favorite and desperately hoping she is really a "she".
Well August 20th, Candie gave us our very first egg. As of Sept 4th, she has given us an egg every single day, and one was a double yolk.
Now as we remembered, babies grow really fast. So the small safe room in the barn will not be able to be a long term coop for all of these chickens. We have built two safe movable coops for the babies to be in outside for now.
Looking around trying to figure out what and where we are going to permanently house our chickens. I looked at a horse stall that was an add on to an existing building. It's 11x12 and I do think that it will be a great start. We will add on a "L" shaped outside run to go around it. So here at the beginning of Sept, this is what it looks like.
So now the work begins!
Goal for the first week of september is to clean out the inside...
Well it was a family affair cleaning out all the storage stuff, had a little set back with a few wasps nest, no one got stung, so all is good.
Now we just need some more muscle to move the windows out.
Sept 29th and 30th 2012, finally have it cleaned out, ready to frame up for door and partial wall.
So we moved 33 babies into their new coop, while not completed, it works for now.
April 2012 we bought our first baby chicks. We bought a total of 9 from a local guy who advertised babies for sale.
He did tell us that there was no way to sex them, and we would not know what we had till they got older....
Well we ended up with 9 Roo's. :-(
We were planning on chickens for the whole egg purpose. lol
My plan was to let them free range, we live on 118 acres, with a big old barn. The barn had what was used at one point as a feed room.
Someone in the past had "fenced" in this room with very small holed strong fence. The walls, door, and ceiling were all done with this fence. Nothing can get it!
So I thought great we already have a safe place to lock them up at night.
After we realized for sure we had 9 roo's
We had decided we were going to buy a couple of hens old enough to be able to tell that they were hens! ;-)
Long story short we found a guy who had hens and babies... we bought two hens, letting each of my sons pick out their own girl.
Then after talking with the guy for awhile, he traded us all his babies (35 of them) for the roo's we did not want.
We decided to keep Fred, as he was the first to crow, and always seemed like he was boss, but not over bearing. He eats out of our hands and lets us pet him, and overall seems to have a pretty good temperament.
So August 5th, 2012 we bought two hens, which the boys names Sally and Candie. Then we traded all of our roo's but Fred for all their babies.
So here is Fred with his new girls
And our 35 new babies, that are just a mix of breeds, and we have no idea how many boys and girls we have...
Lucy has become our favorite baby chick, as she loves to be held, and just follows us. She is Brad's favorite and desperately hoping she is really a "she".
Well August 20th, Candie gave us our very first egg. As of Sept 4th, she has given us an egg every single day, and one was a double yolk.
Now as we remembered, babies grow really fast. So the small safe room in the barn will not be able to be a long term coop for all of these chickens. We have built two safe movable coops for the babies to be in outside for now.
Looking around trying to figure out what and where we are going to permanently house our chickens. I looked at a horse stall that was an add on to an existing building. It's 11x12 and I do think that it will be a great start. We will add on a "L" shaped outside run to go around it. So here at the beginning of Sept, this is what it looks like.
So now the work begins!
Goal for the first week of september is to clean out the inside...
Well it was a family affair cleaning out all the storage stuff, had a little set back with a few wasps nest, no one got stung, so all is good.
Now we just need some more muscle to move the windows out.
Sept 29th and 30th 2012, finally have it cleaned out, ready to frame up for door and partial wall.
So we moved 33 babies into their new coop, while not completed, it works for now.
