2018 Newbie Chat!

[Dragonflydore]

Anyone else slacking on coop builds? My babes are turning 3 weeks old and all we have managed to do is sketch out the build, supply lists and spray paint the area we want it in the yard (for visualization...and stuff..)

Whooops

 

[CannedMonster]

This little 4 week old dude CROWED this morning!! There was no mistaking it, however, a 4 week old bantam Cochin’s crow is adorably sqeeky

 

[CannedMonster]

Update: We harvested our 3 CornishX Sunday at about 6 weeks old. The heat is getting pretty high and the bigger ones were panting a lot already. Our biggest, Plop, couldn't even stand on one leg to scratch her head anymore. They would come flying our of their coop in the morning and land on their chest. We read a lot would have heart attacks after 6 weeks so thought it was time. We named them Plop, Flop, and Judy. Sunday night we sat out with the rest of our flock and they were just going at each other. Taking Plop, Flop, and Judy out really threw off the pecking order. They were the biggest and usually were unchallenged. All they had to do was stand up when one of the others ran at them and they would turn and go the other way. Oh I miss them but I don't think the Texas heat would've been kind to them.

Now we have a flock of 10. We've finally named them all but it's so many I won't bother you with them all.

Here's the whole crew minus Lil Red. Guess shes too good for photos.
View attachment 1356506
Here's Patsy and Big Red trying to see who's higher up. I'm now wondering if Patsy may be a roo...
View attachment 1356508

I think Patsy and Big Red are both Roos.
Beautiful flock you have!

 

[CannedMonster]

Hello all! We just got 4 chicks last Saturday, our first time raising chickens. We're getting a bit of a late start due to just moving into this house 2 weeks ago, so now we're racing to build a coop before they outgrow the dog crate brooder. We let our 4 kids choose which chicks they wanted so we ended up with 2 Laced Wyandottes, 1 Buff Orpington and 1 Barred Rock. Their names are Ninja, Rosie, T-rex and Dottie. View attachment 1356530 View attachment 1356531 View attachment 1356532 View attachment 1356533

I have 3 adult Black Laced Silver Wyandottes. They’re sweet birds. Mine tend to hang back.
You will love it! I’m really falling in love with mine now.
This is my first time raising chicks but I have 5 adults too.
My eight chicks are 4 weeks now and they are just amazing!
Different personalities and their feathers are coming in so lovely.
All of mine look different. It’s so neat to see what colors they feather out to.
You will have a cute little flock!

 

[CannedMonster]

Anyone else slacking on coop builds? My babes are turning 3 weeks old and all we have managed to do is sketch out the build, supply lists and spray paint the area we want it in the yard (for visualization...and stuff..)

Whooops

You guys better hurry up lol!

We’ve been working on ours for a couple of months. Between weather and my husband doing other things it’s been slow.
But it’s moving fast now.
That’s good because my bebes are 4 weeks and I want to get our 5 adult birds used to the new coop before I put the bebes in the current coop.

Here’s the building inspector:

 

[ash_en_em]

You guys better hurry up lol!

We’ve been working on ours for a couple of months. Between weather and my husband doing other things it’s been slow.
But it’s moving fast now.
That’s good because my bebes are 4 weeks and I want to get our 5 adult birds used to the new coop before I put the bebes in the current coop.
View attachment 1356994 View attachment 1356996
Here’s the building inspector:
View attachment 1356998

building inspector had me giggling

 

[Cbarr00]

I think Patsy and Big Red are both Roos.
Beautiful flock you have!

Ah thank you! I'm suspecting at least 4 roos in our flock. I'm worried because I hear RIR are sometimes pretty aggressive roos. Our other two suspected Roos are a buff orp and a speckled Sussex.
This is Dwight

And the SS here next to Big Red is Casper. Not a great photo but I usually don't have my phone on me when I'm out with them so I have limited photos.

 

[Cbarr00]

Anyone else slacking on coop builds? My babes are turning 3 weeks old and all we have managed to do is sketch out the build, supply lists and spray paint the area we want it in the yard (for visualization...and stuff..)

Whooops

We bought a pre fab house from TSC and it's not great. We bought it just to get through until we can get them a great coop built. I'm sure glad we did because we have turned our backyard upside down making room. It's gonna be longer than we thought. We had a 24 ft above ground pool and wood deck built around it. So now we have taken down the pool and are tearing down the deck to turn into a porch. It's opening up so much space to build a coop I love it. I'm gonna miss the pool but not the maintenance or water bill or chemical cost. Lol.

 

[CannedMonster]

Ah thank you! I'm suspecting at least 4 roos in our flock. I'm worried because I hear RIR are sometimes pretty aggressive roos. Our other two suspected Roos are a buff orp and a speckled Sussex.
This is Dwight
View attachment 1357323
And the SS here next to Big Red is Casper. Not a great photo but I usually don't have my phone on me when I'm out with them so I have limited photos.
View attachment 1357325

One of my neighbors has a SS roo. He seems to be very nice. Beautiful bird and I’ve never seen him act aggressive but I don’t know the people at all.
Just from observation.
I’ve also heard a lot about RIR being very aggressive.
But ultimately it comes down to the individual bird.
It seems there are lines that are less aggressive and vice versa.
I’m a firm believer that aggressive roosters shouldn’t be allowed to make more aggressive chickens.
I have heard lots of positive things about both BO and SS roos.
I know for sure I have 3 cockerels out of my 8 chicks right now.
At only 4 weeks, my bantam frizzled Cochin let out a squeaky crow this morning!
I’m positive my Silkie is female because she’s a partridge and is feathering out with the female pencilled pattern.
And two of my female NN chicks are smaller, with smaller combs and they’re far less boisterous than my two big boys with combs already starting to get pink.
But there’s two NN I’m just not sure about yet.
I just hope I can find someone to take my extra boys because I find raising them with chicks I’m keeping makes it difficult to not get attached and I’d rather not eat them.
They’re my babies!!

 

[Cbarr00]

One of my neighbors has a SS roo. He seems to be very nice. Beautiful bird and I’ve never seen him act aggressive but I don’t know the people at all.
Just from observation.
I’ve also heard a lot about RIR being very aggressive.
But ultimately it comes down to the individual bird.
It seems there are lines that are less aggressive and vice versa.
I’m a firm believer that aggressive roosters shouldn’t be allowed to make more aggressive chickens.
I have heard lots of positive things about both BO and SS roos.
I know for sure I have 3 cockerels out of my 8 chicks right now.
At only 4 weeks, my bantam frizzled Cochin let out a squeaky crow this morning!
I’m positive my Silkie is female because she’s a partridge and is feathering out with the female pencilled pattern.
And two of my female NN chicks are smaller, with smaller combs and they’re far less boisterous than my two big boys with combs already starting to get pink.
But there’s two NN I’m just not sure about yet.
I just hope I can find someone to take my extra boys because I find raising them with chicks I’m keeping makes it difficult to not get attached and I’d rather not eat them.
They’re my babies!!

We have ten total so if we do have 4 I don't know if they could live in peace with only 6 hens. My husband does the culling and I helped after when they didn't look like my pets anymore. It was easier that way. He said he did have a hard time doing it tho. We wouldn't tolerate an aggressive bird at all. I have two boys 7 and 9 and another on the way due in July. How many roos do you plan to keep? We are in a rural area with tons of predators so I think maybe the best 2 in case something happened to one.