and Welcome to Backyard Chickens.
to have you here with us. Enjoy your time here at BYC!
Welcome to BYC!!Hi everyone, I'm originally from Glasgow but I've been living in Somerset West in South Africa for over a decade now. My wife and I have 11 year old twin daughters and they are crazy about animals. They have wanted hens for a few years and I finally finished a chicken coop for them earlier this month for their birthday. We live in town with a 2088sqm (or about half an acre) garden. The local regulations allow us to keep 5 chickens without having to apply for a permit (and roosters are not allowed).
The coop was built using a mixture of recycled material already in our garden or from neighbours and second hand shutterply. We bought some new framing wood and fibre cement panels for the flooring. I've been reading various forums and watching videos on chickens and realised that chickens tend to be addictive and people end up keeping more than they originally planned. I've sized the coop for 10-12 birds just in case...
One of our neighbours was selling some young (unsexed) chickens. The mother is a Boschvelder and the father is either a Rhode Island Red or an Araucana (yes they have 2 roosters). The couple had an Araucana rooster and a while ago they bought a few Rhode Island Red hens and discovered that one of them was actually a rooster! The guy was offering me the Rhode Island Red rooster for free and I said I would think about it...
So we bought 4 circa 9 week old birds from the neighbours. We think there are 3 hens and 1 rooster but aren't 100% sure at the moment. We picked up the birds last Sunday, so have had them for just over 1 week. We have also ordered 2 8 week old Brahma hens from a nearby poultry farmer - they are only 5 weeks old now and we will get them once they hit 8 weeks.
Our coop is roughly 2.5m x2m and 1.6m tall inside. We have built a fence around the coop to give the hens 7m x 4m of outside space without being disturbed by our 2 dogs. Unfortunately, the birds like to free range and spend 5+ hours per day running around our garden outside of the fenced enclosure! It seems that EVERYTHING seems to want to have a chicken dinner! Our neighbour's cat has been seen stalking the hens and both our dogs were initially chasing the hens. One dug under the fence and nipped a couple of feathers out of the (suspected) roosters tail. They were severely reprimanded and now don't show too much interest in the chickens (when I'm about anyway). The other dog is still trying to chase the chickens around the garden, but is getting a bit more used to them as each day passes. We also have African Harrier Hawks and another species of hawk around here. They have previously chased pigeons in the garden, so we were worried they might go after the chickens. The 4 birds were "free ranging" in the garden on Sunday and this small bird flew down right past 2 of the birds. It looked smaller than the chickens and I initially thought it was a pigeon, but it was actually a small hawk!
It amazes me how clever some of the chicken breeders are when coming up with sex-link and auto-sex breeds. I'm new to the chicken keeping game, so don't know all the terms but knew that there were a few breeds where the males and females had different colours or patterns at birth.
We're so happy you've decided to join us
Sex-link's do not breed true into the next generation. Auto-sexed one's do.It amazes me how clever some of the chicken breeders are when coming up with sex-link and auto-sex breeds. I'm new to the chicken keeping game, so don't know all the terms but knew that there were a few breeds where the males and females had different colours or patterns at birth.
We are keeping chickens to give our daughters a fun and easy animal to look after. Our plan is to source a mixture of hen breeds - hopefully finding laid back birds that don't mind being handled and hopefully ones that are good layers. You don't get many pets that poop breakfast each morning!
