- Dec 5, 2009
- 5
- 0
- 7
Again, thanks to Nifty Chicken for pushing me to figure out why I couldn't get on-line. I still don't know, but I do have a laptop which lets me get in.
My wife and I are retired professionals living in rural Albany County, New York. We have two grown children living in the area with their own children. We have 3 acres, zoned residentially, though we are allowed to have 12 fowl and two farm animals, 1 of which can be a pig. One of which will be a pig this spring. We have our own gardening interests. My wife does the flowers and landscaping. I grow herbs and vegetables for our own use. We travel to Europe several times a year, enjoy reading and movies, and make the most of being retired.
We have 12 Buff Orpington chickens, 11 hens and a rooster (luck of the draw), grown from day-olds purchased from the local Agway. We got them in the first days of June and they started laying in November. They reside in a coop made in half of a 14'x12' (approximately) shed. I picked the Buffs because of their winter-hardiness. There is no additional source of heat, per the advice of folks on this forum and other sources, nor is the shed insulated. It is fairly draft free, has good ventilation, and a large window for light. They have a 24' square pen connected to the coop by a tunnel of wood framed wire. It's 4 foot tall but the girls have shown no real desire to break out. My wife scared them once by bringing a couple of shingles into the pen. Five hens took flight, but it wasn't too hard convincing them to go home. In the center of the pen is the "summer house" which is a construction of a dog crate, two shrub covers on their sides, a length of plywood, and a small tarp. They are in, on, and under it all summer and winter.
I figure we've got the feeding issue worked out. They get a 50-50 mixture of cracked corn and layer mix in a hanging feeder. In this cold weather they get 1 or 2 "hot meals" of bread, meat scraps and dried cheese if available, chopped apple or potato, and some sort of fat (bacon grease, canola oil). They have rewarded us by giving us an average production of 7 eggs a day. Yesterday they set a record of 10 in a single day. We supply our kids, a neighbor, and visitors with beautiful brown eggs with thick shells and orange yolks. They seem not to have suffered any diseases or injuries common to their kind.
I've been working out the capital improvements to their domicile I must make when the weather starts to turn. I need droppings boards, litter dams, a new trap door to the pen (one of those drapery motor systems looks great), and some repairs to the building housing the coop. If I get a new storage building, I'll give them more room in the old one, all but space for their feed cans and tools.
The one-eyed cat isn't impressed.
I'll be seeking advice from all you good folks in the days and weeks and months to come. I've already profited from the forum without being able to thank you all.
My wife and I are retired professionals living in rural Albany County, New York. We have two grown children living in the area with their own children. We have 3 acres, zoned residentially, though we are allowed to have 12 fowl and two farm animals, 1 of which can be a pig. One of which will be a pig this spring. We have our own gardening interests. My wife does the flowers and landscaping. I grow herbs and vegetables for our own use. We travel to Europe several times a year, enjoy reading and movies, and make the most of being retired.
We have 12 Buff Orpington chickens, 11 hens and a rooster (luck of the draw), grown from day-olds purchased from the local Agway. We got them in the first days of June and they started laying in November. They reside in a coop made in half of a 14'x12' (approximately) shed. I picked the Buffs because of their winter-hardiness. There is no additional source of heat, per the advice of folks on this forum and other sources, nor is the shed insulated. It is fairly draft free, has good ventilation, and a large window for light. They have a 24' square pen connected to the coop by a tunnel of wood framed wire. It's 4 foot tall but the girls have shown no real desire to break out. My wife scared them once by bringing a couple of shingles into the pen. Five hens took flight, but it wasn't too hard convincing them to go home. In the center of the pen is the "summer house" which is a construction of a dog crate, two shrub covers on their sides, a length of plywood, and a small tarp. They are in, on, and under it all summer and winter.
I figure we've got the feeding issue worked out. They get a 50-50 mixture of cracked corn and layer mix in a hanging feeder. In this cold weather they get 1 or 2 "hot meals" of bread, meat scraps and dried cheese if available, chopped apple or potato, and some sort of fat (bacon grease, canola oil). They have rewarded us by giving us an average production of 7 eggs a day. Yesterday they set a record of 10 in a single day. We supply our kids, a neighbor, and visitors with beautiful brown eggs with thick shells and orange yolks. They seem not to have suffered any diseases or injuries common to their kind.
I've been working out the capital improvements to their domicile I must make when the weather starts to turn. I need droppings boards, litter dams, a new trap door to the pen (one of those drapery motor systems looks great), and some repairs to the building housing the coop. If I get a new storage building, I'll give them more room in the old one, all but space for their feed cans and tools.
The one-eyed cat isn't impressed.
I'll be seeking advice from all you good folks in the days and weeks and months to come. I've already profited from the forum without being able to thank you all.
