a newbie in MD that needs a lot of help

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skydivr000

skydivr000

Hatching
7 Years
Jun 25, 2012
9
0
7
Joppa, MD
Well my story is a long one. I have some dear friends with Chickens and they are so much fun to watch that I thought this would be a good idea if I ever had room. Plus every time I left their house they would load me up with eggs, of which I always dropped off at least half to my parents who absolutely loved them. Well I bought the house next to my parents as they are getting up in age and I wanted to be here for them. Now I have a whole acre. Not big on the grand scheme of things, but it works for me. Then the love of my life moved in and together we "hatched" a plan for chickens. We figured maybe a dozen. So dad and I set to work and built a cute little 6 x 6 chicken coop with 6 nesting boxes. We ordered 20 chickens. Some reds and some white leghorns. 8 were going to our friends as they have an aging flock. Chicken coop done, Brooder box done, I am ready. We read everything we could, talked to everyone we could. learned everything we could, Now all we needed was our birds. Well we got 12 road island reds and then 12 leghorns and I thought that was it. Then mom and dad ran into a friend of theirs that raises and shows americaunas. So mom decided it would be neat to have chickens that lay blue eggs. So why not, right.. Everyone had what they wanted except me. so I picked out a cute little red wyandotte and named her Henery, pronounced "hen -errr-eee" Just like Henery Hawk and foghorn leghorn. So add em up folks. We now have 30. One chick decided the odds were against her and she cashed out early. We gave 9 to our friends and now we are left with 20.

Question 1. Is my coop gonna handle 20 hens? I do have 3 roosting bars and they do spread out and they are out by 6:30 in the morning and go in at night.

I did build an 8 x 20 foot fully enclosed run and they spend a bulk of their time there. 6 out of 7 evenings they are free range for several hours.

Question 2. While a majority of their diet is feed for the moment. I do have a local wegmans giving me all the corn they don't sell for free. I give some to my friends and then keep some for my girls. How much of this corn on the cob can I give them? right now they are about 15 weeks old.


Thanks in advance. I have read a lot of good info here and finally joined.

What would we do with out the internet....

Gary
 
WelcometoBYC.gif
 
Hi and welcome to BYC from northern Michigan :D

You should have 4 square feet of coop space per bird. A 6x6 coop is 36 square feet, or enough for around 9 birds. This is regardless of run space, since they may be all inside for various reasons - weather issues, confinement at night, etc.

Generally you should not exceed 15% of their daily calories in foods other than their regular feed, as this may lead to issues such as obesity and dietary imbalances, which decrease production and overall health.
 
The coop is a small for 20 full size hens.
Can you expand the coop or build a 2nd one?
It's funny how we intend to just have 12 chickens and 1 small coop and
end up with 4 coops and too many chickens.
It's called chicken math LOL

Welcome to BYC from Cecil County, Maryland
 

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