A newbie without a clue

[ChickInDelight]

Wow - planning for chickens before you acquire them. I am impressed. I am not, however, a planner. You are gonna love them, and don't be surprised when some of them love you too.

 

[OregonChickenGal]

Welcome to BYC! There is tons of info on this site to help you. Enjoy!!

 

[t/m]

from VA and

This site has tons of info and I look here first for any questions I have. I got my first chickens ever in Aug so I did lots of looking before we built. The search on this site was helpful especially for specific questions. Also I found alot of info and ideas on 'you tube'. Our Delaware is the friendliest, next is our Barred Rock. Our Easter Egger is the worst -runs and screams the whole time when we do have to hold her for something! The White Rock, Welsummer and Partridge Rock are starting to come around. Best wishes!!

 

[MontanaChickenLady]

Hi....hi and welcome to the world of chickens. It's amazing how when you've decided to keep chickens and start talking about it you find there are a lot of chicken keepers around you. It's a great world!!! I too planned before actually getting our chicks and I would highly recommend purchasing the book Raising Chickens for Dummies. It's a great book IMHO, easy reading and a continual resource for you. I had to go with a chicken coop that my husband was willing to build without spending a ton of money and it also had to fit within the confines of our chain link dog kennel (+2 more sections) as we were trying to use something we had rather than having to spend more money on the project. We also knew we would have to wrap the whole area in chicken wire because of critters (over, under....all around). We actually had to add another layer of 1/4" wire on all 4 sides and 4feet up because a fox got to the chickens through the chain link and the chicken wire. grrrrrr My coop isn't large but it works for me given the restrictions I had. I did talk my husband into putting linoleum on the floor of the coop to make clean up easy and I use pine shavings in the coop and nesting boxes. It's what my flock has known as I also used the pine shavings when they were peeps. I have 5 chickens now (lost the one to the fox) and you can see what breeds I have in my signature. The most friendly is the Light Brahma but they are all friendly (even my roo). When studying up on breeds and what we can get in our area (Montana) that survive the weather I wanted: good layers, good natured birds and birds that are good with people because I have two young grand daughters that I want my chickens to treat well. I hope this helps even a little. And again, WELCOME

 

[fireguy56]

Nikki1, Welcome to BYC....great place to be if new to chickens. Lots of helpful folks with good ideas. As other posts suggested. Read alot...you'll learn alot, then use the best ideas you find to incorporate into your design. Do go as big as you can afford to. Really, really...do it now. You won't be sorry. The little suckers are very addictive, like a bottle of good scotch on two legs. We planned for maybe 15 or so, have 29 in large coop and started second coop for Bantams we have in brooder. We'll have around 50 total when all said and done. Good luck.
Erik

Front of second coop I'm building.

Back view.

 

[sherylreno]

&

I have 3 silver laced wyandottes, 2 barred plymouth rocks, 1 easter egger, 1 blue orpington cross and a black cuckoo marans cross. I love them all and they are all friendly. The SLW are just now becoming where they are wanting to sit in my lap for their pettings, they are 7 months old now. Everyone else is very loving and yes, they are a blast to watch all day long. You can go to my page where I have pics of the coop when we were building it, I need to get new pics up there, make sure your coop is very secure from all predators. You would also need to make sure you have good ventilation as well.

 

[Hillbilly Hen]

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from Michigan! Delawares are very friendly and full of in your face personality. Also I have a hoop house type of run that I cover in the winter. It holds up well to snow. If you can afford it cover with hardware cloth instead of chicken wire. Check the link in my siggy and you can see the pics of my coop.

 

[nikki1]

THANKS FOR ALL THE IDEAS!! Some replies to peoples' questions:
1. Yeah, 4-6 chickens is a lot for the 4 of us, but I work at a school, and I bet I can find takers for the leftovers. Also, the next door neighbor gave me a bunch of garden produce this summer, and so I owe her a few!
2. Actually, eggs are sort of a nice by-product to me. I'm actually a dyed-in-the-wool animal person, and I'm mostly looking forward to the company of chickens. Sounds weird, but there you are.
3. I'd been thinking of including a silkie in the flock, but since they're little, would the big girls bully them?
4. We are indeed zoned for chickens. We don't exactly live in the middle of nowhere, but we're certainlly on the outskirts of nowhere! It's something we specifically asked when house hunting. Our realtor thought we were nuts. (Funny...we looked into little rural Mossyrock, and chickens aren't allowed there at all, but you can have 3 hens in Seattle. Go figure.)
5. To the person from Washington, I live just outside Eatonville, and so I'm familiar with Orting. My plan is to get my chicks from the feed store on Meridian in Graham. They get a new shipment every Friday from spring until the first of August, and I was amazed at their variety. They always carried buff orpingtons, americaunas, barred rocks, and RIR's, and they'd always have at least 4 other varieties besides, including speckled sussex, Iowa blue, silkies, Brahmans (light and dark) australorps, turkens, and a bunch of others that currently elude my end of the day brain. They had an ambassador orpington named Frankie who belonged to the owner's 5 year old daughter. He was a ditz, but very friendly.


Again, thanks for all the help. I've been enjoying the coop designs elsewhere in this site. I think my husband is worried. I'm great with ideas, but I can't drive a nail straight, so the execution is up to him. It hurts my pride to admit that, but it's the truth.

--Nikki

 

[N. Virginia]

Don't get any guineas. They are hilarious but when I had 3 plus 8 chickens and they terrorized the chickens. The chickens never have recovered their courage and are jumpy and unfriendly, which I blame on the guineas.
have fun!

 

[Shayna]

Not sure what you have in mind for a large, sturdy, covered run, but we recently finished ours:

That may give you ideas depeneding on what you're looking for. We have a lot of predators too, so we used 1/4" hardware cloth, base boards to keep anything from trying to get in at the bottom, an apron around it to prevent digging under, and metal roofing panels on top. It works really well! We just finished raking up leaves for bedding inside the run. We just attached it to an old shed and didn't have time to do much with the shed. My sig has more info on it. There are tons and tons of options for coops and runs, that's for sure!
Oh, and I do have guineas with my silkies, but so far the guineas keep to themselves and so do the chickens. The guineas were introduced to chickens when they were very young. If anything, sometimes the chickens run a guinea away from them, but all is pretty peaceful. I will separate them though if the time comes that I need to.