I decided to give everyone a bio. Doesn't that sound fun. I am trying to get into this site and it's huge and a little confusing, but i hope to get straight soon. We live on a 30 acre what i call mini farm. We have 3 horses and get a cow seasonally to feed out and slaughter. We There was a beat up chicken coop attached to the back of our barn, it was more like a screened in lean to actually. My dh decided we needed some chickens. After fixing the coop and getting a brooder ect. we got our first chickens. My hubby of course soon discovered that he was too busy for the chicken business, so he gave it all to me. I wiped the slate clean a month or so back and sold all but my silver duckwing batams (almost regret that) and 1 RIR runt that my 2 yr is in love with. Then I ordered 54 chicks from a hatchery. My hubby then brought home 13 misc. chicks from the guy we had been buying from and last night brought home 40 more. I love my chicks. I am hoping to hatch my first batch on my own next week. A man gave me an incubator and our friend gave me some eggs so I'm on my way. We tried to let some chickens lose, i let 12 roos out and they disappeared one by one. Our lab was the cause of some, but we broke him and then I saw the major problem, a coyote on our pond levee. Now everyone is contained inside the brooder or the coop, until my hubby can build a decent run. My coop is quite large, but bare. Hubby made an ingenious automatic waterer for me back during the summer, as i was filling the 5 gallon waterer 3x a day. It also doubles as a low roost pole. We still need to make nest boxes, and a real roost pole, but right now everyone is under 2 months old, so it's not a major deal. Ok, so now I am rambling, but this is us and we are trying to make a go of this chicken deal.