Hello everyone! I am new to the group and found it by searching for ways to keep mongoose away from my chickens. We recently relocated to Maui from Texas about a year and a half ago for a semi working retirement. I am an herbalist and we are in the very early stages of starting a green tea and herb farm.
I am also semi new to chickens. I grew up helping care for chickens and never really cared for them much. It was part of our chores to collect the eggs. The coop was nasty, slippery with mud and poo and the chicken were mean little buggers! However, as I aged so did the standards for caring for chickens as pets. I have always been a pet breeder (chinchillas and fennec foxes mostly) but also had an open door policy for exotic pet rescues. (We have housed, cats, dogs, ducks, rabbits, hedgehogs, ferrets, sugar gliders, and countless other pets people discovered were too difficult to care for.
Now that the kids are grown and out on their own, we just have our cat and chickens. We found a local breeder here on Maui that had Silkies, but before we could purchase and build our coop, a mongoose got into his run and killed all the silkies. He did however have 5 other breeds too young to be in the run, so we were able to get 2 each of Rhode Island Red, Buff Orpington, Ameraucana, Leghorn, and Plymouth Rock. 1 of the Leghorn chicks did not thrive so we now have 9 beautiful chickens. Minerva, Bellatix, Buelah, Blanche, Beaker, Not the Beaker, Valerie, Nine of Ten from uni matrix 2.0.1.8 (Nine for short) and our surprise Rooster Bunsen.
We love all of our spoiled babies and write stories about them often.
I am also semi new to chickens. I grew up helping care for chickens and never really cared for them much. It was part of our chores to collect the eggs. The coop was nasty, slippery with mud and poo and the chicken were mean little buggers! However, as I aged so did the standards for caring for chickens as pets. I have always been a pet breeder (chinchillas and fennec foxes mostly) but also had an open door policy for exotic pet rescues. (We have housed, cats, dogs, ducks, rabbits, hedgehogs, ferrets, sugar gliders, and countless other pets people discovered were too difficult to care for.
Now that the kids are grown and out on their own, we just have our cat and chickens. We found a local breeder here on Maui that had Silkies, but before we could purchase and build our coop, a mongoose got into his run and killed all the silkies. He did however have 5 other breeds too young to be in the run, so we were able to get 2 each of Rhode Island Red, Buff Orpington, Ameraucana, Leghorn, and Plymouth Rock. 1 of the Leghorn chicks did not thrive so we now have 9 beautiful chickens. Minerva, Bellatix, Buelah, Blanche, Beaker, Not the Beaker, Valerie, Nine of Ten from uni matrix 2.0.1.8 (Nine for short) and our surprise Rooster Bunsen.
We love all of our spoiled babies and write stories about them often.
and Welcome to Backyard Chickens.
to have you here with us. Enjoy your time here at BYC! 
Good luck with your flock!
