Any one wanna share their expieriences on raising chickens together??

[Foleys]

OK we will see how this will turn out not sure if anyone will reply or want to join in but we will give it a try..
First I wanna share how I got my 4 10-12 week old chickens.. Me and Hubby were out of town last Saterday and most of Sunday. When we got home my mother in-law comes to us and says " look what we got" as she takes out her cell phone and shows us pictures. Turns out it was thease 4 chickens.. That were pecking on our front door on Saterday morning.So me and hubby were kind of suprised because we had just brought home 2 Dwarf rabbits that my son had and so we laughed and sais "well we'll give them a few days and if they hang around we'll keep them. Needless to say they didnt go anywhere. Before we knew if they were male or female we went out and bought a full grown roo.
We started to look around for coops for them and they turned out to be more expensive then we thought so we went and bought some supplies to make one figuring it would be cheaper in all actuality it would just been easier to buy one. But being that we had no idea what we were getting into we built one. As some would say around on here not a great one but we had to do what we could.
They have been in their coop for this would make 5 days now. I have been going out every day with some bread to try to tame them a little and have been making a little progress with all but one of the 4 chickens.
We are feeding them starter food for now cause that is what someone told us at the Tractor Supply store we should feed them..
I think out of the 4 3 of them are hens and 1 of them are roos. The one we think is a roo is not shy at all he is the first to run for the food every morning and the first to run up to me when I come out with bread. They all go nuts over bread....
We have named 2 out of the 5 chickens.. The really shy one's name is Ma'ma and the adult roo is named Poco..

Well I hope I get more ppl that want to share their first experiences raising chickens for the first time..

 

[Gonzo]

My first experience was last April, I could not find anyone locally selling chicks! I ended up driving something like 3 hours or so to Southwestern Kentucky. I found some folks there that had all different kinds of breeds. So, I decide to to go and get about 8 chicks... 10 tops! I thought this would be a great experience for the kids, so I took my 2 and my 2 nieces... ages 7&8.... I could just

myself for doing that! I came back with 25 chicks! The kids, even RAWR, who was 13 at the time... was following me around with chicks saying " can I have this one!!!" I won't make that mistake again.. EVER!

then as time rolls on.... I end up with more roos than hens!

say I'd pick a breed, then get 4 hoping for 3 hens to 1 roo.... nope! 3 roos to 1 hen! Thats my luck! So I decide to have the extra roo's processed.... Nope again! Kids and hubby have a fit! I ended up just giving them away! Which I hate to do! If they went to someone on BYC that would have been fine, but it didn't work that way. Mine went to folks I don't know. So, now I worry about what happened to them. My biggest fear would be them being used for fighting! that makes me sick! I would rather make them freezer roo's and know they were treated well, then not know what happened to them.

 

[Foleys]

Yeah I dont think I could handle knowing that I gave some roos away and the ppl I gave them to fought them that is just crule in my book..
I am so excited for my chickens to lay eggs I cant hardly wait. I know it says hens wont lay eggs till about 6 months and mine I think are only about from what ppl on here say 10-12 weeks is there any possible way to get them to lay any earlier?
Here a re some pic of mine. what do you think in their age??

 

[Katy]

It looks like you may have more roos than pullets. Maybe somebody "donated" their excess roos to you.

 

[Foleys]

from what I understand I have aout 3 roos and 2 hens but not real sure we were going to wait till we can be sure and then go buy some more hens if needed...

 

[The Chicken People]

Age sounds about right on those! You dont want them laying early it messes them up! It will happen when it does usually at six months sometimes a few weeks later!
My first experience with chickens came just over a year ago we purchased eight day old chicks! I read every book I could find and I joined BYC! We built a coop and low and behold one of my pullets crowed! Eventually he decided to flog one too many times so he went to freezer camp! Then I discovered incubation and buying eggs from fellow BYC ers! I now have 36 chickens, three ducks and two BR turkeys! I hope it quits raining soon so we can get out and build more coops! DH made me put away the bator until all of these are housed and sorted out! Hardest part is deciding which Roos to keep!

 

[Foleys]

I was thinking about buyin the whole egg and hatching it thing but right now we just dont have the money to get all the incubation stuff or to build on to our coop. but I am talkin hubby into buyin a little tool shed and turning it into our chicken coop.

 

[LivinNewDreamInND]

Tool sheds make great coops! I have seen lots of pics of sheds converted to coops in the coop picture section. Plus you can always find a good used one on Craigslist or in you local paper for fairly cheap if you are willing to move it. You sound like me I would totally keep chickens that showed up at my door and build them a coop. They are lucky they ended up at your place because not everyone would have done the same.

I just got my first chicks last Friday, they are five days old. One of them died yesterday, she was not healthy from the beginning. I think that is why I ended up receiving an extra chick. I think they knew something was wrong with her. We built a brooder out of scrap wood and spare parts. When they are old enough we have two coop rooms in our barn that will be there home. We still need to build them a run though. We are planting a garden and I don't want them pecking the veggies.

I hope to read more about your first adventure with chickens,

LeAnn

 

[Mrs. Fluffy Puffy]

I have a local poultry breeder near by, and I called him up one day to see if he would have any silkies hatching? He said he had some hatching that night and the next morning so I told him to save me 3 or 4 of them and I would pick them up the next day when we're in town. So we go by there to pick them up and he shows me the 4 he saved me and he said one was a frizzled. So I only got 3 silkies and a frizzled. Then I payed him for the 4 chicks I got and then I looked around and I saw he had some Jersey Giants!!! I've always wanted some JG just to try them out so I got 3 of them. Then he brought out a very small Japanese chick. And he basically said why don't you take this one! So I took it as well! So instead of just 3 silkies I came home with 8 chicks!!!! It's a bad idea to look around!!!! But I just couldn't help but get them! LOL

I don't know how it happened!!!

They just popped into my box!!!! LOL Ha ha ha!

 

[4 luv of eggs]

This is my third summer in Westminster Md. We were in Baltimore County right next to the city line. We had a townhouse and a postage stamp sized yard. When my granddaughter was born, we couldn't bare the thought of her growing up within that area. It had gotten decidedly bad in the 23 years we lived there. Now we have 2 acres on a gravel road.

My husband and I have toyed with the idea since we moved here. We didn't have anything like a TSC where we lived and were enchanted when we saw bins of all variety of chicks and ducks. I go through so many eggs it's ridiculous so I made the decision that this was the year. Six chicks turned into twelve which turned into 18 yesterday.

We were lucky when it came to the coop. My poor husband isn't the most handy thing in the world and he'd be the first to tell you. Building a coop from the gound up would have never happened. Luckily we had a small potting shed on the property. It is Amish built and in great condition. We have a larger shed too so this shed wasn't really being used. I hated cutting a hole in the side but you get over that quickly. It's 12x6 and already had shelves that will hold the nesting boxes. But we still had to do the run (chain linked dog enclosure with a tarp on top) so we still didn't get away cheap. It's amazing what they charge for pre-constructed coops.

So here we are. There are apparently quite a lot of newbies here. I guess we'll learn together and hopefully we won't make any major mistakes in the process.