ejcrist
Songster
I'm currently raising my first flock of layers (25 pullets) that are going on 11 weeks old in a few days. They live in a coop and run that I finished building when they were around 6 weeks old. I don't want them free-ranging in the backyard due to a lot of local predators. I did a lot of thinking and studying before selecting the breeds that would do well in my area and ended up getting 16 Barred Rocks and nine White Leghorns. I'm extremely happy with them so far and I've had more fun than should be legal raising them to this point. I've had so much fun in fact I'm toying with the idea of raising a second flock of a few different breeds so I can experiment and see how well they do. Does that seem like a dumb thing to do - raise two separate flocks instead of one large flock? The coop and run I have now is just about right size-wise for the birds I have now, so I wouldn't want to add any to it. Also I think it's preferable to try to raise a single flock together so you don't have the difficulties of introducing new birds and stressing everyone out, including me. I thought about possibly adding to/increasing the size of my current coop and run to accomodate more birds in the future but after sleeping on it I think there's more advantages to building a second set-up. By keeping two flocks that are physically separate you'd lessen the chances of spreading disease if one flock came down with something. You could also keep breeds that may not do as well if you kept them together, such as bantams and regular sized birds possibly. Also if you ever decided to get into breeding it would be nice so you could control which gals the rooster goes out on a date with. Anyway I was just wondering of any others have more than one flock and get others opinions.
Thanks, Gene
Thanks, Gene