built my first coop, got my first chickens! now with pics!

[whoaitsmike]

Just added these pictures, the original message is just under the pictures-

This is my new buddy! His name is Mackie, after Vic Mackie. He is a German Sheppard.

This is my homeboy-or girl 'Zazoo'

Hello, long time lurker, first time poster. My name is Mike, I have 10 chickens, VERY new to this. They love yogurt and oatmeal the most! Any tips on raising chickens are appreciated and requested!

This is made entirely of recycled material. I tore down an old barn when I bought the place, and turned it into several chicken coops, one of which is here-

The three breeds of chicken in the coop are,

Silkies- my show birds, hopefully a boy and a girl- now 8 weeks

Mille Fluer D'Uccle- Pretty birds with feathers on their feet- now 8 weeks

Naked Necks- these are my egg layers, also 8 weeks

I've decided to be an organic farmer, and the chicken poop is perfect for my 'tomatoes.' I also plan to grow Japanese Maples, peppers, corn, etc...

Also going to get a couple of goats, and I have 20 more silkies on standby for April. Also going to order 20 'meat' birds to lower my dependance on the outside world. I also got a nonsense job to pay for the chinese solar panels I'll be using to power my 'tomatoes' year round.

I have some awesome pictures, but just found out I'm too new to post them.

 

[Jackie B.]

Congrats and welcome! Yup you need a few more posts before you can put up photos but can't wait to see what you've done!

 

[JP101010]

Hello Mike & Welcome To BYC!
Sounds Like your off to a Great Start!
To post Pics Quicker you can visit 10 threads and drop a quick post- i think you have to have 10 to post pics.
We have Silkies along with some wyandottes and Rhode island red ,
silkies have excellent Personalities - They do require a little more effort because they are more a simple minded Chicken (to put it nicely) Ours dont really roost , will stand out in the rain freezing cold when they are 3 feet from a warm dry barn , we had two drown in kiddie pools filled halfway -even when theres steps to get out of the 1.5 feet of water , And they are the only chicken breed we have known to get 'tangled' in a single taunt strand of electric wire with a low powered pulsating current (RIP Hannibal)...... anyways we love them , although we always have a soft spot for the "challenged " ones
We Also Grow 'Tomatos' and we are jealous of your chinese solar panels- Do you grow them from seeds you have kickin around or do you order certain strains of seeds? We Use Pro mix medium with Beneficial Bacteria , Chicken Poop and occasional Bat Guano. We are also Experimenting with Hydroponics at the moment.
Cant wait to see your pics , sounds like you found a great setup for farming

 

[whoaitsmike]

I lurked this board as a reference for everything setting it up. I cannot wait to be part of the community. I'm part of the young disengaged who took their degrees to the farm. We bought a small place in Indi, on the real cheap.

I'm going to have ideal-poultry send me about 20 meat birds soon.

The sad news is that today I lost a millie

She was in the hamster cage I put in for them, and it looked like she had smothered or something. Today I started putting apple cider vinegar in my water, one teaspoon to the gallon, and I give them yogurt for the poop butt. The silkies look like one is paint, and the other one is a grayish colour.

I LOVE NAKED NECKS- they are amazing. They are like little dino's, and good egg layers I have heard. Right now I'm starting to add places to roost, and I just started testing out different treats for them...big on apples, not big on celery...so far, but maybe they ate it while I wasn't looking. I def. found out that bantams for for the experienced, they are MUCH harder to raise up. I kept them all in the spare bedroom for about the first two weeks, and then moved them to the coop once I finished it. I feed them a medicated crumble, 18% protein from the local feed store.


HEY JP- We order some awesome tomato seeds from over seas, as their are a lot of varieties. I use FOX FARM EXCLUSIVELY and use indoor soil so I can grow tomatoes all year. Check into autos for growing your tomatoes outdoors, cause they grow in 2 months and are much harder to see. For the 'deer' who fly over in October, since these finish in July.

 

[Melissa Rose]

If you looovvve tomatoes you should check out Tomato Fest they are an awesome supplier of hard to find heirlooms http://www.tomatofest.com/index.html I bought a bunch last year and they did incredible for me. I especially would recomend Flamme gorgeous yellow orange fruit in huge clusters that are about the size of a large golfball! Incredible

 

[whoaitsmike]

that sounds awesome, i love a fresh roma!

 

[JP101010]

Mike - we also order exotic seeds from overseas , Using an Indoor Setup Because of 'predators.... We havent quite been able to get into a perpetual harvest so that we have tomatos all year long ( We hate to have to BUY crappy tomatos when we can grow awesome plump tomatos at home) Sometimes We re veg after picking all the tomatos , sometimes we clone them. anyways its nice to see another fellow tomato enthusiast , as you can see we are few and far between on this particular forum

MelissaRose- Thanks for the link

 

[theoldchick]

Can't wait for the photos!

 

[t/m]

&

from VA. Looking forward to your pics when you're allowed to post.

 

[itsy]

Welcome to BYC!

I raised the red broilers (straight run) from Ideal this past year and was quite pleased with them. They are in my avitar pic when they were chicks.

I ended up saving one of the girls who was smaller than all the others and who had white feet (everyone else had yellow).

This is her with my Mille Fleur, Milly.

Figured I'd show ya what they look like grown up. lol