BYC Learning Center Makeover - Suggestions Needed!

[Nifty-Chicken]

Our Learning Center is WAY overdue for a makeover. We're going to completely wipe the current Learning Center and build it from scratch.

We'd like help from old-timers and chicken newbies to provide feedback on the structure, and organization of the topics. Please review the organization below and reply with your thoughts and suggestions:


Main Sections:

1 - Getting Started
2 - Hatching & Raising Chicks
3 - Housing & Feeding
4 - Maintaining a Healthy Flock
5 - FAQ's & More




Here are some examples of content / articles that will be in each section:

Getting Started Raising Chickens
Raising Chickens - The basics of how to raise chicks - Urban Chickens
Why Raise Chickens?
Chicken Breeds
Local Chicken Laws & Ordinances
Where To Get Chickens
Chicken Glossary
Chicken Anatomy

Hatching Eggs & Raising Young Chicks
How-To #1: Hatching Eggs
Dry Incubation
Egg Incubators
Candling Eggs 2
Candler construction and day 8 pics
Candling Pics:
A Chick Hatching
How-To #2: The First 60 Days
Chicken Brooders

Housing & Feeding Your Chickens
Coops
Nesting Boxes
Using Sand in your Coops
Coop Ventilation
Keeping Coop Warm
Fix A Muddy Run
Deep Litter Method
Over 40 homemade Chicken Feeders & Waterers
Chicken Treat Chart -

Maintaining a Healthy Flock of Chickens
Injuries & Diseases
Predators & Pests
Behaviors & Egglaying
Diatomaceous Earth
clipping chicken wings,
Adding New Chickens to Your Flock
Meat Birds
Plucking a Hen by Waxing (warning, graphic pics)


So, what do you think? Is the organization and categorization pretty intuitive? Any suggestions or ideas?

Thanks!

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Looks good to me!

 

[CelticOaksFarm]

Ventilation, ventilation, ventilation

Hot climate housing
Cold climate housing

(such a big difference)

 

[WriterofWords]

Looks promising.

 

[Zinnia-Hen]

Looks good to me.

 

[itsy]

I think it is intuitive, yes.

My suggestions would be to keep it simple looking and not redundant. When I first started visiting this site, I was very confused by the amount of links and then understanding which were ads versus which belonged to BYC pages.

For example:

On this page, is it really necessary to have the same links in the blue boxes above as what is on the list? I think getting rid of the redundancy would be helpful and would lend to people clicking through to MORE pages, versus spending too much time on a page trying to figure out the links. Less is more.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

We totally agree and that's a very large part of the direction in which we are going!

 

[Judy]

Very good. A couple of notes only.

I'd put "plucking a hen by waxing" in meat birds, not separate.

If we can do hot vs. cold weather coops that would be great -- I think all too many people down here build regular buildings when they mostly need wire and shade with minimal shelter. If that listing of ventilation is Pat's ventilation page, that should be good on that subject.

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Wow, good stuff, please keep all the great ideas coming!

 

[Fierlin1182]

Looks pretty good! These new headings would be a great help. I remember being a little lost when I first started looking for info all those years back.

I don't even know what some of the terms under hatching eggs mean, to be honest.

I've seen a lot of people asking questions about most of the areas you've listed though, so I think you've picked them well!