Can anyone give me any pointers about these breeds?

[ElfenLied89]

Hello there. I am a new chicken mom. We have 8 adorable baby chickens and are only about a week or so into our chicken raising. We have them in a large bin, with a brood lamp, food, and water (of course). Oldest chick is around 10 days old (we speculate), and the newest chick is around 3 or 4 days old. All are female except one.

Here are the following breeds we have:

Rhode Island Red
Buff Orpington (2) (oldest)
Lavender Orpington
Silver Laced Wynadotte
Salmon Faverolle (2)
Brahma (Rooster) (Newest addition)


The Rhode Island Red and the Buff Orpington ladies were all bought at the same time from Tractor Supply. The other ones we have acquired were from a local hatchery called King's Cove in Moncks Corner, SC. These are all for eggs, and according to my kids, to have farm pets. No meat babies.

Gimme any and all advice. Like when to move them outside, etc. I need all the chicken parent wisdom!!

 

[nuthatched]

Chickens are chickens, breed often doesn't matter. You can put them outside now, if your coop is ready and have a heat source for them.

 

[BastyPutt]

Watch their behaviors. They will tell you if something is wrong

Make sure to upload a picture here in a few weeks and we can help confirm whether or not you have males or females. Hatcheries don't always get it right.

 

[ElfenLied89]

Chickens are chickens, breed often doesn't matter. You can put them outside now, if your coop is ready and have a heat source for them.

Coop isn't set yet. I was gonna ask advice on what would be a good coop to get as well. Do they all need a nest area? So I get one with 7 hen areas?

 

[ElfenLied89]

Watch their behaviors. They will tell you if something is wrong

Make sure to upload a picture here in a few weeks and we can help confirm whether or not you have males or females. Hatcheries don't always get it right.

Oh no! Lol. Hopefully they did. As a mom of 5 boys I am already outnumbered. I don't want to be outnumbered by roosters too! Lol.

 

[nuthatched]

Coop isn't set yet. I was gonna ask advice on what would be a good coop to get as well. Do they all need a nest area? So I get one with 7 hen areas?

The best coop is one you build. Kits and prefab are cheaply made, way too small, underventilated and cost an arm and a leg.
Your hens don't need their own nest box, you only need 3, 4 at the max. They'll still all lay in one or two.

Some rules of thumb are:
4 Sq ft per bird in the coop and 8 Sq ft per bird in the run.
1 Sq ft of ventilation per bird, 14" of roost bar a piece.
Roost bars work better if even in height, but they have to be higher than the nest boxes so they don't roost in them.
Here's the coop section, an 8x8 (or similar dimensions) will work for you.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/categories/chicken-coops.12/⁷

 

[rosemarythyme]

Coop isn't set yet. I was gonna ask advice on what would be a good coop to get as well. Do they all need a nest area? So I get one with 7 hen areas?

Better get on that ASAP. Biggest mistake (and I did it to) is not having the coop already set to go before the birds arrive.

It is nearly impossible to find a prefab big enough to house more than 2-3 birds. The biggest ones would probably be the "Over EZ" coops but you will need to add more ventilation and move the roosts around in those, plus add in a run as well unless you're planning to free range all day.

For 8 standard birds you are looking at a coop that's 32 sq ft minimum, with a run that's 80 sq ft minimum. 8 ft of roost, 8 sq ft of ventilation (more in hotter climates, but you did not specify), 2-3 nest boxes. This is a recently post 32 sq ft coop with pretty good layout modifications to give you an idea of what you'd want to aim for: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/our-oak-abode-chicken-coop.1582249/

 

[JeffPr]

Biggest mistake (and I did it to) is not having the coop already set to go before the birds arrive.

THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Should be a banner on top of every page...

 

[BastyPutt]

Better get on that ASAP. Biggest mistake (and I did it to) is not having the coop already set to go before the birds arrive.

It is nearly impossible to find a prefab big enough to house more than 2-3 birds. The biggest ones would probably be the "Over EZ" coops but you will need to add more ventilation and move the roosts around in those, plus of add in a run as well unless you're planning to free range all day.

For 8 standard birds you are looking at a coop that's 32 sq ft minimum, with a run that's 80 sq ft minimum. 8 ft of roost, 8 sq ft of ventilation (more in hotter climates, but you did not specify), 2-3 nest boxes. This is a recently post 32 sq ft coop with pretty good layout modifications to give you an idea of what you'd want to aim for: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/our-oak-abode-chicken-coop.1582249/

This is great advice and spot on.

Fortunately a chicken doesn't need anything fancy.

Something you will want to heavily research is predation prevention. Buying a prefab coop comes with a false sense of security.

"The people who designed this must know what they are doing in keeping the chickens safe" - WRONG

For instance. Most all the time there is hardware cloth on a prefab in some form. They will most always attach the cloth with something like a 3/8 staple which a predator is going to quickly destroy. Just ingest a healthy amount of YouTube videos in coop building and you'll get the idea.

We recently got a D'uucle breeding pair - my wife wanted some ornamental chickens for her garden that would do minimal damage (better pics for instagram I suppose ). I thought I'd save a bit of time and pick up a prefab coop for them. Huge mistake. I ended up spending more time beefing it up then i would have had I just built something myself like I always do. It now looks like franken-coop.

There are also a lot of folks now on Craigslist or Facebook who will come and build a coop on site.

Congrats on the new chickens!

 

[rosemarythyme]

THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Should be a banner on top of every page...

I certainly thought I had time - we had the coop kit ready to assemble and the claim was that a 10 year old could do it in 4 hours. So clearly we were ready, right? Except hubby and I were clearly less capable than a 10 year old...

We suddenly needed emergency bathroom repairs (mold and rot issues in 2 bathrooms) so the bathtub our chicks were brooding in was the only shower/bath in the house. And thus we found ourselves in the rain for a whole weekend, desperately trying to assemble a coop before the bathroom demolition took place. Good times!