CrisAnderson27
Songster
Sooooo.
As the video says...this post is ALL about chicken math, lol.
Almost 9wks ago, I ended up the proud owner of 26 baby chicks (you can follow that saga here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/new-ish-to-raising-chickens.1351626/). I hadn't owned chicken in YEARS...and even then, they were just barn chicken in northwest Arizona where predators included coyote and maybe a REALLY big snake. Being mostly ground dwelling predators...the birds were plenty safe roosting in the rafters of the hay barn....and were completely free range.
As you can guess...that's a very different scenario from the Appalachians of south west Virginia lol. Pretty much everything out here climbs, flies, or otherwise has ways of getting to, and eating your chicken. The most dangerous to sleeping birds are of course raccoon. The coyote, bobcat, and fox (only heard ONE of those around here) stay away thanks to Ranger (he's in various of my videos...and you can see him below testing out the 'chickenworthiness' of my newly minted/repurposed quarantine coop!), and most everything else falls lower on the totem pole than the raccoon.
They're seriously devious little )*&#@$)#$%....evidenced by the fact that the only ones I've SEEN around here are roadkill.
Anyhow...20 barred rock chicks and 6 Cornish X (now 4 Cornish X...about to become 3 Cornish X tomorrow evening, for Wednesday dinner!). As it says in the link above they were straight run birds...I was hoping for two roosters, which would have been perfect. ALL TWENTY are female. Yes, I'm that lucky. So...I need a couple roosters. I'd been REALLY interested in picking up about five (yes...FIVE) blue Ameraucana...and/or Ayam Cemani. My barred rock girls are literally egg producers...but chicks sell around here every spring, and hatching eggs all the time. So, me being me...instead of straight up buying them...I decided to buy.....
....hatching eggs.
And an incubator (well, actually THREE incubators...but I've returned one of them!).
Oh. Boy.
Anyway!! I ended up with 14 Ameraucana eggs (they're supposed to be 50% hatch rate on shipped eggs, you know?). All 14 are still going strong on day 9. I also got 6 Ayam Cemani eggs, of which 4 are duds. The guy I bought them from seems to be a great guy though...so he sent me NINE MORE for the cost of shipping.
Oh...boy.
So...we're caught up now. Except for the part where my son wanted a rooster for his birthday, and I found various semi local Ayam Cemani for $30-$50 (yes, I know this would have solved part of my problem to begin with. Shush.). That has now turned into two roosters and three hens for $100.
C.H.I.C.K.E.N.
M.A.T.H.
Thus the need for a much, MUCH larger coop. We all know I'm going to have a 150% hatch rate on those eggs. That's how it works.
So this post is mostly a place marker for documenting some of the work I'm going to be doing to get everything chicken ready. If you all have any ideas, feel free to chime in. I'm on a budget and will mostly be using materials laying around the property etc...but I still want it to be the best it can...with the majority of the function being keeping the birds out of drafts, and of course safe from predators.
Room is NOT going to be a problem lol.
Here's that picture of Ranger btw. He's...65lbs of pure entertainment to say the least...and I'm sure you won't regret getting to know him:
And a couple more for good measure. The little monster he's sitting on is Coffee. He's a Siberian (literally...he might be a mix, but he doesn't look it...he's 10lbs at just shy of 6mos lol) stray Ranger literally brought home. In his mouth.
Seriously not kidding.
Between Ranger, Coffee, the twenty 9wk old Barred Rock pullets, and the three 2wk old goslings...it's a busy...and entertaining place around here lol.
Thanks for following along...and really, any and all advice will be much appreciated!
As the video says...this post is ALL about chicken math, lol.
Almost 9wks ago, I ended up the proud owner of 26 baby chicks (you can follow that saga here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/new-ish-to-raising-chickens.1351626/). I hadn't owned chicken in YEARS...and even then, they were just barn chicken in northwest Arizona where predators included coyote and maybe a REALLY big snake. Being mostly ground dwelling predators...the birds were plenty safe roosting in the rafters of the hay barn....and were completely free range.
As you can guess...that's a very different scenario from the Appalachians of south west Virginia lol. Pretty much everything out here climbs, flies, or otherwise has ways of getting to, and eating your chicken. The most dangerous to sleeping birds are of course raccoon. The coyote, bobcat, and fox (only heard ONE of those around here) stay away thanks to Ranger (he's in various of my videos...and you can see him below testing out the 'chickenworthiness' of my newly minted/repurposed quarantine coop!), and most everything else falls lower on the totem pole than the raccoon.
They're seriously devious little )*&#@$)#$%....evidenced by the fact that the only ones I've SEEN around here are roadkill.
Anyhow...20 barred rock chicks and 6 Cornish X (now 4 Cornish X...about to become 3 Cornish X tomorrow evening, for Wednesday dinner!). As it says in the link above they were straight run birds...I was hoping for two roosters, which would have been perfect. ALL TWENTY are female. Yes, I'm that lucky. So...I need a couple roosters. I'd been REALLY interested in picking up about five (yes...FIVE) blue Ameraucana...and/or Ayam Cemani. My barred rock girls are literally egg producers...but chicks sell around here every spring, and hatching eggs all the time. So, me being me...instead of straight up buying them...I decided to buy.....
....hatching eggs.
And an incubator (well, actually THREE incubators...but I've returned one of them!).
Oh. Boy.
Anyway!! I ended up with 14 Ameraucana eggs (they're supposed to be 50% hatch rate on shipped eggs, you know?). All 14 are still going strong on day 9. I also got 6 Ayam Cemani eggs, of which 4 are duds. The guy I bought them from seems to be a great guy though...so he sent me NINE MORE for the cost of shipping.
Oh...boy.
So...we're caught up now. Except for the part where my son wanted a rooster for his birthday, and I found various semi local Ayam Cemani for $30-$50 (yes, I know this would have solved part of my problem to begin with. Shush.). That has now turned into two roosters and three hens for $100.
C.H.I.C.K.E.N.
M.A.T.H.
Thus the need for a much, MUCH larger coop. We all know I'm going to have a 150% hatch rate on those eggs. That's how it works.
So this post is mostly a place marker for documenting some of the work I'm going to be doing to get everything chicken ready. If you all have any ideas, feel free to chime in. I'm on a budget and will mostly be using materials laying around the property etc...but I still want it to be the best it can...with the majority of the function being keeping the birds out of drafts, and of course safe from predators.
Room is NOT going to be a problem lol.
Here's that picture of Ranger btw. He's...65lbs of pure entertainment to say the least...and I'm sure you won't regret getting to know him:
And a couple more for good measure. The little monster he's sitting on is Coffee. He's a Siberian (literally...he might be a mix, but he doesn't look it...he's 10lbs at just shy of 6mos lol) stray Ranger literally brought home. In his mouth.
Seriously not kidding.
Between Ranger, Coffee, the twenty 9wk old Barred Rock pullets, and the three 2wk old goslings...it's a busy...and entertaining place around here lol.
Thanks for following along...and really, any and all advice will be much appreciated!
.
) to the bus stop at the base. We hear this very faint 'mew!' that sounded like it was half a mile away. Ranger bolts across the road, down a 12' embankment, through the rushing spring fed/runoff creek, through the brush....and up the forested hillside on the other side about 50 yards. It was JUST light enough that I could see his shadow and a tiny black shadow in front of him rushing through the trees. I'm yelling for him as I let a round off downward into the hillside behind me (he recalls to the sound of a firearm in extreme situations...usually that being too far to hear me, or too 'puppy excited' to respond as he normally would)...which he completely ignored. Next thing I see, he scoops up the little black thing and rounds back smoothly towards us. I hear the same crashing in reverse, accompanied by the most blood curdling sound I've ever heard out of a cat. I hear the splash through the stream, and up the embankment he comes. As he crests the rise, he sees me and the boys (I still have my pistol in my hand lol) and stops dead. I yell at him 'SPIT IT OUT!!!'...and see poor soaked Coffee forcibly ejected from Ranger's face, lol. He then starts that slinking 'I'm a good boy who didn't do anything I promise!' walk/crawl across the road...with that crazy kitten following him trying to attack his tail. 65lbs of heeler puppy...with maybe a half pound of fluff attacking him as he crosses the road lol. Soooo, I brought the little guy home and kept him. He and Ranger adore each other, and Coffee is as much a dog as Ranger is a cat (which is a LOT more than anyone would guess)...all of which you'll see in the pictures below.
