Colorado

[JRichardson]

Hello Everyone,

Just getting started with a backyard coop in Centennial (south east of Denver), looks like a great community here. We currently have a mixed bag of chicks, a couple brahma, a couple easter eggers, rhode island red, buff orpington, and red sex link. Looking forward to eggs next year.

 

[aliciaplus3]

Hello Everyone,

Just getting started with a backyard coop in Centennial (south east of Denver), looks like a great community here. We currently have a mixed bag of chicks, a couple brahma, a couple easter eggers, rhode island red, buff orpington, and red sex link. Looking forward to eggs next year.

how old are your chicks??? most of the breeds you have listed should start laying at 5 to 9 months old.... I could be wrong but I would think you should see eggs this fall????

 

[JRichardson]

This fall would be great! They're currently 2 weeks old, I had read that they may not lay much their first season, and that they wouldn't lay much over winter, if thats not the case then thats great news!

 

[pozees2]

Welcome, @JRichardson - it's very possible you will begin seeing eggs late fall, especially from the RSL (Red Sex Link), they are bred to lay, and will usually start right around 6 months regardless of sunlight exposure. The others may as well, time will tell

 

[aliciaplus3]

This fall would be great! They're currently 2 weeks old, I had read that they may not lay much their first season, and that they wouldn't lay much over winter, if thats not the case then thats great news!

So breeds like the sexlinks are laying machines their first year... lots of folks start with chicks late feb or early march so that they hit maturity before the daylight hours start to get short. looks like yours hatched first of may??? some of them may start to lay in Nov or Dec. if you are not adding lights to stretch your daylight then they may wait till the days start to naturally get longer. some of the bigger breeds can take Longer to hit maturity and start giving you eggs.

 

[AliceaLy]

(I also posted this in the meat bird forum) Hello! I've often visited this site for wonderfully helpful advice. In fact, I've been visiting quite a lot over the past few weeks to try and figure out why my "leghorn" baby chicks had such swollen bellies. Turns out the 6 chicks I bought at a local feed store weren't leghorns, as advertised, are in fact perfectly healthy Cornish Cross. I shared the news with my kids and that went over about as well as you'd imagine. They're 4 weeks old now so we have 4ish more weeks until processing. By any chance are there any Colorado people on here who would be interested?? Free to a humane butcher and hungry home. I've switched them to a 12 on/12 off feeding schedule. I'm happy to continue tending to these guys until processing day. I just know that my kids will probably never look at me again if they know that I personally slaughtered and fed them Squeaks Jr, Rizzo, Felicia, etc.

 

[pozees2]

New additions to my flock

 

[pozees2]

(I also posted this in the meat bird forum) Hello! I've often visited this site for wonderfully helpful advice. In fact, I've been visiting quite a lot over the past few weeks to try and figure out why my "leghorn" baby chicks had such swollen bellies. Turns out the 6 chicks I bought at a local feed store weren't leghorns, as advertised, are in fact perfectly healthy Cornish Cross. I shared the news with my kids and that went over about as well as you'd imagine. They're 4 weeks old now so we have 4ish more weeks until processing. By any chance are there any Colorado people on here who would be interested?? Free to a humane butcher and hungry home. I've switched them to a 12 on/12 off feeding schedule. I'm happy to continue tending to these guys until processing day. I just know that my kids will probably never look at me again if they know that I personally slaughtered and fed them Squeaks Jr, Rizzo, Felicia, etc.

I give away extra males I raise every year, DH can't eat anything he's fed. Sad but I understand it. They've had far better lives than anything at the store, and when I can, I buy locally raised birds already slaughtered from other keepers.

 

[hcdeshazer]

Hello Everyone,

Just getting started with a backyard coop in Centennial (south east of Denver), looks like a great community here. We currently have a mixed bag of chicks, a couple brahma, a couple easter eggers, rhode island red, buff orpington, and red sex link. Looking forward to eggs next year.

Sounds like a good group. I’m with you in it being my first year. I’m about an hour north of you. Let me know if you got any questions

 

[RojoMarz]

Hi fellow Coloradans. We are in Southern Colorado, about an hour NW of Trinidad. Our girls are almost 16 weeks old now and seem to be enjoying themselves.