Consolidated Kansas

[Trish44]

Awesome! Thank you so much!
We are looking to have a pretty tiny flock. 4-5 hens maximum. I know "chicken math" happens, but how few is too few?
Also, we have small children that I am hoping to teach to help for eventual 4H participation so I'm hoping for friendly birds. Are Leghorns as friendly as the Wyandottes?
I'm also interested in seeing other inside-city coops and runs. I'll try and take a picture of our property.
I'm thinking of incorporating that old goat pen into the run somehow. Thoughts?

No Leghorns are as I said more "flighty" & not friendly, probably not a good fit for your situation. Orpingtons are very friendly & calm birds as well, I don't think I mentioned those before. You can get Buff Orpingtons from hatcheries as well. I don't live in a city so I can't respond to that but maybe others on here can. There also is a coop section on BYC where you can see photos people have submitted, you might take a look at that. As far as the goat pen you really will need a covered run in the city so your chickens won't run around the neighborhood because they can fly. The easiest thing & fastest is to attach a dog run to your coop with a cover. Otherwise you can build a run but of course it's some work & materials for it. One tip, don't buy the coops they have at the farm stores or online, the wood is cheap & won't last long at all & then you will be replacing it in no time. They also tend to be very tiny & will only hold a couple of hens at most or bantams.

I'm a farm girl, who married a city boy. Now we live in the BIG city. We live in a suburb of KC and I have chickens by accident and chickens on purpose. I'm looking forward to meeting fellow Kansans!

Welcome, are you on the KS side then? What kind of chickens do you have? Feel free to post pics of your birds & setup, we love seeing everyone's birds.

 

[SidChick]

Awesome! Thank you so much!
We are looking to have a pretty tiny flock. 4-5 hens maximum. I know "chicken math" happens, but how few is too few?
Also, we have small children that I am hoping to teach to help for eventual 4H participation so I'm hoping for friendly birds. Are Leghorns as friendly as the Wyandottes?
I'm also interested in seeing other inside-city coops and runs. I'll try and take a picture of our property.

I'm thinking of incorporating that old goat pen into the run somehow. Thoughts?

My kids are in 4h. Their favorites are the Barred Rocks. They will jump on their laps and follow them around. We bred them to our Welsummer rooster this spring and produced sex links. Right now, our sex links are in the same pen as some Wyandottes. All the same age. When we put our hands in, the Wyandottes go insane. The sex links run to us and jump on our arms. Their barred rock moms did the same when they were little. I have two eggs in the incubator now that are sex links. You may have them if you like.. they will be mostly black with red mixed in.

 

[chicken danz]

Hi! My first post here on BYC. My name is Kait, I live in Leavenworth Kansas. I am a soon-to-be chicken momma with LOTS of questions!! I'm hoping to find some local chicken lovers to guide me. I know I want good layers that dont go broody often that are hardy for our Kansas winters. From my reading Wyandottes look like they might be good?
I am inside city limits so I have to be careful about sexing - roosters aren't allowed. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

A couple of our members live up that way. One of them is @Dani4Hedgies . She is probably one of the most lovable people you will ever meet. Another is a young dad by the name of Nathan but I can't remember his sign in name on here. He is very busy with a whole team of daughters and hasn't had time to post for quite a while but does the whole backyard chicken thing as well. He and his wife went to the city council and got them to increase the number of chickens you could have in Leavenworth after they reduced the numbers some time back.
Okay some more opinions here. No leghorns! They won't work for city birds due to their flighty nature. I personally did not like Wyandottes at all. They seemed to have a myriad of health issues and mine were not friendly birds. I also would recommend bigger heavier birds because they tend to be the most docile and rerely fly. Brahmas are the largest chicken and are the gentlest of all breeds. Orpingtons are also very gentle and heavy breeds. For a city I would highly recommend a Speckled Sussex. They are naturally inquisitive and love people attention. Plus they can be sexed at hatching. And they are beautiful. Mine are awesome layers. If I wanted a bird for just a pet and the best egg laying they would be my absolute choice. I recommend not getting hatchery birds because personalities aren't true to the actual breed often times and you never know what you will end up with as far as traits and personality. The problem with a private breeder is the ability to sex babies. So many kinds of chickens can only be vent sexed. I do have several kinds of birds I raise myself.
The one thing I caution you not to do regardless is buy some one's grown birds if you don't know them or have personal recommendations. It's a good way to end up with someone's spent hens that aren't going to give you anything for your money. Many people sell sex link hens that are around a year and a half old and you'd think they are a bargain but by the time they are 2 years old they are pretty much done laying. If you get attached to them, then you end up feeding birds for nothing. You are better suited to get a bird that lays a little less and that will lay for 5-6 years.
You can use your old goat pen for chickens. I have netting on top of all my pens, even pens with birds that free range. One of the major problems with chickens is over head predators. Owls and hawks. Also raccoons can climb a fence and get in and kill your birds. Putting a good quality netting over the pen can save you a ton of grief and money. Also putting a bottom area of poultry wire along the pen is a great deterrent for digging animals. I buy all my netting from http://www.3tproducts.com/ They have the best quality and prices of anyone. Don't waste your money on cheap netting cause it won't help.
Feel free to ask about anything. We'll be glad to help you anyway we can.

Originally Posted by sassyredchick
Welcome! Jump in and join in. We love seeing pictures and hearing about every one's birds. And of course about you!!!

I'm shipping some goslings today so I have a busy schedule ahead. It always makes me nervous to ship birds no matter how many times I do it. I always worry something will happen to them.
I spent a lot of time on the Bobcat yesterday trying to work on some of the drainage here so we wouldn't have birds etc standing in water. I could have spent many more hours working on it if I'd had the time.

 

[Dani4Hedgies]

Hello everyone my surgery went well though they have me on strongvpain meds so please ignore any typos. while im not in Leavenworth Kaitmaria I do have plenty of mix chicks that you and your family could come shopping through they anywhere from a couple weeks to a month so some we can sex already and some we still have to wait on. Soon hopefully I will have sex link blue, red and black to offer as well as all my current Orps, Brahmas, and bantams chicks.

 

[Trish44]

Hello everyone my surgery went well though they have me on strongvpain meds so please ignore any typos. while im not in Leavenworth Kaitmaria I do have plenty of mix chicks that you and your family could come shopping through they anywhere from a couple weeks to a month so some we can sex already and some we still have to wait on. Soon hopefully I will have sex link blue, red and black to offer as well as all my current Orps, Brahmas, and bantams chicks.

I'm glad your surgery went well.

@KaitMarie Danz said some of the same things I did. As I said you will get differing opinions here, everyone has their favorite breeds & will lobby for those. I personally have quite a few Wyandottes myself & really like them. I have not had the issues with them that Danz said she had. If you're wanting eggs for the family I would not recommend bantams because while they are small & take up less space they do lay tiny eggs too so it would take several for a meal for one person. I recommend large fowl breeds but not really large. I would think unless you have a lot of space at your place you would not want Brahmas because they are big birds. I would recommend the Orpingtons as well because they are so calm & laid back for kids. The Sex links are great layers, however I'm not sure you can use them for 4H if that is your aim. Speckled Sussex are really pretty birds, but in my opinion not as hardy as other breeds. I'm sure you can find someone close by to buy birds from, however not all breeds can be sexed that young.

 

[chicken danz]

Quote: So here like we said, we often disagree. Brahmas are magnificent. Ask my buyers who have bought them. I have had people on the fence about getting brahmas and after getting them they have come back over and over to buy more; saying they are their favorite bird because they are so docile. They aren't exceptionally larger than the English orps and some are smaller depending on the breeding.
In other matters the Wyandottes I had were either hatchery birds or from a breeder who just breeds and doesn't cull for best traits. So maybe that was the difference in Trish's and mine.
My sussex as many of you know, have been a project of mine for several years. I have bred and culled for better colors, better spots and hardiness. My first sussex would die on a hat. But these I am hatching now are super hearty and strong. @Trish44 you'll see a difference using that new rooster from me in your own chicks I'll bet. And if you save some offspring from them you'll see even more improvement. It's not been an easy project and has taken me 5 years of work to get them this far. No I would never recommend a hatchery sussex. They are just too fragile.

 

[Trish44]

Danz that SS rooster from you is awesome, I can't wait to get some chicks from him! I do have one hen from you as well, but the other 3 are from another farm I ordered from. I will be glad to have some hardier stock. I agree I would not order SS chicks from a hatchery, they just don't make it over time.

 

[lizzyGSR]

Danz that SS rooster from you is awesome, I can't wait to get some chicks from him! I do have one hen from you as well, but the other 3 are from another farm I ordered from. I will be glad to have some hardier stock. I agree I would not order SS chicks from a hatchery, they just don't make it over time.

Is it just the speckled sussex from hatcheries that are fragile? I just lost another bird. This one got some respiratory crud and was dead within the week. I like the chickens' personalities but get really frustrated (and stressed) by them getting sick and dying. I have had really poor "luck" with these birds, and this conversation just makes me wonder if it is because they are hatchery stock or what.

 

[TeeMom]

Is it just the speckled sussex from hatcheries that are fragile? I just lost another bird. This one got some respiratory crud and was dead within the week. I like the chickens' personalities but get really frustrated (and stressed) by them getting sick and dying. I have had really poor "luck" with these birds, and this conversation just makes me wonder if it is because they are hatchery stock or what.

It's interesting because I got 16 speckled sussex chicks last summer from a breeder and have 1 left now. We did cull all of the cockerels last fall, but still to only have 1 left of more than half of the bunch is a pretty poor track record. I have worried that I brought something awful home with that bunch, but my original hens and the Ameraucana's I got from @Trish44 are totally fine. I refuse to sell or rehome any of my stock because of them.

 

[lizzyGSR]

It's interesting because I got 16 speckled sussex chicks last summer from a breeder and have 1 left now. We did cull all of the cockerels last fall, but still to only have 1 left of more than half of the bunch is a pretty poor track record. I have worried that I brought something awful home with that bunch, but my original hens and the Ameraucana's I got from @Trish44 are totally fine. I refuse to sell or rehome any of my stock because of them.

Because of how poorly the Sussex did?