I'll come back to this thread to read it in its entirety, but just wanted to pitch in. I'm a sorta/kinda Covid-19 chicken keeper. I kept chickens for many years in my youth, started out with a dozen broiler culls that my parents bought for me for a nickle apiece when I kept pestering them for some chicks. A nickle apiece will tell you how long ago this was! Didn't have anywhere "proper" to keep them, but raised 12 out of 13 using a ten gallon aquarium with its incandescent bulb as a heat source. I was, and still am, a voracious reader and read everything I could get my hands on about chickens. At that age you just absorb the information. Fast forward 20 years, out in the country kept chickens again, until I had to pass them on to my brother (who had recently purchased some farmland) when we bought our current suburban domicile from the in-laws.
Even though in the suburbs our property is almost 5 acres (it's classed as an Estate Lot) although mostly unusable due to being a floodplain and really overgrown. Call it two acres that we actually use. I started a garden, and the garden has grown in size each year, but I really, really, really, need a source of manure for that and I don't think my township would look kindly on the acquisition of a horse or two. So I was thinking about rabbits. But I'd really like some chooks. Then along comes Covid-19. Still wasn't actively looking for chicks though, just "someday", but then someone on a local Facebook group posts that they'll have "Legbar chicks hatching in a few days! PM for info!" Ah! I'd settled on Cream Legbars as what I really wanted. Long story short(er), I PMed the lady, but she never cam through and I was a bit disappointed. But now, NOW, I was on a mission! I ordered an incubator, started checking eBay for eggs, and wonder of wonders, found someone at least sort of local (within a hundred miles) with Cream Legbar eggs! I didn't want to chance shipping since I basically didn't know what I was doing. That was an interesting trip if nothing else.
And now, here we are, two or three months on, and I have 11 chicks that I successfully hatched in a DIY brooder that I knocked together a couple days ago and I'm perfectly happy
.
Even though in the suburbs our property is almost 5 acres (it's classed as an Estate Lot) although mostly unusable due to being a floodplain and really overgrown. Call it two acres that we actually use. I started a garden, and the garden has grown in size each year, but I really, really, really, need a source of manure for that and I don't think my township would look kindly on the acquisition of a horse or two. So I was thinking about rabbits. But I'd really like some chooks. Then along comes Covid-19. Still wasn't actively looking for chicks though, just "someday", but then someone on a local Facebook group posts that they'll have "Legbar chicks hatching in a few days! PM for info!" Ah! I'd settled on Cream Legbars as what I really wanted. Long story short(er), I PMed the lady, but she never cam through and I was a bit disappointed. But now, NOW, I was on a mission! I ordered an incubator, started checking eBay for eggs, and wonder of wonders, found someone at least sort of local (within a hundred miles) with Cream Legbar eggs! I didn't want to chance shipping since I basically didn't know what I was doing. That was an interesting trip if nothing else.
And now, here we are, two or three months on, and I have 11 chicks that I successfully hatched in a DIY brooder that I knocked together a couple days ago and I'm perfectly happy
.
