Farmer but new to chickens

[sourland]

Good morning, and welcome to BYC.

 

[Dedeemarie]

1000 acres is amazing.

I'm so curious to pick your mind.

I'm just a backyard urban guy. But my dad is a retired veterinarian.

One thing you could probably do is have the land outside where you are housing them partitioned so you could do crop rotation using free ranged partitions planned so that you can use the chickens for field fertilizer.

I'm not sure if there's a standard facility for everything. So its very possible we won't know what to expect. Does the area have electricity? (And how cold do your winters get?) If it does you could rig up something like a fodder growing setup alongside it, or inside it if its more like a coop.

There could be gas and oil instability later this year also from all the things running amok so it might be nice to have the small animals closer to your residence in case you have to be really careful of fuel later this year.

Not sure if maybe we should be asking you for advise in stead if you are real farmers. Most of us are just sort of playing hobbists.

Actually we are kind of small farmers compared to some neighbors. Having acres always sounds great until you have to plant it, harvest it or pay taxes on it. Lol
Yes the chickens will be here at the home place and the hen house & coop will be about 400’ from the house. It will have electricity in it and is right next to a hydrant for water.
Yes we, like most farmers store necessary fuel & gas for farm use. It’s not really conducive to drive equipment to town to fuel up. . We continue to call and check in prices for farm delivery of fuel. Have already put up extra fuel tanks for fall use during harvest even. Prices sure are low.
Love your idea of using chicken poo for fertilizer. I will definitely be adding some to my compost and garden.

 

[Dedeemarie]

Hello and welcome to BYC! Glad you joined.
Your best bet would be to start another thread in the Coop and Run Forum and post pictures of your grain bin for ideas. However you install ventilation, it needs to be open year round as long as it will not blow directly across the birds at roost height.

Hey thank you.... I’ll find that forum and post in there.... I’ve got to figure this out yet.

 

[Dedeemarie]

Welcome to Backyard Chickens. Wow 1,000 acres is mind boggling. You could even raise Emu, if you were so inclined. So glad you joined the flock.

I don’t know about Emu... they would t really serve a purpose for us except lay some really large eggs.... imagine that Omelet. Lol

We have many predators and so a donkey and Llama are about as “odd” as it gets here.

 

[007Sean]

Howdy and Welcome to Backyard Chickens.

Thanks for joining our community!

 

[DiYMama540]

Wowee!! With all that space you can have an amazing flock of all types of poultry! I suggest adding some geese! They can help you with the weeding, mowing, and fertilizing!! They would love your place!
Welcome to BYC!!

 

[ValerieJ]

Hi! Welcome to BYC! Sounds like a fabulous farm. I think you'll love chickens. The link Mr. Grumpy gave you to the articles is a great place to start on designing your coop. Our new coop has been designed around ideas on this site.

 

[nao57]

Actually we are kind of small farmers compared to some neighbors. Having acres always sounds great until you have to plant it, harvest it or pay taxes on it. Lol
Yes the chickens will be here at the home place and the hen house & coop will be about 400’ from the house. It will have electricity in it and is right next to a hydrant for water.
Yes we, like most farmers store necessary fuel & gas for farm use. It’s not really conducive to drive equipment to town to fuel up. . We continue to call and check in prices for farm delivery of fuel. Have already put up extra fuel tanks for fall use during harvest even. Prices sure are low.
Love your idea of using chicken poo for fertilizer. I will definitely be adding some to my compost and garden.

Cool!

I'd heard some farmers burn through hundreds of gallons of fuel a day. When I heard that I was quite literally like O.O Wow. Its really amazing what people go through to grow food.

Farms are interesting.

 

[Dedeemarie]

Wowee!! With all that space you can have an amazing flock of all types of poultry! I suggest adding some geese! They can help you with the weeding, mowing, and fertilizing!! They would love your place!
Welcome to BYC!!

I wish it was that easy. I’d love to add more birds but we have so much going on I’m not sure if we’d have time. Right now I enjoy all the wild birds we have -oodles of Turkeys, Pheasants, Prairie Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Sandhill Cranes and of course the hawks and owls we have so many of. We also have lots of problems with coyotes, bobcats and random mountain lions now and then. Problem with adding domestic geese is that they leave a lot of poo all over the place. . We have plenty of “poo”. Lol.

 

[nao57]

I wish it was that easy. I’d love to add more birds but we have so much going on I’m not sure if we’d have time. Right now I enjoy all the wild birds we have -oodles of Turkeys, Pheasants, Prairie Chickens, Ducks, Geese, Sandhill Cranes and of course the hawks and owls we have so many of. We also have lots of problems with coyotes, bobcats and random mountain lions now and then. Problem with adding domestic geese is that they leave a lot of poo all over the place. . We have plenty of “poo”. Lol.

Garden fertilizer is badly needed right now.

Many people don't know the phosphorus mines shut down last year when that Midwest flooding was going on because they couldn't be cost effective. There is going to be a fertilizer shortage this year also, later.