Hello all!
My husband and I joined the cult and got into chickens about a year ago. First, we started w/ an old metal storage shed that we converted into a coop, 10 pullets (4 Light Brahmas, 3 White Rocks and 3 RIR) and a white rock rooster. A homemade tractor coop, a homemade sled coop, and 150 + chickens later, we are approaching completion of yet another 15x15x15ft coop w/ a 30x50 ft run project. In our first year we have experimented w/ a little bit of everything, built our own incubators, hatched our own chicks, made some new & funky looking chicken breeds...but most importantly we have learned a ton! We have learned some hard lessons along the way too, we will never buy from a poultry auction again, we have learned the art of opossum killing (my 16 year old son has proven his manhood twice by doing so), we even had to rehome two beautiful german shepherd pups, and we still have not figured out how to put a chicken on the dinner table that doesn't turn out tough as leather! We have finally decided to stop dabbling and get serious, we are going to invest more in rare breeds that are good layers, hopefully will add Cream Legbars and Rhodebars very soon for the auto-sexing traits. Our goal is to sell eggs for consumption and to breed. That being said, we are currently working on narrowing down our breeds, at this time we have:
Ancona, Australorps, Barred Rocks, French Black Copper Marans, Black Jersey Giants, Black Stars, Blue Ameracaunas, Blue Andalusians, Buff Brahma, Buff Orpington, White Cochin Bantam, Dark Cornish, Delawares, Dominiques, Easter Eggers, Egyptian Fayoumis, Gold Laced Wyandotte Bantam, Golden Penciled Hamburgs, Lavender Ameracauna, Light Brahmas, Light Sussex, Mille De Fleur, New Hampshire Reds, Partridge Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, Silkies, Silver Phoenix, Speckled Sussex, White Rocks and some Polish mixes.
We plan on keeping the EE's, Marans, Giants, Ameracaunas, Brahmas, Sussex, adding Welsummers, Wheaten Marans, Blue Marans, Birchen Marans, Barnevelders, Coronation Sussex, and of course, Legbars and Rhodebars. I would also like to have a mating pair of Bielefelders....someday.
That is our story thus far....stay tuned!
My husband and I joined the cult and got into chickens about a year ago. First, we started w/ an old metal storage shed that we converted into a coop, 10 pullets (4 Light Brahmas, 3 White Rocks and 3 RIR) and a white rock rooster. A homemade tractor coop, a homemade sled coop, and 150 + chickens later, we are approaching completion of yet another 15x15x15ft coop w/ a 30x50 ft run project. In our first year we have experimented w/ a little bit of everything, built our own incubators, hatched our own chicks, made some new & funky looking chicken breeds...but most importantly we have learned a ton! We have learned some hard lessons along the way too, we will never buy from a poultry auction again, we have learned the art of opossum killing (my 16 year old son has proven his manhood twice by doing so), we even had to rehome two beautiful german shepherd pups, and we still have not figured out how to put a chicken on the dinner table that doesn't turn out tough as leather! We have finally decided to stop dabbling and get serious, we are going to invest more in rare breeds that are good layers, hopefully will add Cream Legbars and Rhodebars very soon for the auto-sexing traits. Our goal is to sell eggs for consumption and to breed. That being said, we are currently working on narrowing down our breeds, at this time we have:
Ancona, Australorps, Barred Rocks, French Black Copper Marans, Black Jersey Giants, Black Stars, Blue Ameracaunas, Blue Andalusians, Buff Brahma, Buff Orpington, White Cochin Bantam, Dark Cornish, Delawares, Dominiques, Easter Eggers, Egyptian Fayoumis, Gold Laced Wyandotte Bantam, Golden Penciled Hamburgs, Lavender Ameracauna, Light Brahmas, Light Sussex, Mille De Fleur, New Hampshire Reds, Partridge Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, Silkies, Silver Phoenix, Speckled Sussex, White Rocks and some Polish mixes.
We plan on keeping the EE's, Marans, Giants, Ameracaunas, Brahmas, Sussex, adding Welsummers, Wheaten Marans, Blue Marans, Birchen Marans, Barnevelders, Coronation Sussex, and of course, Legbars and Rhodebars. I would also like to have a mating pair of Bielefelders....someday.
That is our story thus far....stay tuned!
