Well it's taken me a while to sign up to this great site. I've been coming here checking it out and learning a lot for the past 9 months or so. My little "Farm" is in the lower Florida Keys. The Keys are a string of islands running from Miami to Key West. In March of last year my wife actually agreed to letting me get chickens for our backyard. I was stunned! After much research (mainly here) I decided on 2 Dominiques (b/c of they're American roots) and 2 Easter Eggers (b/c I thought green eggs would be cool). I ordered and received my girls on June 6th. They grew like weeds. And it wasn't long before I realized that one of my girls was really boy. My prettiest EE Tori (short for Cacciatore) had to go. I found him a home at a local bird rescue center as a demo rooster. My 3 girls are laying like crazy. I get 2 to 3 eggs a day from the Dom's Rose and Teri (short for Teriyaki) and Monk my EE. All the houses here are on stilts, so I built them a coop that's partially shaded with a fenced in run. It never gets really cool here so making the coop insulated was not necessary, but it rains a lot in south Florida so keeping my girls high and dry is a priority. Luckily my yard is fenced so I've just started to let them free range. They just love scratching and eating all the bugs in my yard. The other animals that my wife, 3 daughters and I have are a fuzzy guinea pig named Shadow and our sun conure Mango (he's my avatar). I need to get some photos up so everyone can see my great little "Farm".
! Get ready, because soon those chickens are going to take over your life! I started with two pet drakes and a pet silkie rooster, and now I have 13 chickens, four ducks, one injured drake living in my house that I have to tube feed every two hours, and plans for more birds come spring! 
