First Time Hen Owner Here

[KidDynamite]

howdy folks - I'm a former city slicker turned Gentleman Farmer. After 9 years in New York City, my wife and I moved to Central New Hampshire and bought an antique farmhouse. We inherited a barn with a nice built-in chicken coop, and this spring we bought 12 laying hens. Our chicks are now 5 1/2 weeks old.

I will post some questions in the other forums and look forward to your sage advice.

Also, I write a blog that covers a lot of subject, but I have a "NH Living" topic which will show my posts about country life, including making maple syrup, my dogs, my garden, and now, my chicks.

http://kiddynamitesworld.com/category/nh-living/

thanks,
KD

 

[smarquis86]

from yakima, wa

 

[bawkbawkbawk]

from the other coast. I also have a kind-of-chicken blog - look forward to reading yours and see what you think about the financial apocalypse...

 

[KidDynamite]

thanks folks - my wife and I have found it amazing how quickly we notice differences in personalities between the breeds.

does anyone else notice this? in our flock:

the barred rocks are like velociraptors - the most aggressive, first one out the door, first one to explore every time
the buff orpingtons are next, but much more timid than the BRs
the NH Reds are timid and seem to be last in line
the Aracauna's are like supermodels: beautiful but seemingly severly lacking in brainpower (no offense to supermodels out there)

oh - I have 3 BR, 3 BO, 3Aracauna, and 3 NH Reds. all female.

 

[Imp]

Imp

 

[kidcody]

glad you joined

 

[tinychicky]

welcome! i'm your neighbor here in southern nh!!!

do you have pure araucanas? if you do i'm jealous

btw, they are called new hampshires. many people make the mistake of calling them nh reds because they think of them as a variant of the rhode island red, but the breed is recognized as simply new hampshires

it's not a big deal, really, its a very common mistake

 

[KidDynamite]

TinyChicky - I can only tell you what the form from the local feed store where we ordered the chicks from said. "Araucana" and "NH Red." Thanks for the correction in the NH Red name (but don't be offended if I continue to call them NH reds!)

Does that mean that I have pure Araucanas? they are the best looking birds in the flock, by far (but man, they do seem dumb). There is a picture of one of the Araucanas here: http://kiddynamitesworld.com/mo-country-mo-problems/

 

[dawg53]

Welcome to BYC.

 

[Nicole01]

Hello and welcome to BYC! It's very nice to meet you.