FLORIDA!!!!!ALWAYS SUNNY SIDE UP!!!

[kswayze]

Hi FL Peeps....I had too...

My husband and I are new to this and live in Martin County...he is in the process of building a coop in our backyard. I am very excited about having the chickens but am a little skeptical on the coop! It was done on a semi-whim when I was out of town. I just went out to see how it was going and am questioning a few things....
1. What type of flooring should be in the house they will go in at night...according to him they will just sleep on the box where they will lay the eggs and he is going to put chicken wire down in the other area (this is off the ground about 3ft).
2. The house is fully enclosed with a door to let them out in the fenced area during the day and the lid to get into the box where he is hoping to have them lay the eggs. We live in south Florida and I afraid we might end up with cooked chickens in the morning if we dont have any openings in the house or am I wrong?
3. Where would one get hens that are of the laying egg age!? I dont think he has looked into that part yet either!

We will start with that!

Thanks for all of the input!!

-Kristen

 

[Wednesday]

Welcome Kristen,

I urge you to read a book on chicken keeping before you make costly mistakes either monetarily or with the lives of your chickens. Jumping in before you have it all figured out like I did. It can leave you with a very sick flock that can lead you to tremendous heartache for you and your animals. Don't buy adult birds if you don't want to run the risk of getting diseases you can never get rid of. Buy day old chicks from a trusted hatchery. I beg you not to make the same mistakes I did by thinking its easy and not doing as much research as possible first. Coop design, ventilation, bio security, health issues, chicken diseases and much much more are very real concerns.chicken wire can get your birds killed very easily by predators like raccoons. You need to use hardware cloth to protect them. Not trying to scare you just save you a lot of pain and trouble. Chickens are wonderful. I'm now in the heartbreaking position of having to consider putting my entire flock of 16 birds down because I got adult laying hens that may have infected my entire flock. As a result, I am bringing in a state NPIP inspector to inspect my flock and send samples to our USDA testing lab in Kissimmee. I cant get more chickens until I'm sure no one else will be infected and i cant rehome any birds without the risk of ruining someone elses flock. This is not the carefree chicken keeping life I envisioned 4 months ago when I got started. Good luck and happy learning.

 

[CyndiChick]

First off, welcome and congrats on your decision to get chickens!
I can't speak about the flooring, none of my coops are raised. I can tell you you need ventilation even here where I am in north central FL. It gets very hot and humid and they need to be able to have air circulation to keep them from overheating. Even putting a small area of wire instead of board around the top of the box/cage where they will be laying will help a lot. There are a lot of good coop designs and ideas on here, just check the threads about that. As for getting the hens of an egg laying age- you can go to swap meets and buy them, you can check auctions here (there are requirements to be met before you can participate) or you can even look on craigslist and places like that. Keep in mind if you get them from multiple places you need to keep them separate for quite a while to make sure all really are healthy and aren't going to get each other sick. Just read up on the forums here and you will learn so much- I certainly have!

 

[cmom]

Hi FL Peeps....I had too...

My husband and I are new to this and live in Martin County...he is in the process of building a coop in our backyard. I am very excited about having the chickens but am a little skeptical on the coop! It was done on a semi-whim when I was out of town. I just went out to see how it was going and am questioning a few things....
1. What type of flooring should be in the house they will go in at night...according to him they will just sleep on the box where they will lay the eggs and he is going to put chicken wire down in the other area (this is off the ground about 3ft).
2. The house is fully enclosed with a door to let them out in the fenced area during the day and the lid to get into the box where he is hoping to have them lay the eggs. We live in south Florida and I afraid we might end up with cooked chickens in the morning if we dont have any openings in the house or am I wrong?
3. Where would one get hens that are of the laying egg age!? I dont think he has looked into that part yet either!

We will start with that!

Thanks for all of the input!!

-Kristen

One thing I would suggest is NOT to let the birds roost on the nest boxes. They will make a mess pooping on them when they roost and some may decide to roost in the boxes and then you will get poopy eggs. Here is the coop page which will give you a lot of ideas for your coop. https://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/2/Coops.

I did a lot of research before I got my birds.
Here are a couple of great reference books, Gail Damerow's 'Storey's Guide to Chickens' and
'Raising Chickens For Dummies' by Kimberly Willis and Robert T. Ludlow,
both excellent resources, as well as these web sites below which are excellent sources of information.

These sites are especially helpful in selecting breeds.
http://www.mypetchicken.com/breedQuestions.aspx
Henderson's Chicken Breed Chart
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html

Here are some other good sites, info and more good links.
http://www.mypetchicken.com/aboutChickens.aspx
https://www.backyardchickens.com/lcenter.html
https://www.backyardchickens.com/coopdesigns.html
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/vie … eats_Chart

Good luck and have fun.

 

[TREX]

Hi FL Peeps....I had too...

My husband and I are new to this and live in Martin County...he is in the process of building a coop in our backyard. I am very excited about having the chickens but am a little skeptical on the coop! It was done on a semi-whim when I was out of town. I just went out to see how it was going and am questioning a few things....
1. What type of flooring should be in the house they will go in at night...according to him they will just sleep on the box where they will lay the eggs and he is going to put chicken wire down in the other area (this is off the ground about 3ft).
2. The house is fully enclosed with a door to let them out in the fenced area during the day and the lid to get into the box where he is hoping to have them lay the eggs. We live in south Florida and I afraid we might end up with cooked chickens in the morning if we dont have any openings in the house or am I wrong?
3. Where would one get hens that are of the laying egg age!? I dont think he has looked into that part yet either!

We will start with that!

Thanks for all of the input!!

-Kristen

I put a cheap stick down linoleum floor in my coop over the floor which I pour fine pine shavings over to catch the poo and make for an easier clean up.
You do not want your hens to sleep where they will be laying eggs as this will result in eggs covered in poop all the time because the nest boxes will be filled with poo from the sleeping hens

(chickens poop a lot at night,under the roost is usually the messiest part of the coop.) Chickens like to have a place to roost that is off the floor at least 2 feet so providing that for them would be a benefit for both you and the hens in that they can do wjhat they naturally do and you can have a separate clean area for them to lay in.(My hens almost never go poo in the nest boxes! Good hennies!

)
You definitely need some windows and ventilation in there because when they lay they spend a fair amount of time on the nest and it gets hot in there. I have four windows in my house and 2 roof vents as well as venting areas down the side of the house where the roof overhangs the actual house.I had an egg door as well that I converted to a window after I figured out the kids would rather be in with the hens than take eggs from the outside.
There are lots of great breeders in Florida who sometimes sell hens of laying age and also chicks and hatching eggs.If you are looking for any particular types of birds just ask here and I'm sure someone will point you in the direction where to get them.Or you can order from a hatchery you can also wait for spring to roll around again and pick up chicks at your local feed stores or tractor supply.
I hope that I have answered some of the questions you have.

BYC is filled with tons of info so please have a look around if you have any more questions. And most of all enjoy your ladies and have fun,they are quite endearing once you get to know them.

 

[FireflyNights]

Hey Kristen welcome. Lots of great info here on BYC wonder and you will learn lots.
I have 1/2 mesh in the bottom of my coop for ventilation and so poop falls through. They should have a perch to sleep on. My coop also has a false ceiling with large hols drilled and wire over to allow the heat to escape to an attic like space which then vents out under the overhang kind of like your roof probably does. All is wired and screened in attic soffit area so no critters can move in. They also have a window faceing west since our rain seldom comes from that direction and they can watch the sun set which seems to help them settle. As far as mature hens check the classifieds on BYC but even if you post what you want on this forum you will probably find some sellers. I wish I still lived in martin but I am not so lucky.

 

[dezziy]

I was wondering does anyone elses chickens just stand in the rain? it was pouring out and i see them just standing in it ..... they have a nice pen and coop where they wont get wet but i dunno why they do that lol

 

[Shawneegyrl]

I think my chickens like the rain.

It has poured the last two days and even though they have several places to go, all of them are pitiful looking - completely water logged.

Maybe they enjoy the cooling effect of playing in the rain!

 

[Wednesday]

Just found out NPIP and sick poultry testing is free in Florida. They will come test your birds at no charge. Same for necropsy. Very grateful for this program.

http://www.freshfromflorida.com/ai/pdf/brochures/National_Poultry_Improvement_Plan.pdf

 

[NewbeeDoo]

I think it's a baby black ratsnake...just ran into the problem of not knowing how far different the infants look from the adults...I killed a baby black racer because it had markings like a ratlesnake and was coiling and attacking Lesson learned!

Anyone have an idea of what kind of snake this is? It is a small snake I found this morning.