Kimi BK
Songster
Hey there,
I'm new to the forum. We had backyard chickens for ~10 years in Madison, WI. Then we retired June 2019 and moved to a high desert mesa in NW New Mexico. We are starting up a farmstead here and have our greenhouse and outdoor garden up and running. We've been living out of a camper for 16 months so far, and are finally starting to build a house -- but most of this next winter we'll probably still be camping...
We are eager to get chickens, but decided we didn't have the bandwidth to deal with it yet -- we are building our house before we build a coop! We left our homebuilt coop back in WI with the new homeowners, but did bring our trappings (food & water gear that finally evolved to our liking, etc).
Well... our New Mexico neighbors (two doors down, which means ~2 miles away) are moving away, and were going to burn their chicken coop (!!
) so we gave them a measly $50 and hauled it off on our trailer, and we were all happy as could be with that deal!
So now we have a 16'x7' coop and run with 20 nest boxes and 5 long roosts! A quick google search showed us that Ideal Hatchery is just next door in Texas, and can outfit us with day-old chicks even in October. So now we are suddenly contemplating starting our chook family 6 months earlier than we thought! We'll be shivering in our outdoor kitchen, but we can put the chick brooder in our geothermal passive solar greenhouse, so they'll be snug!
Our last chickens were pets-with-benefits. Our future chickens will be raised for eggs (for us and for market) and meat (for us only). We did spend a WWOOF day (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) helping a local farmer kill and butcher 8 roosters she was culling -- just to get to know that part of the process, and to see whether we were up to it. We decided we did not want to do that for a living, but are cautiously optimistic about butchering for our own subsistence (extra roosters, birds needing culling, and "spent" hens -- probably won't raise any birds just for the goal of meat).
We loved our little mixed flock and do want some variety, but we also hope to raise future generations, so we'll be posting lots of questions on the other forums... about breeding decisions, raising chicks at higher elevations, etc etc etc. Also a side note is that we are considering raising rabbits for meat.
If you are curious, we are blogging about our farmstead at brownkawa.com -- which is about us two retirees from WI attempting an off-grid farmstead in NW New Mexico, and willing to write about our missteps along with our successes -- don't go there for any "How-To" from experts! It's more like "What-We-Did-And-How" from game newbies.
Thanks for being here -- I've learned a lot from the forums over the years, and it seems like a very supportive community!
Kimi
I'm new to the forum. We had backyard chickens for ~10 years in Madison, WI. Then we retired June 2019 and moved to a high desert mesa in NW New Mexico. We are starting up a farmstead here and have our greenhouse and outdoor garden up and running. We've been living out of a camper for 16 months so far, and are finally starting to build a house -- but most of this next winter we'll probably still be camping...
We are eager to get chickens, but decided we didn't have the bandwidth to deal with it yet -- we are building our house before we build a coop! We left our homebuilt coop back in WI with the new homeowners, but did bring our trappings (food & water gear that finally evolved to our liking, etc).
Well... our New Mexico neighbors (two doors down, which means ~2 miles away) are moving away, and were going to burn their chicken coop (!!
) so we gave them a measly $50 and hauled it off on our trailer, and we were all happy as could be with that deal!So now we have a 16'x7' coop and run with 20 nest boxes and 5 long roosts! A quick google search showed us that Ideal Hatchery is just next door in Texas, and can outfit us with day-old chicks even in October. So now we are suddenly contemplating starting our chook family 6 months earlier than we thought! We'll be shivering in our outdoor kitchen, but we can put the chick brooder in our geothermal passive solar greenhouse, so they'll be snug!
Our last chickens were pets-with-benefits. Our future chickens will be raised for eggs (for us and for market) and meat (for us only). We did spend a WWOOF day (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) helping a local farmer kill and butcher 8 roosters she was culling -- just to get to know that part of the process, and to see whether we were up to it. We decided we did not want to do that for a living, but are cautiously optimistic about butchering for our own subsistence (extra roosters, birds needing culling, and "spent" hens -- probably won't raise any birds just for the goal of meat).
We loved our little mixed flock and do want some variety, but we also hope to raise future generations, so we'll be posting lots of questions on the other forums... about breeding decisions, raising chicks at higher elevations, etc etc etc. Also a side note is that we are considering raising rabbits for meat.
If you are curious, we are blogging about our farmstead at brownkawa.com -- which is about us two retirees from WI attempting an off-grid farmstead in NW New Mexico, and willing to write about our missteps along with our successes -- don't go there for any "How-To" from experts! It's more like "What-We-Did-And-How" from game newbies.
Thanks for being here -- I've learned a lot from the forums over the years, and it seems like a very supportive community!
Kimi
!
