From scratch

[AndrewH]

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Ah... see I'm so glad I got you guys to help. I can already feel myself saving money.

Sounds like I really need to decide what traits I'm looking for in a chicken (dark meat, light meat, large, small, etc.), then that'll dictate which meat bird options I have

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Thanks for the heads up. I owe you a rootbeer.

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Sounds like I need to read up on my different breeds.

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Yeah, that's a very good point. Need to be able to have the "pick of the litter" so to speak for my dedicated egg layers.

I think the food stock will come with a second purchase of laying hens, but these will be for incubation (meat) and not for eggs. That way I start out collecting incubate-able eggs from the start and a month later I'm collecting chicks and starting the meat bird hatching cycle (which may or may not have to be adjusted as I go, time will tell).

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Yeah, I don't expect 100% success rate. I want to start out slowly and build up to my needs instead of over doing it and having to back in down. As of right now, we're doing fine with the store bought products, but I'd LOVE to reduce my grocery bill while consuming a much better product at a fraction of the price

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Even if the first couple years I'm only supplementing 1/3 - 1/2 my chicken and egg needs, I'll be ahead of the game, but I'm confident enough that yawl will have me up and running smoothly by the end of summer

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I do plan to have turkeys, but that'll come a little later once 'the chicken adventures' are more tamed. And yes the meat birds will be separate from the egg birds, which will all be separated by species.

Thank you for all the help.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The advice you are getting so far looks pretty good to me. There are a lot of different ways to do things successfully. In my opinion, there is seldom one answer that fits us all. We all have different goals and situations. I think the main thing is to make a plan after good research, stick with it if it works, and be flexible to see when it is not working and do something about it.

I'd suggest looking for specific topics in the Learning Center at the top of this page. Use the Search feature up in the blue line. There are some pretty good stickies at the start of some to the specific subjects. You'll pick up on that as you navigate this site. Never hesitate to post specific questions, even if it has been asked many times before. There may be a special twist to your situation that changes the answer plus that is how this site operates.

You can get chicks or eggs to incubate in many different ways. I'd suggest you consider ordering a bunch of baby chicks from a hatchery for mail delivery or, if you have a hatchery nearby, go get them yourself to save the shipping stress. Or you can pick them up at a local feed store, but you may have a bit less selection that way. Whether you get them all of one breed or mix the breeds is up to you. I'd suggest maybe 25 or 30 dual purpose to start with. You can get the Cornish Cross meat birds but they need to be managed a bit differently. If you are going for raising your own later on, I'd stick with the dual purpose to keep it simple, at least when you are starting out. You can always get more complicated later. Get them straight run, which means the hatchery puts them in the box to ship to you without regard to sex. That way you will get several pullets and several roosters. For example, when I got mine, I got 13 straight run, with 4 of them roosters and 9 pullets. I also got 15 that were supposed to be pullets and got 14 pullets and 1 rooster from that group. As they grow, you can select which pullets and rooster you want to keep and which you want to eat. This plan has worked for me so far.

Welcome to the forum. Hope to hear from you later.

 

[Buttercup Chillin]

I just started with Muscovies last summer. They are raised for meat. I choose Muscovies because they are good for Skeeters and Fly control. They hatch and raise their own Ducklings and I just feed, water them and of course clean up after them, they are messy. They are really cute when young and My drake is a real beauty. I kept 3 hens and 1 Drake for breeding from the original 6 that I bought. I say go ahead and get some. It takes 7 months before the girls start laying, so it will take awhile to get them started. Check out the Duck forum here for information, etc. As for recipes for duck, check out French and Oriental recipes. Muscovy meat is dark and very lean, replacing some beef on the menu.

Muscovies lay 1 egg a day every day until they sit, once they decide they have enough eggs, 12-24. They will lay around 100 eggs per year.

You really don't have to heat your Hen house. I have a California Hen House wood 3 feet up 1/2" Hardware cloth on the top 3-4 feet. I cover the top portion with Burlap Curtains in the winter and Tarps when it freezes, but probably don't need to do that. You get snow though so, would want to put up wood in the winter if you go with something like that. Once the Chicks feather out (6 Weeks old) they are fine in the cold. In Texas most places, the heat is the real problem.

Remember that chickens do not lay daily, but they do lay most of the year. Plan on 3-6 weeks with low eggs or no eggs. I use 5 eggs per hen per week to figure their laying and my needs. Plan on 1 hen per person with a few extra for eggs for baking, recipes, etc. I'll warn you though with fresh eggs at hand, you will use more. I have 12-16 hens minimum for my needs and the 2 dozen a week that I sell. I make Angel food cake every week, 1 dozen eggs, gone. We eat eggs daily but very few Yolks and I eat the Duck eggs, too.

For instance, last year my Buttercups stopped laying for 3 Weeks, at the time the Naked Necks were slowing down. Later the Ameraucanas stopped laying and the Buttercups started up again. Meanwhile the Naked Necks took turns molting, so I was never without eggs but didn't have enough to sell. The only time I have a lot of eggs is in the spring. In the Spring I have new Pullets starting to lay their little eggs, which I don't sell, we eat. Spring is for hatching large batches of the Hen eggs, egg salad, Deviled eggs, pickled eggs and of course Angel Food Cake. If there are extra I cook up a dozen and sprinkle them with seeds and some lettuce and feed them to the Hatchlings and/or the Hens. If you only have 1 breed, you will want to freeze eggs to use for when they molt and stop laying.

I use Ideal Poultry here in Texas for my chicks and have not had a problem, little stress cause you should get them the next day at 2 days old. I have had a problem buying from Feed stores, lost all but 2 out of 25. So decide what breed(s) you want and get them ordered or you won't have a good choice. ( Course you can always get meat birds.) Last year they were sold out months ahead. Fortunately, I only wanted 14 Buttercups and someone cancelled, so I was able to get new Blood Lines for breeding and eating. In the past I have had New Hampshire Reds for Dual Purpose. Good layers and decent size bird for meat. That is the bird my Mom Raised literally 70 years ago. But you may already be to late to get any for spring.

You can always do like I did order the Birds, convert my old green house to a brooder then built the Hen house as they were growing.

Good luck and HAVE FUN with THIS, like they said there is no one right way to raise chickens (animals), but planning ahead and researching does help.

 

[AndrewH]

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I agree 100%.

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I've been searching this site for a few days now (well the last couple I've been replying to posts

, but when I have time) and seem to come across a lot of thread that simply link to other threads. Kinna makes it hard to go back and remember how you got there (bookmarks are a life saver sometimes) but I'm managing.

I'd definitely appreciate links if anyone comes across something they think would help!!!

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I keep hearing the "get lots so you can pick and choose", which I think is a wonderful idea. Definitely be the way I go.

I agree, I want to keep things more simple at first and later on move towards more complicated. Probably going to start out with just the egg layers, then later on add the meat birds.

Thanks for the help. I need it

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[AndrewH]

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I'm not as familiar with ducks as I already am with chickens and I don't know if anyone in my household even likes duck

. I think my personal priorities are: eggs, chicken meat, turkey meat, then ducks.

I do plan to have at least a few, but at least for now I'm not planning to raise near as many as I do chickens. Who knows, in time it may become I'm only raising ducks and the chickens just don't do it for us anymore.

I do appreciate the info.

I'm sure I'll hit you up for some duck recipes and tips!

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Yeah, I'm definitely not as concerned with the cold as I am with the heat. This winter has been on of the toughest in Texas history. Record snow, unusually long cold spells, and colder temps. Until this winter I would have agreed with you 100%, but I think the extra peace of mind a small heater would be worth while.

I do realize an actual heater isn't necessary, but if I can provide 70*F+ weather throughout the winter I would imagine it'll help keep the birds healthier and producing more eggs and better meat in the winter time.

Hopefully, I can hold off on the winter issues until next year... just depends on how quickly this project moves along.

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Good point. I remember as a kid (we had 30-40 laying hens at all times) we used a TON of eggs. Guess I have a different mentality when they're coming from the local store (use less, save money).

There's definitely going to be plenty of room for expansion without changing anything (simply add more birds).

Going by the good advice I've been getting on this site, I'm pretty sure I'm going to start out with several more birds that I originally planned so I can pick and choose which to keep for my egg layers and which join my dumplings. Might end up keeping all the original egg layers and not eating any of them.

I think the the hardest thing for beginners to do is estimate their egg and meat needs (at least very accurately), which is definitely one of my hindrances.

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With our current egg use around the house, I'm thinking that I way over estimated with 4 hens to begin with anyway. I think once the first month or two as passed I'll have a nice little stock pile of eggs to hold me over if the ladies decide to take a break. And it's not outta the question to simply run to the market for a carton if we do run out the hens are still on strike.

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Ah, they're only about 3 hours away. Road trip, lol!!!

Yeah, I definitely have some more research to figure out exactly which breeds I want to keep. But unfortunately I don't have any where to store the birds until the coop is complete, so my order will have to wait (or I'll just find some locally

).

Thank you very much for all the help and advise. I really need it.

 

[Pampered Hen]

There are a couple great sites to learn more about breeds:
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html
http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html

 

[AndrewH]

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Thank you very much.

I like the second one a little better than the first. A little easier to navigate.






Ok... keep in mind I live in North Central Texas (DFW area). Usually mild winters with coldest nights getting to the upper 20's and long periods of 100's through the summer.

Meat birds:
Red Broiler
Cornish

Brown Egg Layers:
Black Australorp
Black Langshan
Buckeye
Delaware
Dominique
Iowa Blue
Mottled Java
New Hampshire Red
Production Red
Rhode Island Red
Rhode Island Red



Larger Dark Brown Egg Layers:
Barnevelder
Marans
Sex Link
Welsummer


Blue Egg Layers:
Ameraucanas
Indian Red Jungle Fowl
Salmon Faverolle
Silver Gray Dorking

We prefer the large dark brown eggs, but the blue eggs are nice as well.

Any comments or suggestions to my list?

 

[patandchickens]

The only blue-egg or blue-green egg layers are Araucanas, Ameraucanas, and "Easter Eggers" (i.e. mutts that have Araucana or Ameraucana ancestry somewhere adn thus the blue laying gene). Dorkings, Faverolles and jungle fowl DO NOT lay blue eggs, they lay light brown or tinted (very pale tan) eggs.

Be aware that with the so-called dark brown layers (which really does not include sexlinks, btw) just because some birds of that breed *can* lay a super dark egg does not mean that average representatives DO, especially if you buy from a hatchery but even if you buy from a breeder.

Some very good dual-purpose birds are mysteriously missing from your list, e.g. Rocks of various colors...? (e.t.a. - and Turkens [=Naked Necks] are supposed to be superior meat-type dual-purpose birds and well-adapted for heat, you might consider trying them if you can get over the looks of them <g>)

I would suggest considering temperament in your selection of breeds -- how calm they are to handle, how likely to become aggressive to kids/adults, how calm or high-strung, how well suited to confinement or to free ranging. I do not know enough of your plans/needs to be able to guess which you want but you have some pretty different birds there on your list and it is unlikely that all would suit you equally well.

Perhaps order a selection of breeds, just a small number of each, for your first year and then you can see what you get along best with?

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[AndrewH]

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Thank you for the category corrections

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The list was just generated based on the priority qualities we're looking for in egg type. I will further reduce the list as various secondary and third traits are weeded out.

At this point, I'm pretty sure I will have breeds for separate purposes: i.e. some for eggs and some for meat. I don't think I'll select the birds based on a duel-purpose quality, especially since I'll have plenty of room for both. I did see some of the duel-purpose birds you mentioned, but don't think they're exactly my cup of tea.

Revised List - in order of importance (based on eggs right now, and nothing else. more refining will be done as other qualities are X'ed out, etc.). Mostly looking for large brown eggs.

Dark Brown Egg Layers (Large):
Barnevelder
Marans
Welsummer

Green Egg Layers (Med to Large):
Araucanas
Ameraucanas

Brown Egg Layers (Med):
Black Australorp
Black Langshan
Buckeye
Delaware
Dominique
Iowa Blue
Mottled Java
New Hampshire Red
Production Red
Rhode Island Red
Sex Link

Meat Birds (meat only, eggs aren't important):
Red Broiler
Cornish

Based on the wonderful suggestions, I will start narrowing this list down based on other traits.
Temperament, ability to adapt to our weather (TX), bird colors, etc.

So my research continues

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