Hey guys been lurking around the site for quite a while now. I've got a tonne of great info from here so I figured I'd share my experience with back yard chickens! Elaine and I decided to get chickens for many reasons including creating a good environment for our son, now 6 months to grow up in, just general fun and of course the deliscous eggs and meat they provide! We decided to get our chicks as day olds from the local feed store. So first thing was to set up the coop and the brooding area! We sectioned off what was supposed to be a guest house on our property into a brooding area and coop.jbbv Got it all warm and cozy for the chicks to arrive in a couple days Now the little chicks have arrived!! Elaine loves them, chicks dig chicks I guess! They took to the water just fine after dipping their beaks once and for feeder we used a milk carton, styrofoam carton worked better then the paper as they didn't seem to try and eat the foam one! After 6 weeks in the brooder and warm temps coming we moved them out of the brooder and into the coop! Most of the stuff made for the coop was made from recycled things I had laying around including the roost which was made out of an old barn timber laying behind the barn! The chickens spend most of their time free ranging in the yard doing their crazy chicken things but when we go away for the weekends they stay in an enclosed run to be safe from predators! A few pics of the chickens enjoyin their outside time... They are growing older , have not started laying yet, but are starting to become less flighty and timid, they seem to associate me mowing the lawn with food so now when the lawn mower fires up they all come running! I hope you all enjoyed my post ! I know I didn't go into great detail on anything but I'd love to hear from people their comments and questions! Any ideas you have to improve my setup would be great!! I'll keep posting as I make progress with the chickens!!
Welcome to BYC! Your birds are beautiful! I love the coop set up! Feel free to ask questions! And good luck with your flock!
wow that's a nice brooder and coop I like it. I always thought my chickens coop was to big but hey they are great layers so they deserve a lot of space besides there's always the option to get more chickens which I don't mind one bit
Hello there and welcome to BYC! What a fun intro! Love you flock. They really look like they enjoy that tree like roost bar! Enjoy your babies and welcome to our flock!
Welcome to BYC! Glad you decided to join our flock. Thanks for the pics. You have a beautiful flock and a very nice coop, and I agree with you, the coop can't be too big. The more space for the flock, the better. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck with your flock.