Russ in Tuscany
In the Brooder
Dear all
First of all thanks to Back Yard Chickens for letting me join this great site.
As a brief introduction, I'm Russ, living in Siena, Tuscany (Italy..) and I've just started keeping chickens. I'm originally from Swansea in Wales and have been living here for around 11 years now with my wife, Chiara, in the countryside just outside the beautiful city of Siena.
I've been thinking about keeping some chickens on our land for a couple of years but for one reason or another never actually did it. But, maybe it was a fairly benign mid-life crisis or something (hopefully cheaper than a Ferrari and we'll have more eggs) but I took the plunge a couple of months ago by building a coop from scratch using tips and tricks from various websites. I'll post some more pics once I get the hang of this site.
The plan is to keep around 7-8 hens, just for eggs, in the land we have next to the house. The initial clan of 5 was made up of two generic "reds" given by a friend of my wife, a black copper Marans, a "black" whatever that is and a "blue" which is actually grey. Then yesterday we were given two white livornesi (leghorns). So far the reds and the leghorns are laying, whereas the three we bought are still not mature enough yet, even though they tower over the older girls. They all seem pretty happy, doing all the things that they are supposed to do, and once the leghorns have been in the run for another week or two then I'll let them free-range in the field, which is around 2500 square meters. I'm tempted to get another one or two but we'll see how it goes.
So about us, I work in biotech research and my wife Chiara's a yoga teacher at her studio here, the Yogi Cat. We've also got a couple of cats and a large veggie patch that keeps us busy.
Great to be here, I look forward to following and hopefully contributing to the forum.
ciao
Russ
First of all thanks to Back Yard Chickens for letting me join this great site.
As a brief introduction, I'm Russ, living in Siena, Tuscany (Italy..) and I've just started keeping chickens. I'm originally from Swansea in Wales and have been living here for around 11 years now with my wife, Chiara, in the countryside just outside the beautiful city of Siena.
I've been thinking about keeping some chickens on our land for a couple of years but for one reason or another never actually did it. But, maybe it was a fairly benign mid-life crisis or something (hopefully cheaper than a Ferrari and we'll have more eggs) but I took the plunge a couple of months ago by building a coop from scratch using tips and tricks from various websites. I'll post some more pics once I get the hang of this site.
The plan is to keep around 7-8 hens, just for eggs, in the land we have next to the house. The initial clan of 5 was made up of two generic "reds" given by a friend of my wife, a black copper Marans, a "black" whatever that is and a "blue" which is actually grey. Then yesterday we were given two white livornesi (leghorns). So far the reds and the leghorns are laying, whereas the three we bought are still not mature enough yet, even though they tower over the older girls. They all seem pretty happy, doing all the things that they are supposed to do, and once the leghorns have been in the run for another week or two then I'll let them free-range in the field, which is around 2500 square meters. I'm tempted to get another one or two but we'll see how it goes.
So about us, I work in biotech research and my wife Chiara's a yoga teacher at her studio here, the Yogi Cat. We've also got a couple of cats and a large veggie patch that keeps us busy.
Great to be here, I look forward to following and hopefully contributing to the forum.
ciao
Russ
and Welcome To BYC!
