Hello from Central Florida !

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jjgrask

jjgrask

In the Brooder
5 Years
Jan 13, 2015
5
1
11
Hudson, Florida
I was born and raised in St Louis, MO. Now living in Central Florida on one and 1/2 acres. Truly a huge difference. Being a city gal, I want to start raising a couple of chickens. Now the fun begins. I have only seen one live chicken in my 64 years. Oh I see you rolling your eyes. Hubby is laughing his back side off and told me I had to keep them penned cause he doesn't want rotten eggs hid all over the yard. I do have three cats, a problem? So okay, where do I start? I bet you don't believe I need help!
 
Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock. The place to start is our Learning Center at https://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/1/Learning_Center. There is loads of useful information there, and I would suggest reading through it thoroughly. Raising chickens is very fun and rewarding as long as you avoid a lot of troublesome mistakes and our Learning Center can keep you from making those mistakes. Please feel free to ask any specific questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck in getting your flock.
 
Hello from Winter Haven! I just started my backyard flock a few months ago. Our cats get along fine with my gals. Just introduce them early and keep the cats at a distance while the chicks are young and they will get the hint. I made my coop more of an open-concept coop for our hot and humid summers with clear greenhouse pvc panels to block the wind when it gets a bit cooler in the "winter". There really isn't a step-by-step manual for raising chicks, but this site has loads of good advice from seasoned chicken people. Have fun with it! That's what I did and my chicks are big, beautiful, and healthy!

Feel free to contact me if you have any region-specific questions and I'll do my best to steer you in the right direction!

Connor
 
welcome-byc.gif
Glad you decided to join us.
 
Hello! I was / am new to chickens too but I am finding it easy and wonderful. I fear I am getting a little obsessed with my girls! We bought some land last spring and got chickens in the summer. The first group, six Easter Eggers, were all killed one horrible day by something - dog? I don't know but it was terrible. After a while I started over with a bigger and hopefully predator-proof coop and run and I ordered 13 assorted brown egg layers from MyPetChicken.com. They are now 6 1/2 weeks old and fabulous. Im not sure what I have yet but it's clear that I have four different types. Three of the breeds are super-friendly and enjoy being held and talked to! The fourth type are beautiful but not too interested in me, but that's OK.

No fears about the lack of experience, you really can find any and every conceivable question on this site. I got chickens for eggs, not meat, so I don't know anything about that but if that is your interest Im sure you could find out easily enough.

Here are some things I have learned:

Sex is very very very hard to determine in chicks. Very hard. A lot of the time it seems you just have to wait til they grow up and see whether or not they crow :)

Breed is also a crapshoot unless you get them from a breeder or something so that the parents are known. There are a lot of forums on here for people trying to determine breed and gender of their chick!

Predators are wily and determined.



Good luck and have fun!!
 

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