Hello. We live in Central VA and last saturday we joined the backyard chicken club. We actually joined on a whim when we were at Tractor Supply buying our dog a new crate. We had been planning on getting Muscovies, however this unseasonably warm winter messed up the laying schedule and so our friend wasn't going to have any ducklings until May. Anyways, we ended up deciding we wanted birds sooner since that means they would get into production sooner. When we got to Tractor Supply they had ducks. We thought about it and when we decided to go for it we went to grab some pullets and the person ahead of us took all 56 of them. So we settled on getting 8 birds and hoping at least 50% would be female. We get four Black Australorps and four New Hampshire Reds. Right now they are living in the dining room in one of the water troughs for our horses. We have a few weeks to get a coop setup (again, we weren't expecting birds until May), but I hope to get that up this weekend and maybe they will be into the coop in a few weeks. Anyways, we're pretty excited to have the first product creating livestock for a little homestead. We own horses but they only produce poop-- well I guess they produce money too since my wife trains horses and teaches riding lessons.
Hello from Kansas, iPringle, and ! Happy you joined our community! First chickens are always fun! Make sure you visit the Learning Center here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/1/Learning_Center It will answer many questions you may have now and many more you might have in the future! And if you'd like to chat with some local poultry folks, find the VA thread in this link and say hello: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/270925/find-your-states-thread Best wishes and good luck on your poultry odyssey!
I also enjoyed your comment about horses. Thank you for joining us at Backyard chickens. Hope you will enjoy it as much as we do.
G’Day from down under iPringle Welcome! As you have already received some links to great starting points, I will just wish you all the best. I hope you enjoy being a BYC member. There are lots of friendly and very helpful folks here so not only is it overflowing with useful information it is also a great place to make friends and have some fun. If you would like to share pictures and stories of your flock, you have come to the right place. BYC’ers never tire of these and do not back away slowly or commence eye rolling when the photo album or home videos come out