Hello everyone!
My name is Tanya and I live in FL (I know, lol, I make my screen names sooo confusing
) Anyway, I live out in a more rural area here which is actually Lakeland...but I am in the Green Swamp and VERY near Polk City which I have noticed many members live in that area so its all very exciting to me. I share my home and land with my wonderful husband, 3 awesome human children ranging from 10 to 5 years old (1 daughter Kayla, 2 sons Devin and Caleb), 1 crazy female Leopard Gecko named Esmeralda but we call her Ezzy for short , 2 oak toad guests male and female (we do short term capture/release with things we find on our property for the human children to study and learn about so the extra tanks get cleaned out and something new comes in pretty often, lol, I am a homeschooling mom...and no, we never ever hurt them. Just get a nice close up look for identification and to learn about behavior, eating habits, gender if possible, etc.) we also have 1 "Bassador" dog named Daisy (half basset hound, half black lab and she is the sweetest and cutest thing ever!), 3 cats...a boy named Baby (because he thinks he is a human baby, lol) a girl named Sonali, and another girl named Simba (no, we did not name her that...I guess someone thought she was a boy at one point...she is a rescue from someone we knew), and now...our 8 chickens. The kids picked out some straight runs, all brown egg layers...from what I can tell 6 are some type of sex link but obviously not the first generation...cuz they were straight run, lol...and 2 that I thought were RIRs but maybe they are Productions...not 100% sure on that...they just dont seem to be 100% RIR to me. Oh and our bug farms, lol, cant forget those. I raise mealworms for Ezzy the gecko and now for the chickens too. (Also going to be raising wax worms, crickets, silk worms, and soldier fly grubs if I can ever get those right, previous attempts have been not so great with the soldier fly grubs...sigh)
I have been visiting this site off and on for about 8 months...as I tried to study as much as I could about chickens BEFORE bringing them home, lol. (I like to be as prepared as possible, lol) I am not totally sure how old my chickens are, because the feed supply place I got them from was not even sure but they "thought" anywhere between 3-5 days old. I got them April 5th I think it was...soooooooo...I don't know if the age they gave me is correct so its all just a "guess" for me.
They are growing SO VERY FAST! We have some names for them...Petunia, Tulip, Waddles, Cheep-Cheep, Sammich, and the other 3 get called all kinds of random names for now, lol. Nothing has stuck for them. I can not get over how LARGE the sex link kind of ones are...they are all pretty big...compared to a neighbors chickens bought from the same place at the same time, must be all the extra love they get from us, lol. They still live inside even though they seem to be fully feathered at this point and it sure is pretty hot outside, but mainly because I still have a couple more things to do for the coop area before it is just "perfect" for them. I am feeling pretty sure I have 4 males...but I am thinking another two might be male too...at least I made room with that in mind though.
We jokingly call the coop the "chicken mansion" lol...24 feet long, 8 feet deep, and 6 feet tall...not including the run which is 24 feet wide by about 60 feet long. It started out as just an 8'x10'...then we decided to put up some board on board fence on the back end of the run...the kind of board on board with no gaps...then I decided that it sure seemed a waste to not use those three standing wood walls we just made with the fence, lol...so some additional purchases and hunting through our material filled sheds...a couple dozen metal roof pans later...a couple buckets of cool patch for the metal roof due to being in FL, lol, and stretching out a pre-existing 6'x12' dog kennel...and there you have it! (the run itself has no roof yet...and I am kinda wondering if I can get away with string to keep other birds out or if I need to top the whole thing with chicken wire...the one end has the coop and the other end is actually a 7 foot tall concrete block wall (pre-existing...I just thought I should get the most out of what we already had, you know?) and 2 sides of that area already had existing chain link fencing with gates...sooooooo...it just seemed perfect. So the back of the board on board actually is covered all the way around with chain link on the outside and then I burried 3 feet of chicken wire all the way around from the inside...plus I have this apron I am making for the bottom fencing out of pasture no climb type of wire so I feel pretty sure NOTHING is gonna get my babies from the bottom! most of the run is actually made with chain link fence that I was "lining" over with chicken wire...so it would be stronger than just chicken wire or that other small square cloth stuff...forgot its name, the kind for rabbits and such... anyway I figured this would be way stronger to keep dogs out. My basset/lab lets the chickens walk on her, literally, so she is not going to be an issue, lol. Its strays that might jump my fenced property that I worry about) So, I do have plenty of room to keep the boys apart until I can find some of them homes. I might keep one, but if I only have 2 girls...hmmmm. Apparently we dont have great odds with picking out our own straight runs, lol!
Anyway...I plan to let them free range for the most part during the day while I am home and awake to keep my eye on them (like I said, my property itself is fully fenced and then the fences have very tall shrubs and trees lining the entire property...BUT, I have found a stray dog in my yard...soooo...something has been "breached" lol) but at night I want them to have plenty of room...and on days where I have field trips...or PE...or homeschool conventions etc. to attend...I don't want them to feel all cooped up, lol, pun intended.
Yeah...I am goofy like that.
Tanya
My name is Tanya and I live in FL (I know, lol, I make my screen names sooo confusing
I have been visiting this site off and on for about 8 months...as I tried to study as much as I could about chickens BEFORE bringing them home, lol. (I like to be as prepared as possible, lol) I am not totally sure how old my chickens are, because the feed supply place I got them from was not even sure but they "thought" anywhere between 3-5 days old. I got them April 5th I think it was...soooooooo...I don't know if the age they gave me is correct so its all just a "guess" for me.
They are growing SO VERY FAST! We have some names for them...Petunia, Tulip, Waddles, Cheep-Cheep, Sammich, and the other 3 get called all kinds of random names for now, lol. Nothing has stuck for them. I can not get over how LARGE the sex link kind of ones are...they are all pretty big...compared to a neighbors chickens bought from the same place at the same time, must be all the extra love they get from us, lol. They still live inside even though they seem to be fully feathered at this point and it sure is pretty hot outside, but mainly because I still have a couple more things to do for the coop area before it is just "perfect" for them. I am feeling pretty sure I have 4 males...but I am thinking another two might be male too...at least I made room with that in mind though.
We jokingly call the coop the "chicken mansion" lol...24 feet long, 8 feet deep, and 6 feet tall...not including the run which is 24 feet wide by about 60 feet long. It started out as just an 8'x10'...then we decided to put up some board on board fence on the back end of the run...the kind of board on board with no gaps...then I decided that it sure seemed a waste to not use those three standing wood walls we just made with the fence, lol...so some additional purchases and hunting through our material filled sheds...a couple dozen metal roof pans later...a couple buckets of cool patch for the metal roof due to being in FL, lol, and stretching out a pre-existing 6'x12' dog kennel...and there you have it! (the run itself has no roof yet...and I am kinda wondering if I can get away with string to keep other birds out or if I need to top the whole thing with chicken wire...the one end has the coop and the other end is actually a 7 foot tall concrete block wall (pre-existing...I just thought I should get the most out of what we already had, you know?) and 2 sides of that area already had existing chain link fencing with gates...sooooooo...it just seemed perfect. So the back of the board on board actually is covered all the way around with chain link on the outside and then I burried 3 feet of chicken wire all the way around from the inside...plus I have this apron I am making for the bottom fencing out of pasture no climb type of wire so I feel pretty sure NOTHING is gonna get my babies from the bottom! most of the run is actually made with chain link fence that I was "lining" over with chicken wire...so it would be stronger than just chicken wire or that other small square cloth stuff...forgot its name, the kind for rabbits and such... anyway I figured this would be way stronger to keep dogs out. My basset/lab lets the chickens walk on her, literally, so she is not going to be an issue, lol. Its strays that might jump my fenced property that I worry about) So, I do have plenty of room to keep the boys apart until I can find some of them homes. I might keep one, but if I only have 2 girls...hmmmm. Apparently we dont have great odds with picking out our own straight runs, lol!
Anyway...I plan to let them free range for the most part during the day while I am home and awake to keep my eye on them (like I said, my property itself is fully fenced and then the fences have very tall shrubs and trees lining the entire property...BUT, I have found a stray dog in my yard...soooo...something has been "breached" lol) but at night I want them to have plenty of room...and on days where I have field trips...or PE...or homeschool conventions etc. to attend...I don't want them to feel all cooped up, lol, pun intended.
Tanya
