Hello from NE Tenn

I am thrilled to find this site. My first birds were Guineas June of 2011. I built a small house with a very small roost area and after a few weeks let them roam the yard. One year later, a friend built me a large chicken house, appr. 9x9, and we fenced in a large run. I have a banty pair given by a friend (the rooster was being picked on), a 1 year old laying buff, and 2 buff younguns' appr. 4 mos old, male and female. The banty has not started laying again since moving her, even after 6 weeks. The youngun' and older hen started laying last week, much to my delight!! My plan is to raise them for eggs for myself and food. My guinea hen hatched 15 out of 22 eggs last summer. Unfortunately, after a few weeks I let her out and critters got several of them including her. I just did a Winter cull for food and have 2 Guinea hens and 2 males now along with the 5 chickens noted above. I just bought some roosters that are now in the freezer and the woman had many varities. I'm hoping to add some Polish just for fun. They are all comfortable in their house and run (appr. 130ft diameter). 1/2 of the run is deep leaves and loam under thick forest trees. The other side is open and has been tilled with horse manure and seeded for this Spring. Should be a wonderful weedy mess for them. I never planned on getting chickens. I had wanted Guineas for a long time, though not sure why. Being a city girl happily transplanted into the country I had never even been around them! But it's been a happy union even though they did use my porch as part of their daily tour! With the new pen I hope they will 'forget' before I consider letting them out next summer. A dear friend loves keeping chickens and decided my old house was rather pitiful, though a great start for a first timer. So he used free old wood and built me a new one. I added a light with timer and used a heated dog bowl with rocks in the bottom to raise the waterer. It worked great last year. I feed them laying mash, organic scratch, oyster shell, and 20% protein wild bird feed. I was mixing it all, but decided to separate it out. They ate all the new organic scatch I put out in one day. Seems to be their favorite, so I'm limiting that. After reading this site, I started saving scraps I used to compost like greens, brown rice, and such. I also toss the clover and greens that are growing in the garden from the rabbit and horse manure used there. Those disappear fast. So, that's me. This site is so interesting and fun to read. I really appreciate all the comments and friendly people. -anne