welsummerguy
Hatching
- Dec 4, 2015
- 1
- 0
- 7
We recently moved to a rural community and although we thought about getting chickens eventually, we actually ended up "rescuing" 3 hens and a rooster that were being kept in a nearby city. The rooster started crowing and they were found out. Our daughter suggested "My parents live on a farm. They can take the chickens". Our place is hardly a farm...but, sure.
They spent the first night at our place in the biggest cardboard boxes I could find with chicken wire stretched across the front, one chicken per box. A trip to the feed store the next day and I had something to feed them. I quickly made a pen out of fence posts and chicken wire so they could play around outside in the daytime, and bring them in to a pen in the garage at night. This is working so far, but I'm building an outside coop with a fenced area for them. It was amazing that I rarely saw hawks circling overhead until we got chickens. Now they come down to 20 feet or so. The pen has a chicken wire roof, so they're ok.
The chickens were not getting along, but seem to be better now. The rooster is not the problem, it is the hens. Probably just the adjustment. They were living in an apartment somehow, and I'm not sure how much they interacted previously.
According to pictures on the net, these are Welsummers. I had never heard of these, but the ones we have are very nice looking birds. They are easy to handle as well, very tame with us, but not with each other.
One of the hens just laid her first egg - a very small one, but very exciting for us!
So I'm trying to learn as much as possible about how to take care of these birds, and I've already read a lot of the good info you have here.
They spent the first night at our place in the biggest cardboard boxes I could find with chicken wire stretched across the front, one chicken per box. A trip to the feed store the next day and I had something to feed them. I quickly made a pen out of fence posts and chicken wire so they could play around outside in the daytime, and bring them in to a pen in the garage at night. This is working so far, but I'm building an outside coop with a fenced area for them. It was amazing that I rarely saw hawks circling overhead until we got chickens. Now they come down to 20 feet or so. The pen has a chicken wire roof, so they're ok.
The chickens were not getting along, but seem to be better now. The rooster is not the problem, it is the hens. Probably just the adjustment. They were living in an apartment somehow, and I'm not sure how much they interacted previously.
According to pictures on the net, these are Welsummers. I had never heard of these, but the ones we have are very nice looking birds. They are easy to handle as well, very tame with us, but not with each other.
One of the hens just laid her first egg - a very small one, but very exciting for us!
So I'm trying to learn as much as possible about how to take care of these birds, and I've already read a lot of the good info you have here.
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