nmflygirl
In the Brooder
Hi all, I figured I'd take a few moments and introduce myself.
I've been casually reading several posts on this site for a few months now and figured it was time to just create a profile and start interacting with everyone. Such a great group of helpful and knowledgeable people!
A little about me, I've always wanted to be a farmer/rancher/cowgirl, but life had me going in a different direction. After many years of "wishing I could do something" I said what the heck and decided to buy chickens.
This past April I went to the local feed store bought a coop and got 2 birds from a family friend (yes, I now know that was a bad idea after reading this forum and have plans to build a coop in the next few months). I loved having the 2 to start with and they were laying about an egg a day between the two of them. I then went and got 2 more from another local bird owner and added them to my flock.
That's when I learned about the proper way to introduce new hens to the flock (since I did it the exact wrong way). All four birds survived my mistake and after about a week there was an established pecking order and life was good. Then I decided to get 2 more birds since I was told that my prefabbed coop could support up to 6 birds. And, I learned at least a little from the last time and had them separated for a day (I know, not long enough but I only had 1 coop so I didn't want to have any birds that didn't have a safe place to sleep). I'll be honest, I'm not sure what breed any of the birds are yet, but I'm learning something new about them everyday.
Fast forward about a month and I was averaging 3-5 eggs a day from my 6 birds. Life seemed good and they were a joy to watch. I originally let them roam my backyard freely, but they started to get into my garden and destroyed that so I put up a larger fenced in area for them. The enclosed area is about 13' x 25' and they seem to have plenty of roaming room and all is well.
Lately however, the egg production dropped drastically. Not just because of the shorter days, that I understand, but in August/September we dropped from averaging 3-5 eggs a day to 1-2 every other day. The winter days now net me 0 eggs.
That's when I really started looking into more information about chickens. The first thing I noticed is that I need to upgrade my coop. That's going to be my next major project and I'll go with the "woods" design as its called on here. That should help keep my birds safe as well as their food (which is currently being raided by the many wild rabbits in the area).
Well, that's probably a good start for an introduction from me. Thanks for taking the time to read about what I've got going on. I can't wait to get to know the wonderful people on here and learn as much as I can about safely keeping healthy chickens.
NMFlyGirl (aka Bobbie)
I've been casually reading several posts on this site for a few months now and figured it was time to just create a profile and start interacting with everyone. Such a great group of helpful and knowledgeable people!
A little about me, I've always wanted to be a farmer/rancher/cowgirl, but life had me going in a different direction. After many years of "wishing I could do something" I said what the heck and decided to buy chickens.
This past April I went to the local feed store bought a coop and got 2 birds from a family friend (yes, I now know that was a bad idea after reading this forum and have plans to build a coop in the next few months). I loved having the 2 to start with and they were laying about an egg a day between the two of them. I then went and got 2 more from another local bird owner and added them to my flock.
That's when I learned about the proper way to introduce new hens to the flock (since I did it the exact wrong way). All four birds survived my mistake and after about a week there was an established pecking order and life was good. Then I decided to get 2 more birds since I was told that my prefabbed coop could support up to 6 birds. And, I learned at least a little from the last time and had them separated for a day (I know, not long enough but I only had 1 coop so I didn't want to have any birds that didn't have a safe place to sleep). I'll be honest, I'm not sure what breed any of the birds are yet, but I'm learning something new about them everyday.
Fast forward about a month and I was averaging 3-5 eggs a day from my 6 birds. Life seemed good and they were a joy to watch. I originally let them roam my backyard freely, but they started to get into my garden and destroyed that so I put up a larger fenced in area for them. The enclosed area is about 13' x 25' and they seem to have plenty of roaming room and all is well.
Lately however, the egg production dropped drastically. Not just because of the shorter days, that I understand, but in August/September we dropped from averaging 3-5 eggs a day to 1-2 every other day. The winter days now net me 0 eggs.
That's when I really started looking into more information about chickens. The first thing I noticed is that I need to upgrade my coop. That's going to be my next major project and I'll go with the "woods" design as its called on here. That should help keep my birds safe as well as their food (which is currently being raided by the many wild rabbits in the area).
Well, that's probably a good start for an introduction from me. Thanks for taking the time to read about what I've got going on. I can't wait to get to know the wonderful people on here and learn as much as I can about safely keeping healthy chickens.
NMFlyGirl (aka Bobbie)
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