Hello everyone! I finally decided to register and start posting. I have been a "lurker" for over a year now, and I have learned so much from everyone here! I got my first flock towards the end of April 2010; I started out with 15 Brown Leghorns. I either had really bad luck or some one had picked through them at the local feed store because I ended up with 11 roosters and 4 hens. Two of the roosters died before they were the ten weeks old, the rest grew up healthy and happy. Of course, since I had such as imbalance in roosters and hens, chicken math kicked in fairly quickly! At the beginning of last August I bought 6 Golden Comet hens. I lost 2 of my Brown Leghorn hens while they were free ranging (I think it may have been a fox attack in broad daylight). When the GCs got old enough to be put into the coop with the others, all the BL were fully grown and were turning mean, so I sent 7 of them off to freezer camp. So I then had 2 BL roosters, 2 BL hens, 6 GC hens and 2 bantams that are brother and sister I got from a lady my mom works with. Over the winter chicken math kicked in big time as I wanted to have enough chickens for most of, if not all, mine and my families meat and egg needs. So I designed a new coop and started building in February and finished in mid-April (had a lot of weather delays). I started with a 6'x12' coop last year, with the new coop I just built onto the existing part. So, overall, the new coop is now 22'x16'. I left the walls and door on the old 6'x12' part so I could use half of it for storage and the other half as a brooder pen to raise baby chicks. So, in the main part I have about 280 square feet, and can hold 70 chickens at 4 square feel per chicken. I currently have about 55 baby chicks in a brooder pen I built. I got 11 Black Jersey Giants, 11 Buff Orpington, 11 White Rock, 11 New Hampshire Red, 5 Rhode Island Red, and 6 Barred Rocks; all are straight run except for the RIR, which are all pullets (Or are supposed to be, lol). I thinking about getting some Cornish Xs later this year and having them ready to process when what ever roosters I've got from the straight runs are ready to be processed. Nothing beats fresh, free range eggs and meat!
and from Ohio. So glad you joined. I do hope you are using screws instead of nails. They are much easier to remove when a pen needs to be enlarged.
