Hello all. First post here, but not new to BYC. About 6 months ago a friend asked if I wanted baby chicks. Of course, not knowing a single thing about raising chickens, I said yes and thought I would learn along the way. We ended up with 5 baby chicks (1 rooster and 4 hens). With many questions I went straight to Google. Thankfully, Google sent me to BYC where I learned about building their brooder box, taking care of the young chicks, and designing and building a coop for them when they got big enough. We found 5 of our favorite coop designs on BYC and made our first coop using those different ideas. While I am no carpenter, I am quite impressed with the results thanks to the very informative posts. When the chicks got old enough we transferred them to their new home. As they got a little bigger we had our doubts as to the sex of the chickens. And as a little more time passed we learned we had 3 roosters and 2 hens. Since we knew there was no point in having 3 roosters we had to part ways. Luckily, we found someone who needed a couple of roosters and we traded 2 roosters for a beautiful Ameraucana hen.
Since then we picked up a few more hens. We are now at our max capacity on the coop and have 1 Rhode Island Red rooster (Brownie), 2 Leghorns (Chattie and Sweetie), 1 splash colored Leghorn mix (Diamond), 1 Welsumer (Freckles), 1 Rhode Island Red (Fudge), and 1 Ameraucana (Zelda). They are all different ages and once the pecking order gets established we should start seeing eggs from the older ladies in our flock.
I look forward to meeting all of you and asking lots of questions. I will also share what I have learned along the way to maybe help someone just starting out. One of these days I will post my coop plans along with my automatic waterer and feeder.
Since then we picked up a few more hens. We are now at our max capacity on the coop and have 1 Rhode Island Red rooster (Brownie), 2 Leghorns (Chattie and Sweetie), 1 splash colored Leghorn mix (Diamond), 1 Welsumer (Freckles), 1 Rhode Island Red (Fudge), and 1 Ameraucana (Zelda). They are all different ages and once the pecking order gets established we should start seeing eggs from the older ladies in our flock.
I look forward to meeting all of you and asking lots of questions. I will also share what I have learned along the way to maybe help someone just starting out. One of these days I will post my coop plans along with my automatic waterer and feeder.
