Hi all,
So I finally quit lurking and joined the ranks of my fellow BYC'ers. My wife and I live on an acre out in the country, and we're very excited at the thought of getting some chickens in the back yard. This is our first winter in the house, so next spring will be our first attempt at getting the veggie gardens going, setting up a chicken coop, and various other projects.
I'm also a relatively new beekeeper; started last spring. I went into the winter with 6 hives, although one was fairly weak... so we'll see how things pan out in the spring. Of course, this means I have tons of honey around, so I may experiment with giving the chickens honey (once they're mature) to supplement their diet.
And of course, the DIY'er in my is excited... building a coop, building a run, tinkering with automatic run-door setups. My biggest concern is building the coop too small, and wanting more space for more chickens! The second-biggest concern is building the coop to be well insulated, since it gets COLD here in the winter. We've had a couple -30C days and nights already this year, although we're in a bit of a warm spell right now, sitting right around the freezing mark, which means more moisture in the air. Last winter was a cold one, with weeks of temps in the -25C to -40C (before wind-chill). So that coop will be well insulated!
We're planning on layers this year, and maybe some meat birds next year. We'd also like to get a couple milk-goats, and a muscovy duck or two (to help with the mosquito's and blackflies).
Bring on the chicks!
So I finally quit lurking and joined the ranks of my fellow BYC'ers. My wife and I live on an acre out in the country, and we're very excited at the thought of getting some chickens in the back yard. This is our first winter in the house, so next spring will be our first attempt at getting the veggie gardens going, setting up a chicken coop, and various other projects.
I'm also a relatively new beekeeper; started last spring. I went into the winter with 6 hives, although one was fairly weak... so we'll see how things pan out in the spring. Of course, this means I have tons of honey around, so I may experiment with giving the chickens honey (once they're mature) to supplement their diet.
And of course, the DIY'er in my is excited... building a coop, building a run, tinkering with automatic run-door setups. My biggest concern is building the coop too small, and wanting more space for more chickens! The second-biggest concern is building the coop to be well insulated, since it gets COLD here in the winter. We've had a couple -30C days and nights already this year, although we're in a bit of a warm spell right now, sitting right around the freezing mark, which means more moisture in the air. Last winter was a cold one, with weeks of temps in the -25C to -40C (before wind-chill). So that coop will be well insulated!
We're planning on layers this year, and maybe some meat birds next year. We'd also like to get a couple milk-goats, and a muscovy duck or two (to help with the mosquito's and blackflies).
Bring on the chicks!
