We are one month into being chicken owners! After looking closely at many of the coop designs on BYC, I designed a coop and my 21 year old son built it for me. I was his unskilled laborer during the process. We originally bought two lovely young ladies, and yesterday bought two more. Our first girls are a red star (Henrietta) and a white Ameracauna (Roberta). Henrie started laying for us a week ago, and has taken only one day off since. Bob is a little younger and hasn't started laying yet. We have enjoyed the first two girls so much that we decided to get a couple more. We bought a white silkie bantam (Daisy) and an Old English bantam (Juliette). The flock is now in the process of sorting out the pecking order. There wasn't much of an issue when we had just the two of them. We live in a suburb of Dallas, Texas. Our family consists of mom (me), dad, 21 year old and 11 year old brothers, 2 dogs, 1 very old cat, 1 guinea pig, 9 zebra finches, 1 betta, and of course, our 4 lovely hens! Oh yeah, there's also a robin family in the tree behind the coop and a sparrow family in the birdhouse. I got interested in raising chickens when I read a newspaper article about a woman raising chickens in Dallas. I thought I'd have to fight my husband to do it, but surprisingly he loved the idea! Found BYC when I was googling chickens. BYC has been a GREAT HELP. I also bought the book Raising Chickens for Dummies. It has been my instruction manual.
