Hello

[4 ever Orpington]

Hello my wife and I started raising chickens about 8 months ago we started with a dozen 6 each of barred rocks and rhode island red one of the reds was a rooster. She then got three americana's from her sister to try out two of those ended up being roosters (what a pain) We have since decided we dont like the americana for a umber of reasons and have decided to concentrate on RIR and BR we have been hatching our own RIR BR cross chicks for about 3.5 months now. love their attitudes by the time they are old enough to caponize you can easily tell them apart so we are keeping the roos to a minimum. This spring we are going to get rid of the two americana roos and eat them. We have a nice 12 by 12 coop I built this last summer and as we have learned things we have modified the interior a couple times as we found we needed more sub division than the three we started with. We have approximately 40 by 20 run fence tall enough to stand in and roofed with chicken wire as protection from hawks and owls and I used my baby back hoe to dig in a "footing" wher ethe wire goes about a foot deep and there is a treated 24 holding the bottom solidly. I have mostly completed fencing in about a quarter of our large yard to give them a bigger day time run when we can keep an eye on em.

She also bout three more barred rocks from a lady who was selling out. And bought three more barred rocks from a tractor supply that had em for 2 dollars each so I guess that puts us at 6 rir, 12 barred rocks three americana (soon to be just the one lady) 3 RIR and american cross hens (we then learned how long a hen can hld the sperm from a rooster and keep them segregated longer before saving eggs to hatch they are beautiful birds and so far are good tempered, and 19 rir and br cross chicks. Counted the new store boughts with the full blood br's. and we have a dozen eggs in the incubator that should hatch in about 2.5 weeks.

We got into chickes because we both wanted the self sufficiency we could gain in meat and eggs and we love the fresh farm eggs much better. We may add some other kinds of livestock to the mix later just a small amount as we have nearly no pasture able land in our 11 acres. but she still wants a milk cow. and I'd like to feed out a couple pigs and cows every once in a while for our freezer. (can't let her see a calf we'd never get to eat it.) tbh Im almost as bad but I love my steak more. Other than that all we have for animals is a outside german shepherd girl and a inside big baby of a choclate lab and a very old shisapoo (however tha tis spelled. Two teenagers too they are somewhat like animals just watch em eat

I mostly decided to join the board to share some lesons I"ve learned in caponizing I got alot of my starter info here and thought maybe I can flesh it out a little from my three rounds of doing the deed on my 6 patients to date all whom have survived thus far (little proud of that sorry) so I'll be back shortly to do that right now the wife wants me to come candle eggs with her so I"m off.