Hello

[katiek77]

Hello y’all. . I am a stay at home mom of four and a yaya too the cutest lil red head you have ever seen. We have had chickens for a year now. We started off with 12 idea 236 chicks. We kept them for around 9 months before the dang hawks and an owl came about. No matter what we did they were still getting our free range gals. We tried to keep them in a run but our mischievous mini donkeys weren’t having it. They constantly let them out regardless of what we did. Within this last month we have added three 7 month old Black Copper Marans roosters. Those girls teamed up with them boys and all have been safe.

I found this group by searching the web for an answer to a question I had on incubating eggs. It was our first time ever to do it. We bought an incubator for my youngest son for his birthday. Well lesson learned. We bought a cheap one and it was a nightmare. I learned so much from doing this hatch and from this group. Last week I went and bought 6 black sex link pullets from tsc. And then we were able to hatch 3 light Brahmas and 3 Black Copper Marans. So as of right now we have 18 chickens. Next week we are going to get some buff laced polish chicks and some more bcm chicks. We have ordered a new incubator so hopefully I can get some more light Brahmas eggs. The polish, Brahmanas, and marans are going to be my children’s and my granddaughters 4-h birds.

Along with our chickens and our two mini donkeys we have a Rottweiler, a German shepherd/Belgium Malinios Cross. We also have three rough collies that are the center of my heart. And I cannot forget our three cats.
In the future I hope to add dark Brahmas and Cochins to our flock and maybe some turkeys. And then working on adding sheep and cows for 4-h.

 

[noregerts]

You've got your hands full! We used to free-range our girls for about 3 years and never had a death and then I guess the hawks and everything else heard about us and started killing our hens. Now they only get supervised outings which I hate for them but I hate burying my girls worse then anything.
The only eggs I've ever hatched we're done under a broody hen. That takes a lot of the fun out of raising them yourself but it is a heck of a lot less work than raising them yourself haha.
Have fun and keep us posted as to how things go

 

[007Sean]

Howdy and Welcome to Backyard Chickens.

Happy to have you here with us. Enjoy your time here at BYC! Great intro and pics.

Thanks for joining our community!

 

[Chick-N-Fun]

Welcome to our FUNomenal Community! Best wishes and have lots of FUN!

 

[katiek77]

You've got your hands full! We used to free-range our girls for about 3 years and never had a death and then I guess the hawks and everything else heard about us and started killing our hens. Now they only get supervised outings which I hate for them but I hate burying my girls worse then anything.
The only eggs I've ever hatched we're done under a broody hen. That takes a lot of the fun out of raising them yourself but it is a heck of a lot less work than raising them yourself haha.
Have fun and keep us posted as to how things go

Hopefully one of the lb or bcm will turn out to be broody. Those are going to be kept up by the house so we will not have a chance to loose any. The cross birds go in the coop that is in the pasture. The donkeys use to be on top of protecting them. They def keep the coyotes and stray dogs out. They just don’t have any effect on the hawks. the hawks take the whole chicken with them. We have some huge hawks.

 

[sourland]

Welcome to BYC, and good luck in protecting your flock.

 

[fldiver97]

Welcome Glad you decided to join us! Thanks for sharing pictures with us!

 

[Brahmachicken240]

Welcome to Backyard Chickens

 

[DobieLover]

Hello and welcome to BYC! Glad you joined.
Beautiful pictures of your critter family. You've got your hands full with all your animals.

 

[NonnasBabies]

Welcome