My wife and I got into laying hens in March of 2012. We had talked and talked about it without really deciding anything. Then one day I came home to 6 Gold Star chicks in a box in our laundry room. My wife had jumped in with both feet! I suppose to get me off the dime.
As the chicks grew we researched what we needed to know, just keeping abreast of what the chicks needed at the time. It was an interesting journey, but the chicks didn't seem to mind our inexperience and thrived. We ended up with a purchased chicken tractor that seemed to suit our girls well. They began to lay eggs early and we prospered with plenty of eggs for an empty nest couple.
However, the tractor arrangement appeared crowded for the 6 full grown hens so we let them free range a lot during the day - just checking on them occasionally. We live in a rural subdivision on a three acre lot and have 5 neighbors. One neighbor has a brittany spaniel hunting dog and she was outside one day, unbeknownst to us, and decided to 'hunt up' our chickens. We lost 3 of the 6 to that dog. Free ranging is now over with.
We bought 3 replacement chicks in April that are getting to be pretty big, plus we have plans to eventually enlarge the flock to a dozen hens. So, we are building a new coop and run arrangement which puts us back in the research stage again. During the first round of learning, my wife found BYC and loved the site. It has become our go-to place for the answers to our questions. She's never joined up in the past, but we decided today that we should join the group. So here we are.
Looking forward to sharing information with everyone and growing our flock. Currently we are looking into whether we should insulate our coop or not (we live in south-central Iowa) and how to integrate our replacement chicks into the survivors from our original group. We'll see what the forums have to say!
As the chicks grew we researched what we needed to know, just keeping abreast of what the chicks needed at the time. It was an interesting journey, but the chicks didn't seem to mind our inexperience and thrived. We ended up with a purchased chicken tractor that seemed to suit our girls well. They began to lay eggs early and we prospered with plenty of eggs for an empty nest couple.
However, the tractor arrangement appeared crowded for the 6 full grown hens so we let them free range a lot during the day - just checking on them occasionally. We live in a rural subdivision on a three acre lot and have 5 neighbors. One neighbor has a brittany spaniel hunting dog and she was outside one day, unbeknownst to us, and decided to 'hunt up' our chickens. We lost 3 of the 6 to that dog. Free ranging is now over with.
We bought 3 replacement chicks in April that are getting to be pretty big, plus we have plans to eventually enlarge the flock to a dozen hens. So, we are building a new coop and run arrangement which puts us back in the research stage again. During the first round of learning, my wife found BYC and loved the site. It has become our go-to place for the answers to our questions. She's never joined up in the past, but we decided today that we should join the group. So here we are.
Looking forward to sharing information with everyone and growing our flock. Currently we are looking into whether we should insulate our coop or not (we live in south-central Iowa) and how to integrate our replacement chicks into the survivors from our original group. We'll see what the forums have to say!
