- May 24, 2014
- 5
- 0
- 7
Hi there!
My family is new to chickens. My husband has been trying to talk me into it for YEARS, but only after doing some breed research and talking to a few friends who have them was I willing to think about it. We talked to all the neighbors but for the one snowbird (this becomes important) and they all thought it sounded great. We are on a full acre, with a 6' stockade fence around about 3/4 of our yard. We have a great spot for the coop where a half-bath cabana was built for the pool, and it has water & power hookups.
We got 6 1+ week old buff orpington chicks last weekend, and they are sweet, friendly, & totally adorable. They are living in one of our bathrooms in a large dog travel crate on a table. They will hop onto our hands and relax and cuddle when petted gently. My 3 kids (ages 14, 13, and 9) adore them and are great at helping with chicken maintenance.
Our zoning requires a special use permit (which we do not have) for outdoor birds. Our coop isn't designed for New England winers anyway, and my husband was planing to create a space in our partially finished basement, so their primary residence would be in the house, which would NOT require any special permits according to the zoning ordinance. Our snowbird neighbor disagrees, and woth one breath says he thinks it's great, but then tells my husband that if we are right "we win," which leads me to believe that he feels like he loses if we get to keep the chicks.
We have backups for the chickens if we are forced to rehome them, but if we have to, that neighbor is going to be on my "excrement list."
I look forward to learning a lot from these forums--this site has been extremely useful as we begin our chicken parenting.
My family is new to chickens. My husband has been trying to talk me into it for YEARS, but only after doing some breed research and talking to a few friends who have them was I willing to think about it. We talked to all the neighbors but for the one snowbird (this becomes important) and they all thought it sounded great. We are on a full acre, with a 6' stockade fence around about 3/4 of our yard. We have a great spot for the coop where a half-bath cabana was built for the pool, and it has water & power hookups.
We got 6 1+ week old buff orpington chicks last weekend, and they are sweet, friendly, & totally adorable. They are living in one of our bathrooms in a large dog travel crate on a table. They will hop onto our hands and relax and cuddle when petted gently. My 3 kids (ages 14, 13, and 9) adore them and are great at helping with chicken maintenance.
Our zoning requires a special use permit (which we do not have) for outdoor birds. Our coop isn't designed for New England winers anyway, and my husband was planing to create a space in our partially finished basement, so their primary residence would be in the house, which would NOT require any special permits according to the zoning ordinance. Our snowbird neighbor disagrees, and woth one breath says he thinks it's great, but then tells my husband that if we are right "we win," which leads me to believe that he feels like he loses if we get to keep the chicks.
We have backups for the chickens if we are forced to rehome them, but if we have to, that neighbor is going to be on my "excrement list."
I look forward to learning a lot from these forums--this site has been extremely useful as we begin our chicken parenting.
and Welcome To BYC! Good luck with your new flock! And good luck with the neighbor. X2 you might want to try changing the ordinances 
