Hi from Newbie in Thailand

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thailand

thailand

Crowing
13 Years
Feb 27, 2011
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Chiang Mai, Thailand, raising chickens for 9 years
Hi everyone,

I'm looking forward to soaking up the communal knowledge on this forum. I have never owned chickens before. Essentially I am a city girl with a country girl's heart. I'm mum to 7 kids and married to a wonderful husband. I currently have 5 cats, a talking lovebird, and am raising 8 angora-type rabbits. I have been wanting chickens for the last two years but up until last week had not found a breed I wanted to raise. As I live in Thailand (ex-pat from New Zealand) my choices of breed appear to be severley limited. However, my interest peaked again when I spotted 4 x Brahma chicks for sale in a local pet shop last week. They appear to be very healthy and at a novice's guess maybe 8-10 weeks old??

I'm now itching to race back to the shop and snap them up before someone else does. Chicken breeds we have in the West are "as rare as hen's teeth" in Thailand - excuse the pun, just couldn't resist that. LOL. However I don't know the first thing about raising chickens and certainly do not have a coop for them at present.

I have an idea of converting a storage area/shed under our outside stairway into a chicken coop. It's a fairly small area but it does have a lot of vents already built into the all-concrete structure. It's pretty grubby and would need a cleanup/paint, but I think it might work. I would attach a run to this, although I rather like the idea of free-range chickens. As soon as I can post photos I would appreciate your advice/ideas please.

My question initially though is - how soon would I need to house them in a chicken coop anyway? At the moment they are in a large dog crate at the pet shop, with an attached lamp providing some heat. They are not yet fully feathered but are certainly on their way. They probably stand about 12 inches high (hoping that might help to gauge their age). Am I nuts to rush out and buy them without preparing first?....probably!

Many thanks
 
If not fully feathered probably around 3 weeks old.

Chickens are very adaptable to whatever temporary accommodations you fix for them till the permanent place is ready.

I love the Brahmas. They have a very mellow personality, and I found mine very thoughtful for chickens.

I had two about that size the hens in the coop would not accept, so they hung out in my living room in a big metal washbasin for about four weeks. Became quite tame. The wash basin is 25 inches wide and one foot/12 inches tall. I put a piece of wire mesh over the top. Let them out to play when I was there for awhile every day.

So where in Thailand are you?
 
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From Western Washington State
 
Go get 'em before someone else does.
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from Ohio.

My son and DIL just got home (to Ohio) last Thursday. DIL is Thai from up northern Thailand. Her folks visited us here in Ohio last fall and where amazed at the size of our chickens and the size of the eggs we get. They, of course didn't know enough English for us to carry on much conversation, but DIL had to translate. Their actual language is a tribal language, not Thai. Our son told us there were chickens all over the place up in the mountains. Very glad to have you here.
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Anyway, DIL's dad wanted to see if he could find a larger breed of chickens when he got home. I don't think he was able to. My son also said, some of his in-laws pigs just disappeared while they were all down in town.
 
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