Hi from Texas!

[RoosterCruiser72]

Hi everyone! My name is Megan and I live in Texas near Dallas.

My parents have had chickens before(they live in Florida), so I have a bit of experience with them, but I am getting ready to start up my own backyard flock! I am excited to learn more about coop design and Texas-specific chicken tips in particular.

I am a big animal person and my other pets include a dog, a cat, a cockatiel, 2 sugar gliders, and a horse

 

[RoosterCruiser72]

Welcome to BYC from Bullard Tx. Just south of Tyler.

 

[kryssa]

Hi Megan! Are you planning a backyard flock inside city limits? I have a small backyard flock in the DFW metroplex. I've only had them about a year, so I'm definitely not an expert, but I can tell you the mistakes we've made!

Our girls free range in our fenced backyard by day, and we shut them up in their coop at night. We were getting big rats in the coop, so I started feeding the girls during the day outside of the coop rather than leaving food out in the coop all the time. Now we have squirrels instead of rats. They probably carry the same diseases, but it seems less gross.

Daytime predators haven't been much a problem for adults. The girls are loose in the backyard during the day. My corgi got pecked in the snout, she leaves the chickens alone now. Neighborhood cats leave them alone as well. We almost had a hawk carry of a young pullet once. I was outside, so I yelled and the young hawk dropped the baby. The hawks don't seem to be a problem for our adult chickens.

Nightime predators are more problematic. We have possums and possibly others. We lost one pullet to a predator that reached under the wire and removed the head. Kinda gruesome. I buried the wire and so far, no problems.

I didn't vaccinate our chicks because I figured our flock would be safe because it is small and isolated. But mosquitos are a big problem. We had a bout of fowl pox, though my girls all made it through.

So, that's my advice. Don't underestimate possums or mosquitos! Other than that, we haven't found big challenges. I have several different breeds (1 of each) and they all seem to do just fine.