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qwigoqwaga

qwigoqwaga

Chirping
8 Years
Mar 2, 2015
43
8
82
Hi everyone! I'm brand new to owning chickens so I figured I'll probably be on here a lot so I might as well introduce myself.

We just bought our first 3 pullets this morning: a Plymouth Rock, an Araucana, and a Barnevelder.



So far they seem to be getting along well. They're all about 5-10 weeks old right now (though the Barnevelder might be a bit older since she's a little bigger than the other two). We're hoping to get 3 more soon since we were ideally aiming to have 6. They're mostly going to just be pets, but we'll enjoy having fresh eggs too, so we want to try to get a variety of chicken and egg colors. We built a chicken coop, which they're in now until we can build a temporary little fence around it, but eventually we plan on free ranging them in our 2 acre fenced in pasture.

We also have 7 Nigerian Dwarf Goats which we've had for almost four years now, also as pets, but chickens are a new adventure for us.
 
Hello there!
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I'm glad you could join our BYC community! Congratulations on the beginnings of your poultry adventures. You have some adorable chicks, of three excellent breeds! Plymouth Rocks are known for very good egg production and Araucanas lay lovely colored eggs. I've greatly enjoyed my Easter Egger (hatchery "Araucana"). Good to hear that they're getting along well. I hope you can find the three other birds that you're looking for! Six is a nice size for a starting flock; I started with just four and quickly wanted more.

I've never kept goats myself, but have helped take care of some for the past two years. They sure are inquisitive and interesting animals! Good luck with yours.
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Hi, welcome to BYC!
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You're starting off with some lovely breeds, it'll be interesting to see your flock grow and the colorful egg basket you eventually will have.

We have 4 goats in addition to our chickens and they are so much fun! If you haven't already found it, there is a forum on BYC for other livestock/pets where you can post about your goats:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/22/other-pets-livestock

It's nice having you here, make yourself at home!
 
Thanks everyone!

I've been poking around the Learning Center; there's quite a lot of good information there.

Right now my main question that I haven't yet been able to find a solid answer for is how long should they stay in the coop before we start letting them out in a smaller pen for a short supervised time and then how long until they can free range after that? I believe I've seen people say they keep their in the coop for like a week, but my family's in disagreement about whether that's too long to wait before letting them out at all, even a little bit. Is there any general rule of thumb for this?
 
I don't know there's a hard and fast rule about how long it takes them to know the coop = home. With ours, we kept them in for 3 days and that seemed to do it. If you're having scorching hot days like we are right now, you probably won't want them in the coop a whole week. You might just have to try a few days, see if they go in. If they do, great! If not, keep them in another couple days.

You'll find there are a lot of variances in how chicken owners manage their birds...the main thing we all want are healthy, well-adjusted birds. You'll find out what works best for you.
 

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