Are you going to stay with the same breeds you have or try something different?
Right now, I am ga-ga in love with Blue Australorps! Absolutely adore the coloring. I have three Black Aussie pullets, and a Buff Orpington cockerel. He is often a jerk. I've held him down (I tell him I'll make him kiss the dirt) a few times, but he's getting full of himself again. I was thinking of hatching out some crosses, but I don't know what I'd do with more cockerels.
I started with three BO cockerels; never buying straight run again unless I want a boy! Three out of three! I had to cull two of them last July when hormones hit at 4 months. Hubby doesn't mind me getting more chickens, but he's very against having to cull cockerels. (No, we didn't eat the two last summer; killing them was hard enough and I buried them in the garden. I thank them for their contribution to the soil. It wasn't their fault they were born male.)
So, yeah, I plan to get more chicks, but might possibly hatch one egg of my own, just for the experience and to see what the cross would look like. And pray for a pullet.
That would be a trick of timing. Hoping a girl goes broody and
TSC gets Blue Aussies after she proves she wants to brood for 3 weeks. Stranger things have happened...
I would like to have a covered run also and might have to do same thing with that type of sheeting if it's not to crazy in price.
Yeah, I'm not sure what it would cost, but hubby was agreeable. He might be able to order it through work cheaper...?
I really need to do something, as the coop is to the south of the run, so it blocks the low winter rays.
My coop is built on a trailer, so it is movable, and we put it down by the garden in the summer. That would be a nice protected spot for year round, but it's down our very steep driveway, which can be pretty slippery in the winter. It's also downwind of our neighbors, who burn a lot of wood. So do we, but the prevailing wind usually blows the smoke away.
And then later, they make me rather odiferous.
