I lurked for 8 mos. before joining - wanting to learn about chickens. Got active here because of the wonderful people I have met (well online anyway). Welcome to the Backyard chickens flock, so glad you joined us
Thanks for the welcoming! I've been trying to decide whether to join or not for the past two weeks. It seems like a wonderful site and I'm glad I joined.
Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided to join our flock. If you haven't done so already, definitely our Learning Center at https://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/1/Learning_Center. There is loads of useful information there. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Cheers.
Ah, chickenraiser24, welcome - and we're very sorry for what's about to happen to you!
You'll start out at the "home" page, scrolling down through the posts (and hitting "more" a lot) and finding posts that are of immediate interest to you. Folks ask questions all the time and other great people provide answers, and in that long list of posts out there, one or more will be questions you might have. So you'll click on them, read the posts and the answers and then move on to the next post of interest. That's how innocently it starts. Soon you are spotting the same names in the posts consistently and thinking, "Wow, he/she really knows what he/she is doing! I'm gonna pay close attention to this person." or "This person is a hoot!" Then you'll find you have a few favorites - folks you can always count on for a smile or a thought-provoking comment. But the best part is when you see a question and suddenly you realize you KNOW the answer and can help! That's what I refer to as the "ooh ooh me me" moment. Remember that from school, when the teacher asked a question and you waved your hand so frantically that your backside came up off the desk in your enthusiasm to be show what you know?
It is at that point, my new friend, where you're hooked! I know - that was me. I had a life once.
Then I got a few chickens and had a few questions. I found BYC and I read and I learned, and I got confused then straightened back out, and I learned so much. Then I found some social forums to peruse and enjoy, just for fun. My couple of hours a week on here turned into a couple of hours a day. Things got turned upside down somewhere along the line and I was begrudgingly setting aside a couple of hours a day for the mundane things....housework, yard work, laundry, meals.....while the rest of my time was sitting right here.
I even resented bedtime because when I was sleeping I wasn't clicking.
Yep, we're sorry. Well, not really....we're actually glad to have you aboard and although you'll find a few stinkers in your travels, (I've even been known to be one on occasion) for the most part the people on here are very nice. My best piece of advice to you? Get a soft cushion for your computer chair.
x2 on everything @Blooie just said! There's a double threat with raising poultry...you get hooked on the little beasts plus you get hooked to BYC! It's ok though, because we're a mutually supportive bunch (except maybe when we're encouraging the chicken addiction thing). Then again, most your friends and relatives will think you've gone completely starkers because all you can talk about is chickens and show them thousands of pictures of your birds (forget the kids, they're on their own). We're here for you, we understand.
A lot of my conversations have "Guess what my chickens did today!" in them. Not many people talk about chickens in the neighborhood, so I'm glad I found backyardchickens.com.