incoming, incoming!

[estamets]

Hey everyone,

My husband and I are super excited to start our urban fowl family. We've got four chicks on the way: Easter Egger, Welsummer, Speckled Sussex, Partridge Rock (all chosen for laying abilities, heat hardiness, and docility). They should be arriving a week from today, and I'll update here if any don't make the trip.

Right now, our biggest question is about the run. We live in urban Southern California, and have a sizable backyard for our area (about 40' x 60'). We've got a small pre-fab coop with an itty-bitty run space that is simply not adequate for MY girls. The coop is currently hanging out in a nice shady spot underneath some beautiful trees, and we're deciding between
1. building a 10' x 20' fully enclosed run (but how to build the top around those tree trunks???) and
2. simply predator-proofing the heck out of the coop and letting them free-range. Our yard is enclosed and safe (except for the infrequent overhead predator), but we do have skunks and opossums in the neighborhood. Will we be home every evening to close the coop? And if we're an hour or two late, how much will it matter in our area with no roaming dogs, foxes, or coyotes?

Any advice is appreciated. Happy to be here!

 

[TwoCrows]

Welcome to BYC!

Love your subject line. LOL

Cute coop! Around here, our skunks are out at dusk. So you might need to keep your birds confined during the day if you are not at home. Depends on when your critters start to prowl.

As for enclosing the trees in, depends on what you plan on using as a roof. You will have to incorporate the roof around the trees somehow. You can post this question in our Coop and Run Construction for more input on this issue...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/9/coop-run-design-construction-maintenance

Good luck with all these new projects! Enjoy your new flock and welcome to ours!

 

[SummerSaige]

What a cute coop! I'm sure your chickens will love it!

 

[estamets]

Around here, our skunks are out at dusk. So you might need to keep your birds confined during the day if you are not at home. Depends on when your critters start to prowl.

Two days ago, there was a skunk walking through our backyard at 8am - broad daylight, bold as brass! I've got some coyote pee on order... if nothing else, I want him to stop digging in our yard.

 

[estamets]

What a cute coop! I'm sure your chickens will love it!

Thanks! It's the Clubhouse coop from My Pet Chicken. We decided to go with a pre-fab instead of building one ourselves... but now we're facing the prospect of designing and building the run. Luckily, we're handy people, we just have some figgerin' out to do.

Maybe we should wait until they're out and about, to see what our natural patterns end up being, before we decided on the run design. I've got the whole summer to spend at home with the girls, so they'll be able to free range most of the time until we get ourselves settled into a routine.

We had a chicken when I was in high school (a Biology lab leftover that I brought home in 9th grade), and she just wandered about the neighborhood, then scratched at the front door every night, when we would let her in to sleep in her parrot cage by the front door. We kept it super simple, so it makes me feel a little silly putting so much effort into this now!

 

[Kelsie2290]

Hello and Welcome To BYC! Pretty coop, and sounds like you will have a cute little coop. You've gotten some good advice and links above, if you can post pictures of the prospective run spot, it may help people make suggestions, good luck with the run construction.

 

[gander007]

 

[estamets]

All four girls arrived happily peeping today at 11 a.m. I can't tell the Welsummer from the Speckled Sussex, but one of those two is much bigger and/or fluffier than the other. The partridge rock is the smallest and sassiest of the bunch. The Easter Egger is chipmunk patterned, and her tiny wing feathers are gold/buff with dark grey tips.

They are all unbelievably cute.

I started them on fresh coconut water (actually from a coconut, not packaged) for an hour, then introduced the chick feed; they also had fresh water available, but have ignored it except as a fun toy to walk through. They are peeping around happily, walking through their water dishes, falling asleep on their feet, and stepping on one another as often as possible.

I'm the luckiest chicken mom EVAR!

 

[jeepguy982001]

congrats on the new arrivals.

 

[liz9910]

Welcome to BYC! I got my first flock from MPC too.