I've been on BYC for over a year. I never got my trophy points though for "Introduce Yourself" so here's my intro (possibly for the second time).
I am a father and husband with a growing family living in suburban Chicagoland on just a 1/3 acre lot. Backyard chickens is exactly what we have, not a farm nor acreage of land.
We started out with 5 chicks in 2018. We now have 8 chickens, 3 ducks, an ever changing flock of quail, and 4 turkeys. It's crazy how addictive birds can become...
Chickens: 1x Speckled Sussex (Bear), 1x Gold Laced Wyandotte (Goldie), 1x Cuckoo Marans (A'hole), 2x Light Brahma (Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb), 1x Cornish Cross (no name. in the brooder still), 1x Blue Silver Laced Orpington (Duchess) and 1x Lavender Orpington (Princess)
Ducks: 3x Rouen. They are 4 weeks old and still in their brooder.
Quail: currently 13x Jumbo Brown Coturnix and 1x rescued unknown (looks like a Coturnix of some kind though). used to have more Jumbo Browns and ~2 dozen TX A&Ms... they went to freezer camp. The quail are my little project. I'm hoping to breed them. They just started laying eggs in the past week.
Turkeys: 2 white and 2 brown heritage mix. The tom is a Sweet Grass I'm told and the hens may be part Narragansett. They are still in the brooder for now and only about 3-4 weeks old.
We have built our coop and run twice. The first coop was just too hard to maintain. It was only 4ft tall inside. We ended up tearing it down and building a new coop into our existing shed. The shed happened to be in the opposite corner of our yard, so we tore down the run fencing and repurposed it to fence in a new run around the shed, which is an L shaped run and is 240 sqft.
That shed is conveniently located next to an ornamental pond I put in last year stocked with some koi and goldfish. That pond is going to serve as a playground for our 3 ducks soon once they are big enough. I feel like the fish are big enough to avoid being eaten. The pond is 1500 gallons, which I'm hoping is large avoid being turned into a mud hole by the ducks. The duck run is 15'x15' (180 sqft) in total, with the 5'x10' pond in it.
In case you are wondering, the turkeys will be housed with the chickens and are currently in a brooder built into the chicken coop (The brooder was actually built to be the duck house but serves as the brooder until the turkeys are big enough. The ducks will be ready to leave their own brooder just in time.)
The quail have their own housing, a raised 8'x3' cage made of hardware cloth, lumber and a clear poly roof (for plenty of natural lighting and rain protection).
We enjoy our little slice of paradise, although I didn't ever think paradise would be so much work...
I am a father and husband with a growing family living in suburban Chicagoland on just a 1/3 acre lot. Backyard chickens is exactly what we have, not a farm nor acreage of land.
We started out with 5 chicks in 2018. We now have 8 chickens, 3 ducks, an ever changing flock of quail, and 4 turkeys. It's crazy how addictive birds can become...
Chickens: 1x Speckled Sussex (Bear), 1x Gold Laced Wyandotte (Goldie), 1x Cuckoo Marans (A'hole), 2x Light Brahma (Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb), 1x Cornish Cross (no name. in the brooder still), 1x Blue Silver Laced Orpington (Duchess) and 1x Lavender Orpington (Princess)
Ducks: 3x Rouen. They are 4 weeks old and still in their brooder.
Quail: currently 13x Jumbo Brown Coturnix and 1x rescued unknown (looks like a Coturnix of some kind though). used to have more Jumbo Browns and ~2 dozen TX A&Ms... they went to freezer camp. The quail are my little project. I'm hoping to breed them. They just started laying eggs in the past week.
Turkeys: 2 white and 2 brown heritage mix. The tom is a Sweet Grass I'm told and the hens may be part Narragansett. They are still in the brooder for now and only about 3-4 weeks old.
We have built our coop and run twice. The first coop was just too hard to maintain. It was only 4ft tall inside. We ended up tearing it down and building a new coop into our existing shed. The shed happened to be in the opposite corner of our yard, so we tore down the run fencing and repurposed it to fence in a new run around the shed, which is an L shaped run and is 240 sqft.
That shed is conveniently located next to an ornamental pond I put in last year stocked with some koi and goldfish. That pond is going to serve as a playground for our 3 ducks soon once they are big enough. I feel like the fish are big enough to avoid being eaten. The pond is 1500 gallons, which I'm hoping is large avoid being turned into a mud hole by the ducks. The duck run is 15'x15' (180 sqft) in total, with the 5'x10' pond in it.
In case you are wondering, the turkeys will be housed with the chickens and are currently in a brooder built into the chicken coop (The brooder was actually built to be the duck house but serves as the brooder until the turkeys are big enough. The ducks will be ready to leave their own brooder just in time.)
The quail have their own housing, a raised 8'x3' cage made of hardware cloth, lumber and a clear poly roof (for plenty of natural lighting and rain protection).
We enjoy our little slice of paradise, although I didn't ever think paradise would be so much work...
Welcome!
Nice to have you here!
