Jumping into it now (chickens)

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wyoDreamer said:
To decide if you buy or build, evaluate your building skills. I think building your own is best, if you can. That is because you can build it to fit your situation and where you are going to put it. Being retired, you may be able to find the time to build a really nice coop.

Build bigger than you think you need. Chicken math is real!

Where are you located? A look at your climate will determine what kind of coop you need and how big. I live in northeastern Wisconsin, so my coop needs to be big enough to handle the birds staying inside all day during snow storms. I found out it isn't, lol. They start to pick at each other after 2 days of being "cooped " up ... we had three days of snowfall and another day before I could clear out enough to let them out. 4' snow banks in April is not fun!
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WOW! We are on the east coast of North Carolina. Right between Wilmington NC and Myrtle Beach SC. So snow is not a issue in the winter but we do get ice storms sometimes. Winters are pretty mild. After living in Connecticut all my life, winters here are a cake walk to us! LOL

Thank you for your help! I'll keep my adventures with these birds updated!
 
New2Chicks97 said:
If you can build a coop skills wise then you should as a previous poster mentioned it will suit your space and needs exactly this way.

We bought a coop kit at TSC & while it has worked ok it definitely isn’t route I would choose if I were to do it again. We just didn’t have the time this spring as my husband was working a lot of over time. Wish I would have pushed for a garden shed with a run instead.

I have always bought Purina food. Chick/starter food then switched to layer feed when they started laying. Mine also free range for several hours so they get lots of fresh bugs and greens too.

What breeds are you thinking of? We went for a variety Buff Orpington, Silver Laced Wyandottes, Gold & Black Sexlinks, Easter Eggers & an adopted Favaucana. We liked the variety of bird coloring as well as the egg coloring (blue, blue-green, light tan, terra cotta brown).

Good luck with your coop & choosing your chicks. I hope you share your journey!
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Thanks!
 
Egg shaped welcome.jpg

Congratulations on retiring!

Chickens will be a good hobby for you
 
Congrats on your retirement! 4 birds is a perfect number as long as you eat a lot of eggs. You will easily get 3-4 a day in the height of summer.

A 4x4 chicken coop is easy enough to build out of a simple 2x4 frame and 1/4" plywood walls and will hold 3-5 chickens comfortably. I built my 4x4 coop to be 3' high in the front 30" in the back and it was just a big box with a guillotine style pop door in the front, two nest boxes and a vent on one side and a simple man door on the other side. A couple more latches on the door and it would have lasted me a decade or more. I had only built one other thing before in my whole life, I owned my first power tools for about 3 months before the project, I drew the sketches and built it almost entirely on my own. I slapped a tarp over the roof and called it a day.

However, by the time you are 2-5 years in, if you still like the hobby you will likely want more than 5 chickens. And a 4x4 coop won't support that, though your 4x4 coop might still be plenty structurally sound at that point. So you may want to consider going bigger.
As a rule of thumb, you may want to plan for 4sqft of indoor space per bird and 10-20sqft outside per bird. Go ahead and still start with a smaller number of chickens, you can even start with a smallish coop, but remember that your needs will likely expand! Also, the bigger you build, the more you can fudge the 4sqft/per bird numbers because the less space the chickens will actively use. 4 square feet gives each chicken enough space to walk comfortably in a circle, stretch, or flap it's wings without bumping into another bird. But the more birds you have, the less likely the birds are to be all flapping/stretching at once for example and additionally they are flock animals that stick close together. So while 8sqft for 2 birds is critical because they will probably want to move at the same time and this gives them space to, 16 chickens in an 8'x8' coop will likely leave a lot of unused space simply because they won't all be moving away from one another at once.

If you are not very handy or don't own any tools, it may be best to retrofit a shed into a large coop, or purchase a prefab coop. Bear in mind that prefabs almost always list incorrect numbers for appropriate chicken keeping. Always check the square feet of the coop by multiplying the floor space. This Coop for example advertises itself as good for up to 10 chickens, but the "pen" area is only 8x4, and the coop itself looks to be about 4'x4' - or half the size you'd want for 8-10 chickens!

As for food, most people feed a simple 16% protein layer feed. Most brands are good. Many people have custom mixed diets, fermented feed, or other things... But a complete bagged name-brand diet is hard to go wrong with. If you want to keep a rooster, you may want to consider offering an all-flock diet instead and free-choice oyster shell for the rooster's long term health.

Don't forget to check your local city ordinances and chicken laws for your area!

Good luck and have fun!
 

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