Just all around new to chickens/Hens/Eggs

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MossyOaks said:
Hello, I am new to chickens, we got 6 pullets in March.
We went with the mandatory 6 chicks from our local feed store. I was very nervous about having what I felt was a lot to start.

We started out with 3 Rhode Island's, 2 Australorp, and 1 Leghorn White.. Sadly the leghorn became very smelly (like rotten store bought chicken) now some may not agree with the choice we made, but I decided in the beginning I was not going to use antibiotics/hormones or any feed that was not non GMO. Yes I may sound picky but the whole reason of raising hens for eggs is to bypass all of this same stuff. We decided to put this leghorn down, she had a respiratory illness that even after treatment would still have been passed on to the other hens. And yes this site helped me in this process...

Thanks to a fast google search I found this site and it was very helpful for me to determine the illness of our leghorn and many other questions that have and will come up.

Basically our family lives in northeast rural Nebraska, I love being outside, and spring and summer gives me plenty of outside time. It's the winters that keep us inside "unless we are moving snow". We go camping and also have a Blue healer Named Pepper, and yes a Chihuahua named Willy. 3 kids two boys 18 and the other boy will be 14 in November. And a girl who is 12.
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Nice to meet you from northeast Nebraska.....I am from Southwestern Nebraska...I have had chickens for many years and love the hobby...I have one daughter and grandson that loves my chickens....My grandson loves to come out to grandma's and play with the chickens and ducks...You have made a good choice of chickens to start with...The RIR are very hardy for winter weather....just main thing to keep in mind is to keep them warm in the winter...I dont really like to feed my birds that medicated food either because i got them to not have all that chemicals in their eggs...
 
Amanda McCleary said:
Nice to meet you from northeast Nebraska.....I am from Southwestern Nebraska...I have had chickens for many years and love the hobby...I have one daughter and grandson that loves my chickens....My grandson loves to come out to grandma's and play with the chickens and ducks...You have made a good choice of chickens to start with...The RIR are very hardy for winter weather....just main thing to keep in mind is to keep them warm in the winter...I dont really like to feed my birds that medicated food either because i got them to not have all that chemicals in their eggs...
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Thank you for the warm welcome! But may I ask, for some pictures of you winter coop? And some tips on keeping them nice and warm for this coming winter? We have heat lamps, and a very old chicken barn that we have not been using. We purchased a coop-in-a-box. And while it is perfect for the summer months. We are going to work on the very old chicken barn that has been unused for 50 years or so. The floor is dirt/mud as it stays damp even in the hot summer days. My biggest problem with using this older structure keeping the predators/Blue Heeler dog out. This structure was designed for chickens it has nesting boxes and many other things inside still that have been being used by anything from spiders to farm cats. Any tips would be helpful.. I will get some photos of this barn and post them here for some advice. Thank you so much.. And as always it's great to talk to with someone who lives with the same climate as we have. Nebraska is my home now, and the extreme weather we have can most definitely cause issues.
 

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