Lessons learned

[Chickengene]

What was the hardest lesson you were taught or had to learn in your first year of raising backyard chickens?
I have been very blessed so mine was learning that giving them snacks everytime they came around wanting it, was probably not really helping either of us.

 

[Acre4Me]

That the first egg is expensive! That a coop built from scratch takes 5x longer to build than expected.

 

[Chickengene]

That the first egg is expensive! That a coop built from scratch takes 5x longer to build than expected.

Are you able to free range your chickens? I was beginning to think the price of farm fresh eggs were going to be outrageous, till I started letting the girls free range. Immediately cut my feed consumption about 75%.

 

[Mybackyardpeepers]

Happy Easter!
My hardest lesson was how to stop crying after loosing your very first (in my case two at once) chick!

 

[Acre4Me]

Are you able to free range your chickens? I was beginning to think the price of farm fresh eggs were going to be outrageous, till I started letting the girls free range. Immediately cut my feed consumption about 75%.

LOL! feed is cheap compared to the cost of the coop build! And we didn't do anything fancy, but did buy new materials for the coop (elevated) and associated deck and stairs.

The run is pretty big, and we do let them out to free range in the yard, but since we don't have a fence up to contain them (outside of the run), we only do supervised free range out of respect for the neighbors - none of whom have fences.

 

[Roo5]

Rooster issues.When I was a young kid I wanna we told to separate both of them (Father and son situation )Things has got tensed Over the past weeks and they begun fighting and one morning when I released them form coop I ran inside without separating the two birds and came back to the son with both his eyes spurred out and a sprained neck,I needed up having to shoot him myself, lesson learned.

 

[Chickengene]

LOL! feed is cheap compared to the cost of the coop build! And we didn't do anything fancy, but did buy new materials for the coop (elevated) and associated deck and stairs.

The run is pretty big, and we do let them out to free range in the yard, but since we don't have a fence up to contain them (outside of the run), we only do supervised free range out of respect for the neighbors - none of whom have fences.

Yeah I am blessed. I am surrounded on two sides by pasture and woods to the rear.

 

[Chickengene]

Rooster issues.When I was a young kid I wanna we told to separate both of them (Father and son situation )Things has got tensed Over the past weeks and they begun fighting and one morning when I released them form coop I ran inside without separating the two birds and came back to the son with both his eyes spurred out and a sprained neck,I needed up having to shoot him myself, lesson learned.

How do I "unlike" that one?

 

[Rooster_Tyranny]

You can't have all the breeds you want.

If a chicken jumps out of the run they'll likely do it again. One dead chicken later...