Midwesterner on a 'Becoming more Midwest' journey

[Cornhusk4r]

Howdy y'all!

I'm thankful to be a part of the BYC community and I'm absolutely fired up to learn more about raising chickens. My wife and I have been wanting to start our backyard chicken journey for a couple of years now and I think we're finally ready to pull the trigger!

We're starting from absolute scratch with needing to get a coop, sourcing our chickens, and everything else when it comes to knowing how to care for them. I like to think of myself as handy, certainly capable of building a basic frame so I'm leaning towards the DIY route, but I've come across pre-built/assembly required options that tempt me to put my ego aside and save the time. I'm sure it won't be too difficult finding someone who knows where to get chickens in Nebraska, we'll consider that box checked. It's the learning how to that we're here for and any tips/suggestions would be appreciated!

Looking forward to this journey and I'll be updating the community with our progress!

Cornhusk4r

 

[Debbie292d]

Hiya, and welcome to BYC!

If you click the Article tab, you'll see the Learning Center on the left, and Coop forum on the right. There are tons of articles within each of those that might be helpful. Otherwise, to find chicks, I buy hatching eggs mostly but in the chicken/poultry groups for my state on Facebook I see lots of folks selling chicks, so might check there.

Check our Buy/Sell Forum too in case someone's got some close to you there.

You will get no one here to cheer you on to get a prebuilt. Please check the coop forum.

 

[chrissynemetz]

Welcome to BYC! It's nice to meet you!

 

[007Sean]

Howdy, and Welcome to Backyard Chickens.

Happy to have you here with us. Enjoy your time here at BYC!

Thanks for joining our community!

 

[DobieLover]

Hello and welcome to BYC! Glad you joined.

 

[N F C]

Hi, it's nice to meet you!

If you aren't interested in starting from scratch building a coop, a pre-built shed can be converted fairly easily. However you choose to create a coop, be sure to make it larger than you think you'll need...keeping chickens can be addictive and you might well end up with a larger flock than you are now planning for.

Goood luck!

 

[janiedoe]

Good morning, welcome to BYC!

 

[Bsmac]

Hello! Welcome to BYC! Have fun with your upcoming chicken adventure! I agree with NFC make the coup and run larger that you think you need! Around here we call it chicken math! Very easy to start out with 10 then all of a sudden 20 lol

 

[muddy75]

 

[sourland]

Welcome to BYC, and good luck establishing your flock. Build/buy a far larger coop than you think you will ever need.