My 1st attempt at chickens. Help, please! :-)

[JanetMarie]

Some of my hens will only lay their eggs in a certain size clay flower pot.

 

[chickamy]

I would order sexed chicks - or you may end up butchering more than half.

 

[TXmama4boys]

Thank you all so much for your input!

I feel like I am over eager and was hoping someone would give me a little guidance. I am wanting to mix my chicks. I was thinking of bantams, sexlinks, Americans, barred rock and white leg horns. Are all of these okay to mix? I want variety. I feel like the little girl on Willy Wonka.... I want the world! So, please talk some logic into me before I do something that will sour.

 

[lazy gardener]

TXMama: I'd leave the bantams out of the mix. Also not get any birds with a "top hat". If your coop has plenty of room, you should be ok with the rest. The biggest mistake new chicken owners make is buying the cute little coop that the manufacturer says "will comfortably hold 6 - 8 chickens". The manufacturer is trying to sell you a coop which is way over priced and way undersized for the size of flock they are indicating.

 

[TXmama4boys]

Thank you. Our coop is about 12 ft by 10 ft. About 8 feet tall. Will leave bantams out. Appreciate your input.

 

[lazy gardener]

Your coop is plenty big enough. Enjoy your flock!

 

[Free Feather]

Why no bantams?

 

[pdirt]

I haven't tried a "bachelor coop". Well we did do that, but they were still young and hadn't developed full hormones yet, so they weren't aggressive. One guy in Hawai'i said that a bachelor coop next door to the hens will work for juvenile roosters but not for full-fledged hormone-raging ones. He said if the adults could either see or HEAR the hens, they got aggressive with each other. He had enough space to place his bachelor coop far, far away from the hens and he said he had several full-adult roosters getting along fine.

Now that is just one account I have read about that, not having tried it myself. I don't know if that is more common knowledge than I am letting on. I suppose it also depends upon the roosters. We've had several roosters and some were just plain mean, even as youngsters. These ones went into the freezer first. Others are more gentle. Two of our roosters have attacked my wife, not hard, but hard enough she didn't want them to make a habit of it. So she gave them the "love treatment" in which she cuddled each of them for a good 5-10 minutes, held on to them firmly but kindly. They never attacked her again!

If you're not averse to butchering them if the bachelor pad doesn't work out, that's a good route to go. Re-homing them is often not that easy. Lots of folks end up with roosters they don't want, don't want to butcher and try to find them homes...and so is everyone and their brother. If you put out a classified of "Free rooster to good home", know that most of the time, whoever comes to get the rooster will be making room for the rooster in the home of their stomach!

This all brings up a good thing to think about...do you want your chickens to be pets or a source of food? We love our chickens, but made it quite clear to ourselves that they are not our pets. It makes it so much easier when we need to cull the flock for whatever reason.

Using the buckets as nest boxes sounds like a good idea! Since it can get hot (and humid?) in your parts, you might consider drilling some vent holes in the bucket for air circulation. If you can get lids with the buckets, cut the lid to about 1/3 it's original size and snap it on the bucket. It will help keep your bedding from getting kicked out every day. You could then unsnap the partial lid for easy cleaning of the nest "box".

 

[TXmama4boys]

Thank you so much for your input! To answer your question, we are NOT keeping them as pets, we will very much enjoy raising them, eating their eggs and cooking them for some din. I come from a long line of people who ate off their land and raised lots of yummy animals. It skipped a generation.... so my husband and I are trying to get back to our roots.

 

[TXmama4boys]

I found a stash of plastic storage bins that we already had on hand. I found a great video on how to turn them into nesting boxes! Can't wait to try it out!