My First Time Raising Chickens

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smahlst said:
Many thanks!! I love talking about gardening and homesteading, too. It would be fun to post some pics I have about our little homestead. Is it common for members to post topics about their own projects, and not directly related to chickens?
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Absolutely! If you scroll through the forums, you'll see a variety of topics including gardening and self-sufficiency.
 
smahlst said:
Is it common for members to post topics about their own projects, and not directly related to chickens?
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There are many, many topics not specifically related to chickens on this forum. That's what keeps me interested in the BYC forums after 3 years. I don't have many questions about raising chickens anymore, but I learn all kinds of things about gardening and other topics we hit on these forums.

I would think your homesteading projects could fit in a number of different sub-topic forums, but the Random Ramblings sub forum is a catch all for lots of things. The moderators on BYC forum are also very good, and will move a thread to a more appropriate sub-forum if needed. So, post away!
 
Hello, Steve and Cassie, and welcome to BYC! :wee
Your introduction was absolutely delightful, and I can tell you're going to fit right in! I'm so sorry about the loss of your first chicks :hugs So glad to hear that the other ones are doing great, though! I look forward to hearing more about your homesteading adventures!
Make yourself at home in this amazing community!
 
smahlst said:
Hello Backyard Chickens community. My name is Steve. My wife Cassie and I are brand new to raising chickens and we're hoping to we can get to know some of you and learn from your experiences. Here's some quick background on our lifestyle and our experience thus far with chicks:

We live in a cabin in a rural area of West Virginia on a small mountain where we own 55 acres of land. The land is all wooded and fairly steep and rocky, so we recently purchased 5 acres of open land about 4 miles away from the our place on the mountain to give us more gardening and livestock options. We've been working for the past 6 months to convert what was an open field into a modest homestead. We purchased an off-grid tiny house, had an 800-foot gravel driveway and culvert put in, as well as a septic tank and leech field, and we have been building out the rest of our infrastructure ever since, including a deck around the tiny house, a 600-gallon rain cache, a 3-bin compost station, a 5700-square-foot fenced-in garden area with around 450-square-feet of raised bed area, a small orchard and some walnut trees, and I'm currently building our chicken coop and run. Our tiny house has a 3kW solar system, but my next project is to build a small generator house that can also be used to power our tiny if needed, and will power a well pump and some other utilities. We plan to have a well drilled this summer.

As far as hobbies and interests outside of gardening and (hopefully) raising chickens, I collect vinyl records and spend a lot of time listening to them on my hi-fi, and I play drums and play whenever I get the opportunity to do so without annoying Cassie. I also built a small water garden a couple of years ago, which is home to lots of water plants, some comet-tailed goldfish and frogs and other critters like a water snake. We even had some other species of fish mysteriously appear last summer, which blows my mind. I suppose birds transported their eggs inadvertently...or something like that??? Anyhow, Cassie and I spent a lot of time sitting on a bench that looks over the water garden. It's a very peaceful place for us.

We recently tried our hand at raising 6 Rhode Island Red mail-ordered chicks that were shipped from Iowa, but it didn't go well at all and we lost all 6 chickens within 48 hours. We think Iowa was just too far away, being that they were mailed late in the day on a Tuesday and didn't arrive at our post office until Friday morning. Two were just about dead in the box and died shortly after we put them in the brooder, and the other four perished soon after. They were all weak and had trouble standing. Two of them seemed to be getting some energy after drinking and eating, and we assumed they would make it, but they died in the night. We have several theories as to what went wrong, but no need to get into that in my introduction.

This week we just received 8 chicks from a hatchery that is only one state over, and we received them within 24 hours of being shipped and they were all full of energy. They all seem to be doing well so far after 3 days. Well, one of them keeps getting pasty butt and is picking at its own feathers. That will probably be the topic of my first post here or my first forum search. The breeds we have now are 3 Lavender Orpingtons, 3 Welsummers and 2 Blue Orpingtons. Our current brooder setup consists of a 65-gallon storage tote with a K&H brooder plate. We have a 48-inch diameter puppy playpen arriving next week, and that will serve as the second stage brooder when the chicks outgrow the storage tote, which won't be long by the looks of things.

I look forward to participating in this community and getting to know some of you. Cheers!

-Steve
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Oh how exciting an adventure you guys are on. Chickens would be a great asset for you . I'm glad you're here and really glad your chicks made it so far.Do you have predators in those woods? I would find that for sure so coop can be predator proofed ahead of time. Anyway welcome here .
 

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