My new babies

[mcrivelli]

I am a new Mommy to 8 baby chicks that are approximately 10 days old. This is my first time raising chickens and I have been doing my best to do things right. I have been listening to the Chicken Whisperer podcast and reading up on the proper way to raise chicks organically in a suburban setting without angering my neighbors. My babies consist of:

4 Ameraucanas
1 Delaware
1 Welsummer
1 Ancona
1 Maran

I am hoping the bulk of them turn out to be hens because my neighbors would not be appreciative to crowing roosters at all hours of the day and night. If any do happen to be roosters we will most likely process them for meat. I think this would be a great opportunity to teach the kids (13 & 15 yr olds) where there food comes from but am worried also that this opportunity may land them in many years of therapy. Any advise on this aspect would be greatly appreciated.


I call the babies little boogers because as soon as I change the bedding (aspen shavings) and give them fresh water and food they enjoy scratching around sending the shavings out the wire door of the large dog kennel that they are currently housed in onto my kitchen floor and into the food and water dishes. They are very messy.... I have a heat lamp propped up to the wire door giving them ample space to huddle closer to the lamp and also enough room to move away from the lamp if they choose to.

Next weekend we will be building the coop/run on the side of the house in a section of the yard that is not considered a high traffic area. Being that we live across the street from a river we realize the need to ensure that the coop and run are completely enclosed to protect the little boogers from predators such as osprey's, foxes, raccoons and hawks. Our intent is to build the coop from 75% recycled materials. We obtained a wooden shipping crate from Home Depot for free. These are the crates that the lawn tractors (John Deer riding lawn mowers) come in... the store near us breaks these down and throws them away so we asked if we could take it instead of them trashing it. They were more than happy for us to take it off their hands. We also have a neighbor who is replacing her wooden fence with a vinyl fence so we have asked her if we can have those materials as well. It looks like all we will need to buy is maybe some 2x4s to use as a frame for the run and the chicken wire. Can't get much better than that...

This is going to be a fun adventure!

Mary

 

[sn0wwhite]

That's a great idea to get the tractor boxes from Home Depot. I'll have to remember that when I move on to the coop upgrade. I'm new too (my baby chicks are on order and due Thursday) and I just went with a coop from Fleet Farm. The city I live in limits us to 4 hens.

Best wishes on your adventure!

 

[mcrivelli]

I'll be honest with you... I don't know if my county has a limit on how many chicks I can have. We live on 1/4 acre and have a fully fenced (privacy) back yard so the neighbors shouldn't see how many chickens we really have. The hatchery I bought them from suggested buying 50% more than we wanted because they aren't able to sex them at birth and can't guarantee that they will all be hens. The thought is we will either eat the males or we will sell them on Craig's List, in the end we are hoping to have no more than 6 hens.

 

[sn0wwhite]

I found a good section on here with a lot of the laws for various cities and states.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/37/local-chicken-laws-ordinances-and-how-to-change-them

You could check to see if there's anything there just to have an idea. I also googled my city, state and the word chicken and my city ordinance came right up.

Hopefully it's all legal for you. I can't wait to have fresh eggs, but I'm thinking that will be sometime in October.

 

[rachlore]

Your coop sounds amazing! It sounds as though you got very lucky in which to receive all this at one time. I simply bought a coop online. It is working perfectly but we had to alter it a bit to make sure it is mobile. We didn't like the style of the chicken tractors, so we, in a way, made our own. The Home Deport tractor boxes were a really good idea. It was smart to think of that.