New Chicken “Mom”

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ANativeOfTexas said:
Hi. I am Jill. My husband and I recently acquired our first baby chicks.

Hubby and son built a coop and our girls are thriving.

We started with six pullets in early March, and added six more two weeks later. They were in separate brooding boxes, but are co-existing very well together in their coop.

We have four Partridge Rocks, one Leghorn — we thought we were buying two, but the second looks exactly like our three Gold Sex Links. We also have three Easter Eggers. So we have a total of 12.

We live in South Texas. We bought our home in September 2020, and moved from the city to the country. Our farmhouse was built in 1910. It sits on just under six and a half acres.

Our house came with two 10-year old miniature horses. In late January, we added two baby Nigerian Dwarf goats.

I am happy I found y’all.
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I'm glad you are here too. It's great getting out of city esp. nowadays! You will love you chickens and yes ask the wise folks here they're great.
 
Thank y’all for the welcome(s)! It will take me a minute to learn how to navigate this forum.

We left my hometown of Corpus Christi, and moved to Refugio County in 2020. I am probably repeating myself. I’m old. Haha!

I have relatives who have been chicken keeping for years. I was hesitant because of the commitment, but hubby (“Bill” — “Billy” to everyone who’s known him since 1981 or longer) has been itching to get chickens.

We were in my favorite store in early March — Tractor Supply— and I could not ignore those cute fluff balls any longer. On a whim, we grabbed six. Having no idea what pullets or straight run meant, the nice lady at TSC schooled us a little. She was actually super helpful and kind and didn’t make us feel like dummies.

Billy was adamant that he doesn’t want a rooster so we selected from the only pullets available, leghorn — which I had read a little about — and Partridge Rock. We chose two Leghorns and four Partridge Rock.

We bought the starter feed, bedding straw stuff, feeders and water bottles and off we went. I still have a lot to learn in not only their care but the lingo.

We have an enclosed back porch and put them in a plastic storage container, along with their bedding stuff, food and two bottles of water. One with electrolytes and probiotics as recommended by TSC. Billy made a chicken wire lid for the babies’ brooding box so they couldn’t get out once big enough.

As it happened, we weren’t finished with winter yet so we hooked up the warming light and googled the correct temps for these cuties. We estimated their age since no one at TSC could say for sure.

I handled the babies often because I am secretly afraid of birds and wanted to get used to them before they got too big. I am over that fear with these girls, I am happy to say.

Anyway, two weeks later we returned to TSC and they had a brand new batch of chicks and I wanted more! Ha! So we bought three Gold Sexlink and three Easter Eggers.

We had no coop! I have a cousin who builds what I refer to as designer coops but my husband insisted he wanted to build our coop. So he and our oldest son got busy building. We felt like we were racing the clock because our first batch were getting super crowded.

The coop is not finished but it is structurally sound so we placed the older girls in it. A week later we added our second six.

So far they are thriving. I will attach photos and videos later when I have time.

Thanks for having me.

Jill
 

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