new to all of this. hope i cover everthing on this site so you will know certain things about me and my small flock. my wife and i used to raise birds for sale till the market went south. we are retired OTR truck drivers with lots of time on our hands. so we decided to look at keeping some chickens for eggs for ourselfs and a few others. since we had a caged in place that we had for the birds i decided to turn it in to a coop for cks. after i found BYC on internet i built my coop with the help of things i found onBYC. i put nest boxs on the outside of cage for easy acces. 5' long w/ just one divider in middle. works fine. my water is from low presure nipple cups. my feeder is a copy of one that i got from BYC that sits outside to fill with feeder inside. at first they scattered feed all over the place till i closed the opening up so they can just get there heads in to feed. works fine no more mess and no more wasted feed. after coop was done i bought 6 RI REDS ready to lay and so they did. the very next day i had 4 eggs. that was on 4=11=2011. since then we get on avg. 4to 5 eggs a day. i can't say enough about how BYC has helped me get this started. THANKS AGAIN BYC. will try to post some pic. in the future. jack foley in spring hill fl.
Welcome Jack (and Jill?) to this wonderful site. Glad to hear it has already been helpful. This is where I learned sooooo much and with advice here, my daughter gifted me with two pullet Chinese Silkies for Christmas in 06! What a wonderful present! 'cept I didn't have a coop, pen or even feed! Luckily they came with feed and we put them in the empty rabbit cages from my daughter's show rabbit days! Glad I save everything! ha! I am in Grand Prairie Texas. Sounds like you save and repurpose stuff too and glad to hear that as well. Our little Silkies are near the end of their egg laying days, but we love them anyway. So exotic-looking, sweet and comical. You should watch them run! pretty funny--with little wings stuck out and feathered feet flapping. You named your girls? Of course we'd love to see pics of their new digs and their beauty.
THANKS 4 THE REPLYS. spring hill is about 40 mi. nw of tampa. we are on the water just west of brooksville fl. thanks again jack foley
