Hi, my name is Cheri G. and I'm on the outskirts of the Capital City in Central Missouri.
This is my official introduction.
(1) Are you new to chickens / when did you first get chickens?
I'm not totally brand new to chickens since I had some back in grade school. My Dad had some white chickens (Leghorns?) and one year in 4H I tried to raise some White Crested Black Polish but the "normal" chickens were jealous of the fancy crest on the Polish that they plucked out the white feathers and gave me bald Polish.
Needless to say, I didn't try showing them at the fair! Dad didn't keep any roos so he hired some Amish folk to butcher them (I remember once plucking lots of feathers but I imagine there were too many for us).
So anyway it's now 30 years later and my boys see the baby chicks at Tractor Supply, (they've tried for years to get me to agree to the drawing held at school for the egg hatching project the kindergartners/first graders do) and I somewhat impulsively relented because who can refuse the fluffy babies when you see them in person. (I didn't think it thru...building a coop $$$, and run $$$, and constantly feeding them $$$ and having to keep them during the winter (I hate the cold and I'm the one that's going to have to go out in the winter to make sure the water isn't frozen - or the chickens!). )
I got my first 6 chicks at Tractor Supply the day before Easter this year, then found the Barred Rocks & Bantams at Orscheln's about 4 days later. Checking on CraigsList got me the Easter Eggers (I wouldn't have known what that breed was if it wasn't for BYC.
(2) How many chickens do you have right now?
Right now...12 full size chickens that are mine; 4 bantams that are suppose to be for the kids. I've been reading about incubating and hatching and it makes me want to try that but I'll have to isolate my roo with the correct hens to continue with BRs and EEs. If I can't find another EE pullet, I may dispose of the 2 male EE's and try again next year with my own hatchery breed choice instead of taking what ever the feed store/Tractor Supply/Orscheln's has. The EEs I have are pretty but I don't want rooster fights and I don't want to feed a bunch of boys all winter so we'll have to see how the final count ends up. The coop is an 8x8 so I should be able to keep 16 chickens but then I ought to subtract the roost area, nest box area and feed storage area so that means I should only keep 12 chickens. We might also try breeding the bantams. They will already be in a separate area from the big girls.
(3) What breeds do you have?
2 Rhode Island Red (I think - the bins were mixed up so they could be NHR), 4 Red Sex Link (one of which came from the pullet bin that the RIR also came from - while the other 3 came from the straight run RIR bin), 4 Barred Rock (3 pullets, 1 cockerel), and 4 Bantams (3 booted, 1 OEGB - all pullets except one booted bantam). I bought a couple of weeks ago a couple of Easter Eggers that I hoped were female but have been told by smarter people that they are cockerels (one of them I'm starting to see the body color change, but the older one I still don't so I'm still hoping female).
(4) How did you find out about BackYardChickens.com?
Google search for information...I think it was originally for coop design/photos but found so much more available here that I've decided to stay.
(5) What are some of your other hobbies?
Reading (horse stories, Pre-historical, and Romance), Scrapbooking & Cardmaking, Sewing & Crocheting (back burner hobbies right now) and blogging my creations at Creations by Cheri
I've also dabbled in beading, cross stitching, Sign Language, (I'm sure there's others but I'm not coming up with them right now - I also suffer from brain-overload-memory-loss (my unofficial diagnosis) sometimes and can't find the word(s) I want
)
I guess Scouting is also a hobby as well since I'm a leader in my youngest son's Cub Scout Pack but I'm counting the months (about 30) until he crosses over so I can reclaim some "me" time again.
(6) Tell us about your family, your other pets, your occupation, or anything else you'd like to share.
I'll share what I can since I work in a middle school and we tell the kids all the time about sharing too much information that can lead (bad) people to your exact location so I ought to 1) follow that advice too, and 2) I don't want anyone in employment to find me and take something I've said and use that as an excuse to not (re)hire me the following year (something else we've told the kids - that employers look online and see what you've posted and use that to determine your character so it's just easier to not "say" too much). I'm an aide so I never truly know if I'm working until school starts again.
I do have two sons so I will protect their identities by not using their names (referred to as DS1 (new teenager - UGH!) and DS2 (age 8) and my husband - referred to as DH (the D stand for Dear so it's Dear Son and Dear Husband in case you don't know my shorthand). We've got 2 house cats and 1 outdoor cat that's a great mouser . I also have a tropical aquarium of little fish (9 Neon Tetras, 3 Golden Cloud Minnows, Catfish that reproduced and turned 3 into 20, a Zebra Danio, and a Chinese Algae Eater).
This is my official introduction.
(1) Are you new to chickens / when did you first get chickens?
I'm not totally brand new to chickens since I had some back in grade school. My Dad had some white chickens (Leghorns?) and one year in 4H I tried to raise some White Crested Black Polish but the "normal" chickens were jealous of the fancy crest on the Polish that they plucked out the white feathers and gave me bald Polish.
So anyway it's now 30 years later and my boys see the baby chicks at Tractor Supply, (they've tried for years to get me to agree to the drawing held at school for the egg hatching project the kindergartners/first graders do) and I somewhat impulsively relented because who can refuse the fluffy babies when you see them in person. (I didn't think it thru...building a coop $$$, and run $$$, and constantly feeding them $$$ and having to keep them during the winter (I hate the cold and I'm the one that's going to have to go out in the winter to make sure the water isn't frozen - or the chickens!). )
I got my first 6 chicks at Tractor Supply the day before Easter this year, then found the Barred Rocks & Bantams at Orscheln's about 4 days later. Checking on CraigsList got me the Easter Eggers (I wouldn't have known what that breed was if it wasn't for BYC.
(2) How many chickens do you have right now?
Right now...12 full size chickens that are mine; 4 bantams that are suppose to be for the kids. I've been reading about incubating and hatching and it makes me want to try that but I'll have to isolate my roo with the correct hens to continue with BRs and EEs. If I can't find another EE pullet, I may dispose of the 2 male EE's and try again next year with my own hatchery breed choice instead of taking what ever the feed store/Tractor Supply/Orscheln's has. The EEs I have are pretty but I don't want rooster fights and I don't want to feed a bunch of boys all winter so we'll have to see how the final count ends up. The coop is an 8x8 so I should be able to keep 16 chickens but then I ought to subtract the roost area, nest box area and feed storage area so that means I should only keep 12 chickens. We might also try breeding the bantams. They will already be in a separate area from the big girls.
(3) What breeds do you have?
2 Rhode Island Red (I think - the bins were mixed up so they could be NHR), 4 Red Sex Link (one of which came from the pullet bin that the RIR also came from - while the other 3 came from the straight run RIR bin), 4 Barred Rock (3 pullets, 1 cockerel), and 4 Bantams (3 booted, 1 OEGB - all pullets except one booted bantam). I bought a couple of weeks ago a couple of Easter Eggers that I hoped were female but have been told by smarter people that they are cockerels (one of them I'm starting to see the body color change, but the older one I still don't so I'm still hoping female).
(4) How did you find out about BackYardChickens.com?
Google search for information...I think it was originally for coop design/photos but found so much more available here that I've decided to stay.
(5) What are some of your other hobbies?
Reading (horse stories, Pre-historical, and Romance), Scrapbooking & Cardmaking, Sewing & Crocheting (back burner hobbies right now) and blogging my creations at Creations by Cheri
I've also dabbled in beading, cross stitching, Sign Language, (I'm sure there's others but I'm not coming up with them right now - I also suffer from brain-overload-memory-loss (my unofficial diagnosis) sometimes and can't find the word(s) I want
I guess Scouting is also a hobby as well since I'm a leader in my youngest son's Cub Scout Pack but I'm counting the months (about 30) until he crosses over so I can reclaim some "me" time again.
(6) Tell us about your family, your other pets, your occupation, or anything else you'd like to share.
I'll share what I can since I work in a middle school and we tell the kids all the time about sharing too much information that can lead (bad) people to your exact location so I ought to 1) follow that advice too, and 2) I don't want anyone in employment to find me and take something I've said and use that as an excuse to not (re)hire me the following year (something else we've told the kids - that employers look online and see what you've posted and use that to determine your character so it's just easier to not "say" too much). I'm an aide so I never truly know if I'm working until school starts again.
I do have two sons so I will protect their identities by not using their names (referred to as DS1 (new teenager - UGH!) and DS2 (age 8) and my husband - referred to as DH (the D stand for Dear so it's Dear Son and Dear Husband in case you don't know my shorthand). We've got 2 house cats and 1 outdoor cat that's a great mouser . I also have a tropical aquarium of little fish (9 Neon Tetras, 3 Golden Cloud Minnows, Catfish that reproduced and turned 3 into 20, a Zebra Danio, and a Chinese Algae Eater).
