Greetings to all! I am Linnae, a retired educator who lives with spouse (of 41 years) on 30 acres in south-est, central-est Wisconsin. I had experience with chickens as a child on Aunt Claris' farm and when I purchased 100 leghorn cockerels about 25 years ago. Ended up with lots of processed roos for the family - canned and in freezers - as well as about 13 hens that I kept for eggs.
After a couple of years the storage shed that housed my coop was torn down and the 'girls' moved into a small building we shared with the neighbors (right on the property line). There, a raccoon got to the chickens just before Bwana dispatched the 'coon. No more farm animals until I retired!
This May I adopted 12 day-old chicks. . . Australorps (5 hens and 1 roo) and Light Brahmas (5 hens and 1 roo). They started out in the sun room, then moved into the nearly built garden shed. By the time the chicks were ready to outgrow their pen in the shed, HE-WHO-IS-WONDERFUL dismantled the outgrown sandbox as a base for a chicken coop. Together we built a coop on the sandbox form using odds and ends of materials. The chickens now have a beautiful, fully insulated 8 X 8 ft coop!
They spent the summer free-ranging, but now that the weather is cooling and the eggs have started coming, I keep them in the coop and small play yard until late in the day, when I let them range for a few hours. MOST-WONDERFUL-SPOUSE and I buried electrical wires to the garden shed and ran an extension cord to the coop for light. Just collected the first egg Sunday (Oct. 30), 2 on Monday, and 4 today.
At 63, I have 2 children and 6 grandchildren (17 YO to 8 YO). I continue to teach as a sub but only from the end of gardening in the fall to the beginning of gardening in the spring. I also build houses with Habitat for Humanity -- 6 all-woman builds so far. The HFH builds are my idea of fun -- pure and simple!
My youngest grandchildren, Maverick (age 10) and Gypsy (age 8) live in a nearby city and get off the schoolbus at our place every day. Gypsy could easily live by foraging on the property - she eats just about everything green and growing; while Maverick is my biggest helper with the gardens and chickens. He wants to raise chickens this year for 4-H. As he sees it, the coop is way too small already. It seems we should have consulted him before it was built. SIGH!
We have lots of questions as we learn about and work with our "girls" and "boys". Maverick found the BYC site for me when he was researching chicken breeds.
Love, Linn B (aka Smart Red) Zone 5a - 4b in south-est, central-est Wisconsin
After a couple of years the storage shed that housed my coop was torn down and the 'girls' moved into a small building we shared with the neighbors (right on the property line). There, a raccoon got to the chickens just before Bwana dispatched the 'coon. No more farm animals until I retired!
This May I adopted 12 day-old chicks. . . Australorps (5 hens and 1 roo) and Light Brahmas (5 hens and 1 roo). They started out in the sun room, then moved into the nearly built garden shed. By the time the chicks were ready to outgrow their pen in the shed, HE-WHO-IS-WONDERFUL dismantled the outgrown sandbox as a base for a chicken coop. Together we built a coop on the sandbox form using odds and ends of materials. The chickens now have a beautiful, fully insulated 8 X 8 ft coop!
They spent the summer free-ranging, but now that the weather is cooling and the eggs have started coming, I keep them in the coop and small play yard until late in the day, when I let them range for a few hours. MOST-WONDERFUL-SPOUSE and I buried electrical wires to the garden shed and ran an extension cord to the coop for light. Just collected the first egg Sunday (Oct. 30), 2 on Monday, and 4 today.
At 63, I have 2 children and 6 grandchildren (17 YO to 8 YO). I continue to teach as a sub but only from the end of gardening in the fall to the beginning of gardening in the spring. I also build houses with Habitat for Humanity -- 6 all-woman builds so far. The HFH builds are my idea of fun -- pure and simple!
My youngest grandchildren, Maverick (age 10) and Gypsy (age 8) live in a nearby city and get off the schoolbus at our place every day. Gypsy could easily live by foraging on the property - she eats just about everything green and growing; while Maverick is my biggest helper with the gardens and chickens. He wants to raise chickens this year for 4-H. As he sees it, the coop is way too small already. It seems we should have consulted him before it was built. SIGH!
We have lots of questions as we learn about and work with our "girls" and "boys". Maverick found the BYC site for me when he was researching chicken breeds.
Love, Linn B (aka Smart Red) Zone 5a - 4b in south-est, central-est Wisconsin
