Hello all! I have been searching through this site since last spring. My family and I bought a farm in July and have been extremely busy (ie barn remodel, wall paper everywhere in the house...) We bought a few different types of hens that were already laying in the beginning but what we really wanted were Blue Orpingtons. I was able to find 9 hens and a Very nice rooster... 1 Very nice rooster and 4 great orp hens and 3 okay orp hens later and we finally taught the neighbors dogs that this is OUR property... I wont mention the amount of $ lost but ouch.
Now we have an incubator and are looking for BBS orp hatching eggs (if you have any let me know
We also have a Nubian doe about to kid any day now and are working on our fencing so that we can get bison. We are trying to make sure we have our own chicken, eggs, milk, and red meat. We are also plating 10 Blueberry, raspberry, and strawberry plants plus various fruit trees.
We want to stick with just one breed of each animal so they can all have the run of the property. I forgot to mention that we are looking at Peafowl as well...
At this moment we are building a chick coop behind our garage. We are on a time limit since there are eggs in the incubator right now. We want it set up so that we can move the chicks to an appropriate area every two weeks. We were thinking the 0-2 weeks brooder would be raised with wire mesh floor the we would partially cover with news papers and shavings. This should make cleaning easy and will also accommodate pea chicks if we get them. Then they would move into a larger area on the wood floor of chick coop for 2-4 weeks. Then an even larger area for 4-6 weeks. Then smaller area with Large well protected outdoor run for 6-8 weeks. Then in the big coop with our other chickens.
Any thoughts on that? Oh, the door in the 6-8 week will (Hopefully) be too small for pea chicks since I was told to avoid letting them on dirt before 2 months better 2.5 months. We may keep pea chicks here until 10 weeks. The whole thing will be shaped like an uneven U in our coop. We are trying to plan ahead for any eventualities and uses.
Anyway, I should go check on our doe... I'm too tired to feel excited.
Now we have an incubator and are looking for BBS orp hatching eggs (if you have any let me know
We also have a Nubian doe about to kid any day now and are working on our fencing so that we can get bison. We are trying to make sure we have our own chicken, eggs, milk, and red meat. We are also plating 10 Blueberry, raspberry, and strawberry plants plus various fruit trees.We want to stick with just one breed of each animal so they can all have the run of the property. I forgot to mention that we are looking at Peafowl as well...
At this moment we are building a chick coop behind our garage. We are on a time limit since there are eggs in the incubator right now. We want it set up so that we can move the chicks to an appropriate area every two weeks. We were thinking the 0-2 weeks brooder would be raised with wire mesh floor the we would partially cover with news papers and shavings. This should make cleaning easy and will also accommodate pea chicks if we get them. Then they would move into a larger area on the wood floor of chick coop for 2-4 weeks. Then an even larger area for 4-6 weeks. Then smaller area with Large well protected outdoor run for 6-8 weeks. Then in the big coop with our other chickens.
Any thoughts on that? Oh, the door in the 6-8 week will (Hopefully) be too small for pea chicks since I was told to avoid letting them on dirt before 2 months better 2.5 months. We may keep pea chicks here until 10 weeks. The whole thing will be shaped like an uneven U in our coop. We are trying to plan ahead for any eventualities and uses.
Anyway, I should go check on our doe... I'm too tired to feel excited.
from Ohio. So glad to have you aboard. 
