New to BYC!

Molan Labe

Hatching
Apr 15, 2015
3
0
9
Hi! My name is Thom. My wife, Heather, and I have been reading the forums and learning about chickens for about 2 years. Last year we started our flock and made a few mistakes. We started with 34 chicks that we ordered from TSC and 6 ISA Reds that we picked up when we placed our order. Things went well, and we only lost one hen to being egg bound, and the other 21 were very tasty!

This year we've started again...we have our 17 girls giving us about a dozen eggs a day, our 2 roosters, 10 new aracuna chicks and 10 new turkeys....the 20 Cornish-Rock crosses didn't make it to 7 weeks....and one's in the crockpot for tonight!

Anyhow, after reading a lot here, we decided it was time to join, since we have some questions that we couldn't answer by just searching the forums. I hope that our questions are that upsetting, or "newbie-ish."

About us: We're a happily married couple living in Northern Michigan. I am disabled (broken back and extreme nerve damage as a result of that), and Heather is a happy housewife (at least I THINK she's a happy housewife), we are the sometimes loving parents of 4 children (3 boys 1 girl) who range in age from 10 to 16. We're working our way up to being self-sufficient (disability doesn't pay for a whole heck of a lot). Our first step was chickens last year. This year we're looking at more chickens, ducks, and either bees or goats. Whichever one doesn't come this year will be added next year.

I think that covers it. If you want to know more, just ask...we're basically an open book.

Oh, when posting, it could be either Heather or I could be posting, so we'll be sure to add either "~T" or "~H" to the end of the post so you know which one of us answered.

~T
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi :welcome Thom & Heather

Glad you could join the flock! What a lovely flock you have there for eggs and meat. I too wish you the very best of luck with all your projects. Certainly check out the link Kelsie has left for you.

Enjoy BYC :frow
 
Hi Thom and Heather
Welcome, I'm a bit of a newbie to the site but I've had chickens all my life. We are looking at being selfsufficient too, we have 6 silkies mainly for the tenant's kids which are not really good layers so we will probably change breeds this season for a more productive breed. We are looking at raising geese mainly because we have problems with deer getting into the salad patch and my roses and need a foghorn to either frighten them off or get us out there. They also lay large eggs and are good eating so thought we would give it a try. We had ducks last year but the Martens got em so will try again but keep them penned at night. We are also ironically looking at bees which I don't have any experience with but have researched it and will go with a natural hive rather than the regular commercial hives. Goats are not on our list I'm afraid. They eat absolutely everything and I'm happy to have geese eating the lawn and leaving my salad patch! I'm trying to get some kind of understanding about geese so hopefully someone on this site can give me some pointers.
Anyway enjoy the site I've read so much my head spins but its all such good info and folks are really experienced it poultry.
Cheers
Karen and Steve
 
Welcome to BYC, Thom and Heather. Glad you decided join our flock. A lot of us were lurkers before joining. :eek:) Raising chickens is a wonderful experience for children. My granddaughter (pictured in my avatar) loves our chickens. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck with your flock.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom