- Jan 1, 2015
- 11
- 5
- 24
Hello. My name is Bret and I am a chicken addict. It has been three days since my last purchase.
My wife and I have dreams of starting a small farm, so we moved kind of far away where the land is cheap and the taxes are low and bought 12 acres with a house.
The first order of business was chickens....my thinking was that it would be relatively low processing selling eggs compared to what we plan to do in the future such as goat cheeses ect.
Also, the manure would be good for our plans of veggies.
I set out to build an 8x24 chicken coop with roughly a half acre of free range. IT came out pretty well enough, pictured in my profile pic.
The next plan is fill it with layers and then build 3 separate pens with 3 separate coops for breeding 3 lines: Easter Egger, Rhode Island Red, and Black Copper Marans.
In those I hope to eventually have 20 hens to one rooster each, and in the layer pen: 50 to 60 max layers of varying breeds with only one rooster for protection.
As of right this minute I have 3 Buff Orpingtons, 1 Buff Orp x Easter Egger, 1 Leghorn, 9 Easter Eggers, 7 Rhode Island Reds, 1 Barred Rock, 1 Black Copper Marans.
I have a myriad of questions for you fine chicken folk, but for now I am just introducing myself.
I opted for a feed made by a local feed and seed store, but eventually I plan on making my own from all organic ingredients and growing my own meal worms.
Any suggestions on that would be very helpful.
Here are some pics to show the construction of my large coop which I refer to as Fort Clux. It has a chandelier that was in the house when we bought it (my wife hated it).....learning that the dusting on that may be a pain....that's a shame but I would hate to have a fancy fire hazard. I chose to go with a chick nip water system which is a pain because even with a de-icer in the 18 gallon tank, the nips still freeze real easy. The feeders are not automatic, I have to go out every day and scootch the feed over to the end of the horizontal pipe.....I will be fixing that soon with a series of vertical feeders that connect to one large hopper. I made a brooder and pullet pen for introductions, ect.
This last pic is the brooder box, although now I think I may make a separate place for this so I can use all of the other coop for the layers.....allowing me more room for them to have food and water inside as well as space and roosts.
I am really hoping I can let the ladies in the 3 breeding pens simply raise the chicks themselves and will design it in a way where I can keep their nests separate if need be from the rest of the flock and allow easy dismount and entry for chicks to go outside with their mom.
Otherwise I am going to make a small grow-out house for the tweenies that can double as a quarantine in the off season.
Take Care,
Bret
My wife and I have dreams of starting a small farm, so we moved kind of far away where the land is cheap and the taxes are low and bought 12 acres with a house.
The first order of business was chickens....my thinking was that it would be relatively low processing selling eggs compared to what we plan to do in the future such as goat cheeses ect.
Also, the manure would be good for our plans of veggies.
I set out to build an 8x24 chicken coop with roughly a half acre of free range. IT came out pretty well enough, pictured in my profile pic.
The next plan is fill it with layers and then build 3 separate pens with 3 separate coops for breeding 3 lines: Easter Egger, Rhode Island Red, and Black Copper Marans.
In those I hope to eventually have 20 hens to one rooster each, and in the layer pen: 50 to 60 max layers of varying breeds with only one rooster for protection.
As of right this minute I have 3 Buff Orpingtons, 1 Buff Orp x Easter Egger, 1 Leghorn, 9 Easter Eggers, 7 Rhode Island Reds, 1 Barred Rock, 1 Black Copper Marans.
I have a myriad of questions for you fine chicken folk, but for now I am just introducing myself.
I opted for a feed made by a local feed and seed store, but eventually I plan on making my own from all organic ingredients and growing my own meal worms.
Any suggestions on that would be very helpful.
Here are some pics to show the construction of my large coop which I refer to as Fort Clux. It has a chandelier that was in the house when we bought it (my wife hated it).....learning that the dusting on that may be a pain....that's a shame but I would hate to have a fancy fire hazard. I chose to go with a chick nip water system which is a pain because even with a de-icer in the 18 gallon tank, the nips still freeze real easy. The feeders are not automatic, I have to go out every day and scootch the feed over to the end of the horizontal pipe.....I will be fixing that soon with a series of vertical feeders that connect to one large hopper. I made a brooder and pullet pen for introductions, ect.
This last pic is the brooder box, although now I think I may make a separate place for this so I can use all of the other coop for the layers.....allowing me more room for them to have food and water inside as well as space and roosts.
I am really hoping I can let the ladies in the 3 breeding pens simply raise the chicks themselves and will design it in a way where I can keep their nests separate if need be from the rest of the flock and allow easy dismount and entry for chicks to go outside with their mom.
Otherwise I am going to make a small grow-out house for the tweenies that can double as a quarantine in the off season.
Take Care,
Bret
