MidwestMatthew
In the Brooder
- Jun 5, 2018
- 6
- 15
- 11
Hi all!
I'm Matthew, in Illinois, and I've been lurking here for a while and finally decided to join.
My wife and I just started our chicken journey earlier this spring. We bought 10 Cornish Cross from Tractor Supply Store and did a Salatin-style (but smaller) tractor in our suburban yard. It's been an adventure and we're looking forward to trying the meat for the first time!
We're also into gardening, and have been raising meat rabbits for a couple of years. That's kind of what got us into chickens; the rabbits are nice and don't smell too bad, but their meat grows in unexpected areas around their bones and we find chicken more pleasant to eat. So we decided to give it a try!
I don't think we'll do meat chickens again in the near future, because it turned out to be pretty obvious what we were doing and not everyone appreciated it. The birds also did more damage to our lawn than we expected, and since we're hoping to sell and move to the country sometime soon, we don't want to hurt our resale value.
However, we might very well try layers in a coop before that. It will depend on what we're able to find out here about a few of the practicalities, such as cleanliness and odor, etc.
Eventually, once we get our little piece of ground, we'd like to get into free-ranging and raising some heritage breeds, and hopefully a landrace or two (Icelandic are appealing to us at the moment.)
Anyway, that's us in a nutshell. Looking forward to participating in the community here!
I'm Matthew, in Illinois, and I've been lurking here for a while and finally decided to join.
My wife and I just started our chicken journey earlier this spring. We bought 10 Cornish Cross from Tractor Supply Store and did a Salatin-style (but smaller) tractor in our suburban yard. It's been an adventure and we're looking forward to trying the meat for the first time!
We're also into gardening, and have been raising meat rabbits for a couple of years. That's kind of what got us into chickens; the rabbits are nice and don't smell too bad, but their meat grows in unexpected areas around their bones and we find chicken more pleasant to eat. So we decided to give it a try!
I don't think we'll do meat chickens again in the near future, because it turned out to be pretty obvious what we were doing and not everyone appreciated it. The birds also did more damage to our lawn than we expected, and since we're hoping to sell and move to the country sometime soon, we don't want to hurt our resale value.
However, we might very well try layers in a coop before that. It will depend on what we're able to find out here about a few of the practicalities, such as cleanliness and odor, etc.
Eventually, once we get our little piece of ground, we'd like to get into free-ranging and raising some heritage breeds, and hopefully a landrace or two (Icelandic are appealing to us at the moment.)
Anyway, that's us in a nutshell. Looking forward to participating in the community here!
Hello Matthew. 
! There’s so many helpful, knowledgeable folks here and I’m sure you’ll find this site a very useful resource. I hope you enjoy it as much as we all do.
