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G’Day from down under Kevan & Family :frow Welcome and Congratulations!

I hope you enjoy being a BYC member. There are lots of friendly and very helpful folks here so not only is it overflowing with useful information it is also a great place to make friends and have some fun.

You might want to also Find Your State Thread and pop in and say hello.

Personally, I have found the Topic of the Week articles a great resource and a one stop shop for questions which may have already been discussed within the BYC membership group.

If you would like to share pictures and stories of your flock, you have come to the right place. BYC’ers never tire of these and do not back away slowly or commence eye rolling when the photo album or home videos come out ;)
 
sylviethecochin said:
Welcome to BYC!

And here's the information dump!

With six birds (unless chicken math comes into play) it sounds like you have a lot of coop options.

Are you building or buying your coop?

If you're building, there are a lot of articles around here on that, many of which have to do with ventilation (especially if you live in colder climes) and avoiding draftiness. My first chicken coop was a big, refurbished dog-house on concrete blocks and it worked very well.

If you're buying, then be aware that any person selling a chicken coop and telling you that "this will definitely hold eighteen hens, no problem" is talking about bantams. Bantams are tiny. This practice is known as "stretching the truth" and helps TSC avoid lawsuits.

Also, if you have predators, irresponsible neighbors with idiot dogs, or a very close road, you might want to look into a run. Don't use chicken wire. It doesn't last and a predator can rip it apart. There are people here, on BYC, who disagree with that assessment. They live in deserts where rust is not a problem and where raccoons disdain to live.

Also, ducks are perfectly happy sleeping on exposed concrete in -10 weather while it's snowing. I thought I'd save you the pain of wondering about frostbite now. Ducks are apparently immune.[/QUOTEWellpu
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So I build a coop, went a little overboard. I build a 4x8 coop out of 2x3 with insulated walls and panelling. I will post pictures in a bit. But the girls love it. It's been really cold here, and with two heat lamps, and single digit temps, it's about 35, and if in the teens to twenties it's in the mid 50's.

I also have a full spectrum bulb on a timer to ensure they get a full 12 hours of "sun" light, and so far so good. The girls are laying regularly, or as the kids say "paying rent". Never would have thought they'd become pets and are very tame. They don't mind being held, actually will snuggle into your arms and snooze if you hold them long enough.

We found out the hard way last week about predators, lost one of our girls to a river otter. I've read a number of posts that don't believe an otter will kill a chicken, but we traced the tracks to the lake, too big to be a weasel, too low to the ground (belly marks in the snow) to be a fisher and the tracks when right out to a stump off the shoreline. I am building a completely enclosed run with a roof now and going away from semi-free ranging.

We are introducing 3 new girls today that the kids picked out from a friends flock. He has a farm with around 100 chickens roaming around, big barn and coop. He had some birds from this spring and fall hatches, so the kiddo's got to pick some young ones, ours are from this spring. I have them in a crate, so they are safe in the coop and they can get used to each before releasing them.
 

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