New to raising birds

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Adelaar said:
In April, my husband decided to try having guineas on our hobby farm to help with ticks. Since they are quite feral, I wanted to have something more tame and domesticated as well, so I got 6 pullets of different breeds (1 EE, 1 australorp, 2 RIR, 2 Plymouth Rocks). They are now about 13 wks old and have been amazing, sweet birds!

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I’d always been looking for some with feathered legs, and my husband was really wanting some lavenders. So at the end of May, I found some BYM bantams with feathered legs, and in June, found some lavenders (1 Orpington and 2 ameraucana). I’m thinking the orpie and 1 of ameraucanas may be cockerels as they are growing up so we may be making a bachelor coop and/or separate bantam area if they don’t mingle well with original pullets… 🤔

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We are constantly working on projects to improve the coop/run for our new feathered friends and thought we’d join on here to learn from more experienced people!
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Welcome to BYC!! Beautiful birds! ❤️
 
Most definitely! Right now, the run just has the coated chicken wire that came with it, but we are only letting the older pullets out in it when they are directly supervised by one of us and/or one of farm dogs who are chicken-friendly but will take out a coon etc in a heartbeat. We did get some more hardware cloth to reinforce the run before they can go in/out freely through the day so it is definitely on the list to reinforce. 😉 also looking into options for doing no-dig ground spikes and/or an apron to guard against digging under the run and cover the apron with cinderblocks around the perimeter of run and gravel around cinderblocks. The coop exterior is tight as Fort Knox… solid floors/walls, hardware cloth over all ventilation windows, standard home exterior door with lock and deadbolt, etc. Looking into 4G/solar powered cameras to monitor for predators that might try investigating the coop??
 
I think people use game / trail cameras?
Adelaar said:
Most definitely! Right now, the run just has the coated chicken wire that came with it, but we are only letting the older pullets out in it when they are directly supervised by one of us and/or one of farm dogs who are chicken-friendly but will take out a coon etc in a heartbeat. We did get some more hardware cloth to reinforce the run before they can go in/out freely through the day so it is definitely on the list to reinforce. 😉 also looking into options for doing no-dig ground spikes and/or an apron to guard against digging under the run and cover the apron with cinderblocks around the perimeter of run and gravel around cinderblocks. The coop exterior is tight as Fort Knox… solid floors/walls, hardware cloth over all ventilation windows, standard home exterior door with lock and deadbolt, etc. Looking into 4G/solar powered cameras to monitor for predators that might try investigating the coop??
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Chipmunk Chicks said:
I think people use game / trail cameras?
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🤔 I’ll definitely look into it… I don’t want it to keep alerting me every time a chicken moves but I thought maybe I can mount it on the side facing the fence beside the coop (chicken coop/run is entirely within fenced backyard) so that it’s facing the side most likely to be exposed to wildlife or if I could get one that I could set it to alert me at nighttime when chickens would be locked up but predators are more likely to be out….. I’ll see what we can find ☺️
 

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