My wife, child, and I have recently jumped into chickens with a flock of 6. Living in Las Vegas, NV, we had a bit of difficulty finding a feed store that sold them, but we eventually came home with our flock. We have a mix of 3 plymouth barred, 1 red star, 1 polish, and 1 rhode island red; all around 3 weeks old. Coop construction was wrapped up on Tuesday and now we eagerly await moving our chicks outside (feeling a bit bad about the plastic tub they are in now). We are all excited about our new adventure with the chicks, teaching our daughter where 'food' comes from, and having our little piece of farm life in the big city. Thanks for all the wonderful information that we've already gathered from this great site. James
to BYC from California! I so love to read posts from new folks who actually get involved in learning about chickens before they get them. BYC is such an awesome, interactive resource! It's a great place to learn stuff so you don't make mistakes, and a wonderful forum to peruse when you need to fix a mistake you made because you didn't come here first. Enjoy your flock!
BYC certainly is a complete chicken resource. We used the 'breeds' page when we were looking to learn the characteristics of what we had available at our feed store, looked at the 'coop designs' page when we were planning our coop (eventually went with 'thegardencoop.com' plan, but bigger) and the 'learning center' page for everything else. The only thing that I haven't been able to find is "when can I move them outside?" I have the opposite situation of most. Usually people can't move them out because it's too cold...., today it was a high of 107 and a low of 82. Their wings and tails are all feathered out, but I'm concerned they might not be able to cool down enough. I'm trying to acclimate them by taking them out for an hour or two in the morning, and I sit in the coop with them and watch to make sure they are ok, then it's back inside.
Can't help with advice on when to let them out, as we rarely get those temperatures in England. But I do applaud you for spending time with them. It will help you get to know them better. If you know them really well, it will help you quickly spot if something isn't quite right with them and the quicker you can get help for them, the better. I'm sure you'll get a lot of pleasure from your little flock, and well done for doing your research before you got them. So many people don't bother. YourLinkGoesHere http://muckycluckers.blogspot.com/
