New to the flock!

[klyn]

Hello all! I am excited to be here on BYC! A little about me:

- Are you new to chickens / when did you first get chickens? I am new to chickens and just got my chicks about two months ago. I am amazed at how quickly they have grown and how quickly they've captured my heart. I have been on BYC at least weekly ( and sometimes daily) since getting our chicks so figured I'd make it official.

- How many chickens do you have right now? I have 7 chicks ranging in age from 7 to 10 weeks.

- What breeds do you have? I have 2 EEs (Princess Leia and Chickadee), 1 giant blue cochin (Smog), 1 buff cochin (Cutie) (her coloring is looking more like a splash (?) cochin though), 1 silver lace wyandotte (Lacey), 1 black sexlink (Myrna) and 1 golden sexlink (Miss Piggy). They each have their own personalities and seem to establishing a "pecking order" already (Myrna seems to be the head honcho).

- How did you find out about BackYardChickens.com? Every time I did a search with questions about my girls this was the site that came up with the best info. Soon it became my "got to" site for all things chicken.

I look forward to learning from all of you experienced Backyard "Chickeners" and learning with all you other newbies!

Thanks!

 

[marchick]

Hello Klyn,

They should come with a warning "CAUTION VERY ADDICTIVE!" "Can Cause Severe Mental Issues" Like problems counting and lack the abillity to say thats enough or no more!

 

[BlessedCountry6]

Welcome to BYC!

 

[klyn]

Thank you for the warm welcomes! Marchick, you are right! I told myself we would only be getting four but that lasted about a day and then we got two more, by the end of the week we had 7! My kids keep asking if we can get more but I'm trying to resist.

 

[DBLakeChickens]

I started around the same time you did, Klyn. We were researching breeds and care before getting our chicks, and we always ended up here at BYC On March 8th, 2014, we picked up our chicks... and we loved them so much we picked up another group on April 19th!

Our March 8th chicks are:
*Posh... Cream Brabanter
*Cara... Barnevelder
*Mia... Barnevelder
*Petra... Barred Plymouth Rock
*Aang... Easter Egger
*Qisma... Easter Egger

Qisma was so quiet when they were little, then all of the sudden, around 5 weeks old, she took control of the whole group. She acts like a rooster, and Petra acts like the mother hen: keeping them all together It finally got warm enough to build their coop, so they just got into it this week and are loving it so far! Although they seem to like sleeping in a pile in the nest boxes rather than roosting!?!

Our April 19th chicks have not been named... We actually lost one (a Porcelain D'uccle Bantam) 4 days after we picked them up, and we went back and got two more, but it kind of broke our hearts, so we are holding out a little longer on naming the new girls. Still... here is the rest of our flock: a Welsummer, a Gold Brabanter, 2 light (maybe porcelain) D'Uccle Bantams, a Blue Quail D'Anver Bantam, a Light Brahma and a Buff Brahma.

We started with chickens, because of our concern about the egg supply through traditional grocery stores, but we had no idea how huge a part of our life they would become. We brood them in our living room, so we've all spent hours watching them grow

As for the addictive quality... We've built our giant coop, it will fit 13, but no more!

 

[klyn]

Good for you for getting your coop finished up! We are in the process of building ours but a series of rainy days and over scheduled weekends have made it slower than we anticipated.

This is where we are at with it now. The lower opening is for an external nesting box and I just finished that up but didn't get a picture of it.

 

[DBLakeChickens]

That looks AWESOME! Our level of done is relative... It is currently safe and healthy for the chickens to live in, but not yet pretty. We will be using repurposed pallets to shingle the whole thing. Right now, it's just covered in Tyvek It's farther along than the pics I will share, but we want to build a few loft spaces to add more square footage As a side note... I lost my camera in a battle with a lady bug, so I only get pics when other people visit

This gives you the basic size of the coop... not huge, so it should keep us from getting anymore chickens!


Here's the window we got for $10 that is insulated and opens
Our Sliding Door system... and you can see the ramp on the ground beneath it (We used a rubber mat to cover the inside of the coop and flipped it over for traction in and out of the coop as well as on the ramp to the higher roost)
Here the chickens are helping us work on it... You can see the nesting box frame and the upper roost. We were still attaching doors at this point. And in our rush to get the Tyvek on, we forgot to cut out our door for gathering eggs... so we have a couple of months to work on that (LOL). The nest boxes and both the roosts come out, so we can just clean all the bedding out and put it in compost!

We've become so obsessive about the coop. Building your own, I bet you are the same way!

 

[klyn]

Building the coop has been consuming my time and space in my brain! We are also using pallets to side ours. I'm wanting a rustic look and the pallets were free, so they will be perfect. We have used mostly reclaimed wood, the only things that we have bought is the plywood and two windows. I will be so happy when we can move the chickens in (I'm sure they will be too)!

 

[klyn]

By the way, your coop looks great!

 

[sumi]

Welcome to BYC

Glad you joined us! Very nice looking coops. You must post pics for us when it's complete.