Hello everyone! This community has been very informative and I hope to keep learning as much as I can! I am new to chickens and have never kept any before (or any other bird actually). I'm an avid birder and am very interested in animal behavior and personality. Eggs would be nice but I'm not looking for a lot. A farming neighbor friend who has all kinds of animals both as pets and for meat recommended I look into Heritage breeds, and Buckeyes seem to fit the bill! I've ordered 5 female chicks (we'll see if that's what we get!), to come in early July. That gives them about 3 months before it starts to get seriously cold here. I am at 2300 feet, on 5 rural acres of meadow and woods, but with a lot of north wind exposure, so mostly I've done a lot of thinking over the past weeks about winter and coop/run placement. And predators.
I have ordered an Eglu Cube with a 9' run and I am hoping to move the Cube around our front yard and garden areas close to our house, so that the hens have some semblance of foraging and we can watch out for them. My neighbor friend free-ranges her chickens with no supervision (generally without problems; she lost one chicken last year) and I know that will NOT work here - she has two pyrenees-type dogs, 5 various small barnyard dogs, and three alpacas all looking out for her goats, horses, sheep and chickens, and they are also surrounded by large open fields.
We are on a woods edge on one side, meadows on the other, our house is basically in an old apple orchard, and there are coyotes around, and I regularly see Cooper's hawks fly through here. I know Broadwing Hawks nest nearby. To top it off, just today after I ordered the Buckeyes my DH and I watched in the distance a hungry fox (at mid-morning!) hunt and catch a muskrat.
Pets -we've had a dog in the past but mostly have had cats for pets. My DH and I are both semi-retired; we are musicians (the pandemic has obliterated that except for stuff at home) and I am a barely part-time legal assistant, working remotely most of the time. We both are into vegetable, blueberry and flower gardens, and I tend a worm-composting system indoors (which is actually quite interesting!). We walk, hike, cross-country ski and bike-ride, weather depending. I found this site by accident, and enjoyed hearing about and learning from everyone's experiences and opinions. It helped me decide I was ready to take the plunge in caring for chickens, which I've been contemplating for some years. It also reassured me, because this community's vibe is very friendly, welcoming and helpful!
I have ordered an Eglu Cube with a 9' run and I am hoping to move the Cube around our front yard and garden areas close to our house, so that the hens have some semblance of foraging and we can watch out for them. My neighbor friend free-ranges her chickens with no supervision (generally without problems; she lost one chicken last year) and I know that will NOT work here - she has two pyrenees-type dogs, 5 various small barnyard dogs, and three alpacas all looking out for her goats, horses, sheep and chickens, and they are also surrounded by large open fields.
We are on a woods edge on one side, meadows on the other, our house is basically in an old apple orchard, and there are coyotes around, and I regularly see Cooper's hawks fly through here. I know Broadwing Hawks nest nearby. To top it off, just today after I ordered the Buckeyes my DH and I watched in the distance a hungry fox (at mid-morning!) hunt and catch a muskrat.
Pets -we've had a dog in the past but mostly have had cats for pets. My DH and I are both semi-retired; we are musicians (the pandemic has obliterated that except for stuff at home) and I am a barely part-time legal assistant, working remotely most of the time. We both are into vegetable, blueberry and flower gardens, and I tend a worm-composting system indoors (which is actually quite interesting!). We walk, hike, cross-country ski and bike-ride, weather depending. I found this site by accident, and enjoyed hearing about and learning from everyone's experiences and opinions. It helped me decide I was ready to take the plunge in caring for chickens, which I've been contemplating for some years. It also reassured me, because this community's vibe is very friendly, welcoming and helpful!
