Hi all I have been lurking on this forum for a few weeks now and finally took the plung and joined. I have learned alot over the last few weeks. A little about our family, my hubby and I have been married for 21 years and have 6 kids. Our youngest 3 seem to love our sweet feather babies more so than the older 3. We have 3 dogs, 6 cats, and 3 coops full of feather babies. We got our first chicks in July of last year. We started with 10 cuckoo marans (6 girls and 4 boys is what we ended up with). Well then we added a dozen guinea keets. We have since lost 3 of our girls one to a prolaps when she was laying an egg. We tried to help her but the very next egg it happened again and dh had to put her down, then we lost 2 others to dogs. We lost one rooster to dogs and one to the darn guineas. We then added 6 black australops and 6 buff orphingtons. I just love them. We got the last dozen as 4 month old pullets. We don't raise for meat just eggs and fun I find them relaxing. I think I am going to like these breeds they are so funny to watch in the coop and the older girls from last summer seem to have put them all in their place quiet nicely. Oh and we have an odd black star pullet I couldn't resist buying from a man in Harrah. He was at a trade days thing and had a crate full of them. We bought two and lost one to who knows what (didn't come back after being out all day) and still have the one. Not the prettiest babe but she is bossy. We are currently building a suite of coops, lol as my dh calls them. We started our first 10 in a coop we bought used at a yard sale for $40 and traded the chickens out with a friend for labor she needed done. It only had a small 10x10 yard and the coop is 8x8 so now the 2 maran roosters use it as their bachalor pad for now until I am ready to breed them. Our guineas have a 10x20 dog pen for nights that has 1/2 of it sheltered from sun and rain and a mirror for entertainment, lol. They free range during the day (well one does all the time because it is to stupid to come back to the coop even though we have tried to get it back in at night). When the suites are done we will have coops for breeding Marans, black australorps, buff orphingtons, 2 for breeding guineas, one for laying hens, one for brooding (with a side pen for the babies once mom kicks them out), and one for pullets. I want to add a quarentine pen as well so when we buy birds from others we can put them off away from the others without fear of them spreading anything. All the pens will have thier own yards and then be joined by a 12 x 60 yard we can alternate letting them out into for free ranging. I don't want to loose anymore chickens to dogs, or other wild life. Our guineas will continue to free range where ever they want. Our 3 hens and our 12 new pullets all share a 4x9 coop with a 9x14 yard attached. The pullets will be moving this weekend to the "Layer coop" once it is completed. Our coop is open on the south side completely with a piece of wood we can put up (to close off part of the front of the coop) for nights to block wind and weather if need be but we have had a majorly mild winter so we have only used it a few times when the weather got down to the 20's. Once the pullets all move this weekend I will move a rooster in with the maran hens to hopefully start laying some fertile eggs we can hatch. But seeing as how we are newbies we will have lots of learning to do about hatching eggs, lol. Cathie
from Southeast Missouri!! Glad you joined us!! Sounds like you are going to have a really nice set-up!!
