Newbie Mistakes

[aladatrot]

Greetings!

I am in the midst of doing some chicken research before getting the birds, and I'd like to know what some common newbie mistakes are when keeping layers. I'm planning on starting with laying pullets first, so there won't be any chick raising right off the bat. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
M

 

[ChicknThief]

First of all,

Glad to have you aboard!

Well, for one thing, be sure to give them grit and oyster shell for calcium. LOL, I am having a hard time thinking of "newbie mistakes" right now, as I am pretty much a newbie myself. We got our first chickens in August.

Maybe you could post some specific questions that you have?

 

[bamadominaker]

Get more than 2 hens, That is my mistake, but slowly working on more. And if you don't want fertile eggs no roo of course. Every egg so far has been fertile, my pullet was the only one laying for about 2 1/2 weeks.

I threated the Ms. Fatty with the stew pot, if I didn't get eggs soon.

, She has layed two eggs in 3 1/2 weeks. Make sure you give them plenty of protein. They love chick starter as well. Mine get a varitey of food. They love everything so far. I have not feed them any eggs though. Make sure you are up for the challenge. And you will get lots of help here. Congradulations and

.


Bama

 

[INchickens]

Is it a bad thing to have eggs that are fertile? I am raising pullets for the first time, and my son has his heart set on selling eggs. Should we get rid of the roosters?

 

[joanna]

fertile eggs are fine to eat.

a rooster won't make a difference in the way eggs taste or look...unless you let a broody incubate them. do a search for fertile egg stages and you can see the difference. of course, having a rooster will enable you to produce more eggs if you let some hatch and they are pullets

a rooster will be more than happy to wake the neighbors and the rest of the neighborhood. I had one who crowed at the moon!

 

[poopcoop]

I think that one of the biggest mistakes is not building a big enough coop the first time. I have 26 brown egg layers that are now 9 weeks old. Getting them to this point was not as hard as I first thought it would be. I raised mine in a kiddie pool, so there were no corners for them to pile on each other. A red 250 watt heat lamp, lots of water and I used "Nature's Wise" chick starter. Do not intoduce oyster shell until they start laying eggs.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Some (well ok, realistically *many*) customers are going to be totally weirded out by the fertile egg concept, if they know about it or get to wondering. So that is a consideration.

(Some people are really *into* fertile eggs, but they are a tiny minority).

Pat

 

[patandchickens]

Not being aware that if you get started (ready to lay) pullets from a feed store or large hatchery, they are almost certain to be debeaked. They can still function, but have some limitations, and IMO one should think twice (at least) before supporting the practice.

As others have said, building too small a coop

Coop with insufficient ventilation.

Coop and/or run too permeable to predators (chicken wire does NOT keep most predators out, the chickenwire they sell these days is quite flimsy compared to your average raccoon or hungry dog/coyote).

Not covering the run, if you don't want hawk predation and the rarer but nonzero possibility of climbing predators (raccoons, foxes, possums etc *do* sometimes hunt in daytime).

Not shutting the hens securely into the coop at night (run door closed), unless you have a seriously fort-knox run (and a lot of people have *thought* they did, til they came out one morning...)

Expecting a tractor to be much lower-maintenence and lower-lawn-impact than it actually is

That's all I can think of offhand. FWIW, I have been guilty of four of the above, won't say which

Pat

 

[cluckychick]

My newbie mistake was thinking I could go in and just buy 5 because that's all I wanted to begin with. Now I have 25

However many you get make sure you build your coop twice as big to accomdate the ones your bound to get in the future.

Then make sure the coop and run are done before the chicks are ready to go outside

 

[bamadominaker]

I didn't mean it was bad that all the eggs have been fertile, I just hated the fact that if I had a bator i could have had more chickies in a couple of weeks. But it's coming along nicely. I bought more chickies and they are wonderful. i wish I would have started out with then first b/c the other 3 I can't get them to come to me to save my life. I wanted more of a pet I think, but then the way the economy is may need food, later on.


It really is what you want or need. That is how I have to look at it. B/c we are trying to become self sufficent so that in 3 years I can go home permantly. It's hard to manage full time job, and full house. We are blessed that we have so much and can do the little things. Chick, hens, roo, dog, daugther, hubby, oh my, quilting, sewing. Where am I, gets lost.

Life is good and all of this has slowed me down in my ripe age of 31. I feel more grounded than I ever have.