Newbie on Board

Good morning BYC.

My family and I live in Cincinnati, and every year, our yard is becoming more and more like a farm. The summer after we bought our house in 2009, we started gardening fruits and vegetables. A couple years later I started raising rabbits for meat production. After a few months deliberation with my wife over if our city yard could accommodate chickens, we decided to give it a try this year. On 25 February of this year, we purchased 3 Rhode Island Reds and 1 Ameracauna from a local hatchery. The main purpose for the chickens are for eggs, but from my lurking on BYC, it looks like we may get more attached to the chickens than just the eggs they lay.

Our chicks are only a week old and we can already see differences in their personalities. My wife named one of the Rhode Islands "Ms. Chirpy" due to her nearly non-stop chatter. The Ameracauna naturally became "Easter" due to the eggs she will soon be laying. My two younger sons want to name the remaining two as soon as we can tell them apart. During the next few weeks, I will be working on building our chicken coop and yard. I have found a lot of great ideas on the coop page of this website, many ideas I would have never thought about.

The past week I spent lurking on BYC, I found A LOT of useful information. Whenever I would Google a question about chickens, it seems it would always lead me back to BYC. From the forum post and responses I would read, this seems to be the ideal place for new and experienced chicken enthusiasts alike. I'm looking to becoming a productive member of this community.