Newbie Question...

[Silverado]

Yeah, I know what you're thinking, "Another greenhorn, sheesh!"
So here's my story. I live in Massachusetts and my wife and I have been considering a backyard flock for about two years so we haven't made this decision lightly. But over the past few months, we decided to take the plunge and order 10 Speckled Sussex from our local farm supply. (Order should be going in next week we hope!) The coop design is almost done, just working out some size details and actual drawings for any Town Official that might get involved.
So here is my first question (one of many more to come I'm sure). Would there be any interest to anyone out there in posting the entire process in a thread? First it would help me because if someone hears or sees (I'll post pictures of my progress) something that doesn't look right, they can ask questions that we may all learn from.
If this is something that might be useful, which thread category should I post it under?

 

[3goodeggs]

I think just writing it down will be useful to you if not anyone else. It is often good to see in print what we are doing, sometimes, regretfully we see mistakes that you may not see.
First mistake that I see is the same one we made, do not get the hen before the pen.
We thought we had plenty of time, and if finances and mother nature had not been so stinking rotten to us, it all would have worked out just fine, but our chickens did not make it into the coop in a timely fashion. Chickens get very dusty and dirty and noisy. esp, in the house
The other mistake that we made was assuming 1/2 would die in shipment, and the remaining half would die before they made it out of the brooder.
Chickens are tougher than we thought. We ordered 25 expecting 6 survivors, and we got 24.
I am sure there are plenty of people on here that will love to throw a red flag on any of your plans, and just as many who will encourage you every step of the way.
You could make a running journal of sorts, like they have on the self sufficiency site. Title it, 'my chicken journal'
or something and you may get a bunch of followers, who knows. i say try. why not?

oh, and welcome to BYC!

Go up to index and make an introduction under the new member posts. others will like to welcome you too!

 

[AZBootsie]

First Silver

You will be sooooo glad you found BYC, I know I am!!!!
Congratulations on your new to be FuzzyButts. Having a flock is great, you will wonder how you lived without them!!
If you look in the index there is a thread called something like Coop & Run design, construction, . There are tons of threads where people have posted pics of building from the ground up. Also on the top menu is a tab for Coop Designs, with a billion coop designs, construction how to's and pictures.

Please start a thread documenting your progress. We all love to see what everyone else is doing. You will get feedback with some great ideas, priceless suggestions from very experienced chicken owners and lots of encouragement.....maybe an occasional snotty remark (just ignore them).

I look forward to seeing your coop progression. Sometime soon my second one needs to be built and still looking for ideas.