Newbie!!! With plenty of questions!

[Arkansas81]

Howdy Ya'll!

My daughter and I are new to this chicken thing....so any advice from experts would be wonderful. My daughter has wanted to raise chickens forever, so I finally gave in. Now we are roughly 25 strong. Mostly we have the normal run of the mill chicks, but we do have some unique ones too. I am guessing our bigger ones will be laying around Aug or Sept, the smaller-younger ones should be producing about Oct.

Now first quesiton..when they start laying, what kind of set-up do I need for our new peeps? I want to try to let the mothers take care of them. I am guessing that I will need to seperate them in some way but I don't want them to be in a total seperate place like we had when they all were peeps. Right now we have them in a big coop that we made from my daughters old swing set. We are in the process of making them a chicken yard, we can't let them free range cause of the dogs in the neighborhood.

So any ideas about what to do with the new peeps we should be having soon would be great!!!

 

[flewdacoop]

yes seperate them and how many roos do you have out of the twenty five chickens

 

[dukeis111]

well, dont have the little peeps with the bigger ones, only when they are about 1 month old...... cause at 1 month, they can fly and run really fast!, any other questions?

 

[Arkansas81]

Right now I only-I think have one rooster. The older ones are about 4mnths old. The smaller ones are around 3 months old. I got the older ones when they were about a week or so old and the younger at one day old.

The bigger ones are red pullets of all kinds, 2 white leghorns, the rooster is a barred rock. Im not sure what all kinds they are? The other little ones are americanus and golden laced polish, I think we might have one rooster out of that bunch. I tried to mix the smaller ones with the bigger ones, but had to seperate them. The bigger ones were on the verge of killng them. But all is happy now-for now.

I have never had chickens from hatchlings before, so I am seeing that I need to keep peeps and mom seperate from the others when the peeps start coming? Should i have it where the moms can be with the others but make it where the peeps can't join them till a later date?

 

[dukeis111]

well, sometimes they will remeber the peeps, so they will try to protect htem, like a broody hen. you should have it where moms should be with the others, in my opinion.

, any others?

 

[Arkansas81]

What do i do with the eggs? how do i store them? my daughter wants to sell the eggs for money and donate the extras we will be getting. i sure don't want to have ppl getting bad eggs from us.

what about the nesting boxes? what height should i have them, roughly how many, whats the best nesting material?

 

[pinkhenhouse]

Hi all I am new around here. I have looked around several times as a guest and thought what the heck I just need to signed up. I have been raising and playing with chickens for a few years now. I own buffs and RIRs. I have chicken raising in my blood my great-grandfather used to own a huge chicken farm and was a breeder for Tyson many many moons ago. I am no where near that and I think my grandpa actually looks down on me from time to time and gets a real kick out of the dumb and silly things I have tried and mistakes I have made, but we all have to live and learn right? Can wait to meet some folks on here and learn from those more experienced then I am.

 

[Arkansas81]

if i take the eggs from the moms and hatch them myself can i put the peeps back with the broody hen (s) after a day or two? i really don't want to have to hand raise baby chickens. my schedule is going to be very crazy when school starts back up. hand raising peeps are a lot of work!

what has been your routine? do you hand raise, let the hens raise? collect eggs and don't let any hatch? what do you do with your eggs-chickens? how many do you have?


should i completely seperate the broody hen from the rest of the flock before and after she lays eggs and when they hatch? will she be rejected if i try to reintroduce her back in the flock later?

 

[dukeis111]

you can leave the eggs out for about 2 days unrefrigatated. and there is no such thing as a bad eg if they are refigarated, and the rooster did not do his business with the hens. but if he does, you can still eat them, just refrigarate the eggs asap, depends how big your hens are for the nesting boxes. like the golden laced polish will need a nesting box with the measurment of 2x2 feet. and they nesting material can be hay, grass, weeds, old shredded newspaper, and much more. any others, incase i missed a few?

 

[1muttsfan]

Hi and welcome to BYC from northern Michigan

You may want to post your questions in the areas of the forum where you would get your best answers, such as the Raising Baby Chicks and the Managing Your Flock sections. You should get better answers from people who know those things well.