Boehm Carlson
In the Brooder
- Mar 13, 2020
- 3
- 16
- 18
Hello,
My name is Bruce and I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota with my wife and two middle school children. I grew up on a farm where we regularly had 20-30 laying hens and roosters. Only a couple of the hens were considered pets but we cared for all as if they were pets. Every year we would order and raise 100-200 additional chickens for butchering. Living in Minneapolis made my wife and I long for a quieter life but due to our jobs as environmental consultants we couldn’t easily leave the metro area. So, two years ago we decided to start raising chickens in our backyard. We started off buying a small manufactured coop and six chicks. One chick died within a couple days of getting them and our kids managed to suffocate one within a couple weeks leaving us with four (the maximum we can have in the City is six). One turned out to be a rooster, which we ended up having to get rid of since less then 70% of our neighbors within 100feet of our property would agree to letting us keep it. That left us with three hens. A year later we decided we wanted to try again to get up to the six chicken maximum, so we bought three more chicks. One died again, so we went to a local farm store and purchased one chick. We have raised all three of the new chicks, which to our surprise all ended up being hens and we now have six hens. One Polish named Party Rock because of her funky hairstyle (my favorite). One Salmon Faverolle name Bascheisha, a Prairie Bluebell Egger named Cloud, a black Australorp named Black Panther, a barred Plymouth Rock named Spot and a Golden Laced Wyandotte named Rainbow. This the first summer we built an enclosed run for protection and had the manufactured coop connected to the run. This last summer we built a nice 4x8 Fully insulated coop that we can stand up in with, two windows, two four inch round vents on opposing walls near the ceiling, three nesting boxes, three roost bars and a wall mounted flat panel heater. The hens love it! Now that all are 1-2 years old they are all capable of laying and all but one is currently laying. Spot molted right as winter began and has taken her sweet time getting back into laying (she’s the one not laying yet). So, we are currently getting five eggs a day and we have begun selling eggs at church and my office. I look forward to hearing about everyone else’s flicks and how they address different situations.
My name is Bruce and I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota with my wife and two middle school children. I grew up on a farm where we regularly had 20-30 laying hens and roosters. Only a couple of the hens were considered pets but we cared for all as if they were pets. Every year we would order and raise 100-200 additional chickens for butchering. Living in Minneapolis made my wife and I long for a quieter life but due to our jobs as environmental consultants we couldn’t easily leave the metro area. So, two years ago we decided to start raising chickens in our backyard. We started off buying a small manufactured coop and six chicks. One chick died within a couple days of getting them and our kids managed to suffocate one within a couple weeks leaving us with four (the maximum we can have in the City is six). One turned out to be a rooster, which we ended up having to get rid of since less then 70% of our neighbors within 100feet of our property would agree to letting us keep it. That left us with three hens. A year later we decided we wanted to try again to get up to the six chicken maximum, so we bought three more chicks. One died again, so we went to a local farm store and purchased one chick. We have raised all three of the new chicks, which to our surprise all ended up being hens and we now have six hens. One Polish named Party Rock because of her funky hairstyle (my favorite). One Salmon Faverolle name Bascheisha, a Prairie Bluebell Egger named Cloud, a black Australorp named Black Panther, a barred Plymouth Rock named Spot and a Golden Laced Wyandotte named Rainbow. This the first summer we built an enclosed run for protection and had the manufactured coop connected to the run. This last summer we built a nice 4x8 Fully insulated coop that we can stand up in with, two windows, two four inch round vents on opposing walls near the ceiling, three nesting boxes, three roost bars and a wall mounted flat panel heater. The hens love it! Now that all are 1-2 years old they are all capable of laying and all but one is currently laying. Spot molted right as winter began and has taken her sweet time getting back into laying (she’s the one not laying yet). So, we are currently getting five eggs a day and we have begun selling eggs at church and my office. I look forward to hearing about everyone else’s flicks and how they address different situations.
