On my way to getting chickens.

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Welcome to BYC!

We have acreage in the woods over in the smokies and worked on it a couple years before moving to it. What a ride. I've wanted chickens my whole life and was very impatient to get started, but DH luckily kept me level headed 😄

In autumn 2019, we buckled down to prepare to bring home chickens (and bees and gardens) in winter/spring 2020: reading books, taking classes, talking to neighbors about predator concerns, building a chicken yard, getting coops together...All that preparation made bringing home chicks incredibly fun.

We're a year in with chickens (no duck experience), so we obviously still have tons to learn, but here are thoughts from one beginner in the woods of TN to another:

- IMHO, it could be stressful if you're not living on the land full time by the time you bring chicks/ducklings home. You won't know exactly when they'll be ready to move outside, so your birds could end up needing to be outside before you're ready to move to your new place. Depending on your style, it may not be a one-and-done situation. We had such a freezing, windy, wet spring last year, I ended up bringing chicks outside by day and in by night for several weeks. With our setup, they didn't have enough feathers for the nighttime weather but were too big to stay in the brooder all day--you'll be surprised at how small your once giant brooder starts to feel after a few weeks!

- The more coops, the merrier, in case you need to separate birds. And always get more space than you think you need. Crowding = bad. Space = good. Space requirements for coops are notoriously understated. Marketing might say 2-3 square feet per bird, but do a quick search on BYC and you'll see most of us prefer far more. Chickens are not unlike us: getting stuck in small spaces with their roommates is a recipe for conflict.

- The Tennessee woods have alllll the predators. For the most peace of mind, go overboard on predator protection. Two things I've been grateful for are keyed locks (raccoons are great with latches), and electric fencing to deter bears and neighbor dogs.

- Roosters are fabulous. I personally wouldn't go without, but they're not for everyone and not always "Chickens 101" 🤓 If I had it to do over again, I would've added cockerels after raising a set of pullets to point-of-lay so the older ladies could teach manners to the young boys.

We learned the hard way that, since male chicks grow faster than females, males raised only with females their own age have a greater chance of turning into bullies as teenagers. When our first set of chicks hit 16 weeks, the cockerel went rogue overnight and started to injure pullets. We had to make a quick decision whether to cull or build separate housing to see if the extra space would calm him down. We chose the latter, and it worked. He turned sweet again when the pullets started laying, but our 2nd cockerel was far easier to raise. He came with our next set of chicks, 12 weeks later. By the time they were ready to move outside, the older chickens were there to train him civility, which made all the difference.

Just because humans have artificially brooded trillions of chicks doesn't mean we've really figured it all out. That was surprising to me. Actually, I've been surprised by a lot about chickens, including just how cool they are.

Whoops, I wrote a novel...if it had a title, it would be Hooray, You Get to Have Chickens, You Lucky Duck! Ha ha. Congratulations on your land and upcoming bird journey.
 
HiEverybirdy said:
Welcome to BYC!

We have acreage in the woods over in the smokies and worked on it a couple years before moving to it. What a ride. I've wanted chickens my whole life and was very impatient to get started, but DH luckily kept me level headed 😄

In autumn 2019, we buckled down to prepare to bring home chickens (and bees and gardens) in winter/spring 2020: reading books, taking classes, talking to neighbors about predator concerns, building a chicken yard, getting coops together...All that preparation made bringing home chicks incredibly fun.

We're a year in with chickens (no duck experience), so we obviously still have tons to learn, but here are thoughts from one beginner in the woods of TN to another:

- IMHO, it could be stressful if you're not living on the land full time by the time you bring chicks/ducklings home. You won't know exactly when they'll be ready to move outside, so your birds could end up needing to be outside before you're ready to move to your new place. Depending on your style, it may not be a one-and-done situation. We had such a freezing, windy, wet spring last year, I ended up bringing chicks outside by day and in by night for several weeks. With our setup, they didn't have enough feathers for the nighttime weather but were too big to stay in the brooder all day--you'll be surprised at how small your once giant brooder starts to feel after a few weeks!

- The more coops, the merrier, in case you need to separate birds. And always get more space than you think you need. Crowding = bad. Space = good. Space requirements for coops are notoriously understated. Marketing might say 2-3 square feet per bird, but do a quick search on BYC and you'll see most of us prefer far more. Chickens are not unlike us: getting stuck in small spaces with their roommates is a recipe for conflict.

- The Tennessee woods have alllll the predators. For the most peace of mind, go overboard on predator protection. Two things I've been grateful for are keyed locks (raccoons are great with latches), and electric fencing to deter bears and neighbor dogs.

- Roosters are fabulous. I personally wouldn't go without, but they're not for everyone and not always "Chickens 101" 🤓 If I had it to do over again, I would've added cockerels after raising a set of pullets to point-of-lay so the older ladies could teach manners to the young boys.

We learned the hard way that, since male chicks grow faster than females, males raised only with females their own age have a greater chance of turning into bullies as teenagers. When our first set of chicks hit 16 weeks, the cockerel went rogue overnight and started to injure pullets. We had to make a quick decision whether to cull or build separate housing to see if the extra space would calm him down. We chose the latter, and it worked. He turned sweet again when the pullets started laying, but our 2nd cockerel was far easier to raise. He came with our next set of chicks, 12 weeks later. By the time they were ready to move outside, the older chickens were there to train him civility, which made all the difference.

Just because humans have artificially brooded trillions of chicks doesn't mean we've really figured it all out. That was surprising to me. Actually, I've been surprised by a lot about chickens, including just how cool they are.

Whoops, I wrote a novel...if it had a title, it would be Hooray, You Get to Have Chickens, You Lucky Duck! Ha ha. Congratulations on your land and upcoming bird journey.
Click to expand...

Nice to hear from someone else raising chickens in the TN mountains. So many things are about pastures and chicken tractors, neither of which are options for us. I appreciate the advice and it's hard to be patient! I am definitely looking hard at making it as predator-proof as possible. I don't think there have been any bears where we are but there was one guy who swears he got a cougar on his trail cam in our county (maybe not, but definitely bobcats) and the folks down the road have some scary looking pit bulls. Raccoons are what I worry about most, though. I will keep that in mind about the rooster - I had thought I might wait a bit, so that confirms for me that it would be a good idea to introduce one later. Also, after lurking on this site for a while, I have changed my mind about the coop I was going to buy and we are building a larger one. And a bigger run than I'd originally planned. If I do get them before we are there full time, it won't be until the weather is reliably warm. I'm super excited about this and spend a lot of time reading fussing with my coop plans!
 
Appalachickens said:
Nice to hear from someone else raising chickens in the TN mountains. So many things are about pastures and chicken tractors, neither of which are options for us. I appreciate the advice and it's hard to be patient! I am definitely looking hard at making it as predator-proof as possible. I don't think there have been any bears where we are but there was one guy who swears he got a cougar on his trail cam in our county (maybe not, but definitely bobcats) and the folks down the road have some scary looking pit bulls. Raccoons are what I worry about most, though. I will keep that in mind about the rooster - I had thought I might wait a bit, so that confirms for me that it would be a good idea to introduce one later. Also, after lurking on this site for a while, I have changed my mind about the coop I was going to buy and we are building a larger one. And a bigger run than I'd originally planned. If I do get them before we are there full time, it won't be until the weather is reliably warm. I'm super excited about this and spend a lot of time reading fussing with my coop plans!
Click to expand...
Enjoy! And apologies for the novel; I'm in reflective mode as we come up on our 1-year-chick-iversary ☺

Do you have slanty land, and that's why no pastures? Or is it just lots of woods? At least woods have lots of shade to keep the flock cool in summer.

I'd be worried about the raccoons and pit bulls, too! And that cougar guy? He probably isn't pulling your leg. We thought our neighbor was pulling ours about the big cat that lives on the mountain until we saw it down the road from here.

To be completely fair, the neighbor's credibility was shaky because he also said to watch out for a baboon. No primates yet, but there are definitely big cats in Tennessee.
 
No apologies needed - I enjoyed the novel! And the answer is both - very slanty land AND heavily wooded. Our property, which is 32 acres, rises up to a ridge on three sides, going from about 1400 ft to 1800 ft. It's basically a horseshoe. There are a few small flattish spaces and we've cleared some of the scrub out of one of them for the chickens. There's enough room for the chicken and duck houses and a combined 12x24 pen. I'm glad it will be shaded - cooler in the summer and protected in the winter. Haven't yet seen the pitbulls on our property, fortunately, and there's another property of about the same size between ours and that person, so I'm hoping they don't range that far. I both want and don't want there to be cougars here. I mean, it would be cool but also terrifying! Still, I've heard from people I consider reliable that they've been spotted so I do think they are in the area.
 
After seeing the cat, I definitely stopped jogging our little country road at twilight. Though you'd have to be either incredibly lucky, or unlucky, to encounter a big cat in Tennessee. Still so rare.

Bobcats, raccoons, coyotes, weasels, opossums, skunks, wild pigs, foxes, rats, dogs, cats, and raptors are probably more of a concern where you are. I'm probably forgetting a couple. Good hardware cloth everywhere and a few electric fence wires around the perimeter (we got a great solar setup at the farmers co-op because we don't have power in the chicken yard) can work wonders to protect your little breakfast makers.
 
HiEverybirdy said:
After seeing the cat, I definitely stopped jogging our little country road at twilight. Though you'd have to be either incredibly lucky, or unlucky, to encounter a big cat in Tennessee. Still so rare.

Bobcats, raccoons, coyotes, weasels, opossums, skunks, wild pigs, foxes, rats, dogs, cats, and raptors are probably more of a concern where you are. I'm probably forgetting a couple. Good hardware cloth everywhere and a few electric fence wires around the perimeter (we got a great solar setup at the farmers co-op because we don't have power in the chicken yard) can work wonders to protect your little breakfast makers.
Click to expand...
i hadn’t thought of a solar option. I will look into that.
 

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