Oregon

[KMSonthecoast]

our new addition to our flock thanks to coastal farm and ranch who is having a buy one get one sale on all week old chicks. I went in to price check them with wilco today and they were more expensive then wilco by at least 50 cents. Yay for BOGOs!
(This was coastal in Hillsboro)

 

[BearDrummer]

Nice job for sure! My understanding after looking at all your pictures is that they enter up into the coop through a "stairway" setup through the floor (?). That's fine, but you need more ventilation! The only ventilation I can see is that which will come up through the opening in the floor...correct?

On the narrow side, there is a door within a door, for the chickens to leave and enter.We are going to lean a 2*4 that has been scored similar to the "ladder" inside, so the chickens can get in and out. It will be taken down after they have bedded down at night, and they will be sealed inside. I think what you saw was the ladder for the chicks to be able to get from the floor to the roosts if they want to... I know that soon they won't need the ladder, but it's good for them now, and won't hurt anything later.

I would love your opinion on the ventilation. There is ventilation from 3 sources: the floor opening, the saw spacings around the front and back doors, and on the tall side, there is a gap along the top, between the wall and the roof, made by the narrow side of the 2*4s that support the roof. On the short side, the wall was notched to fill the gap. The egg boxes, food and water are all going to be on the narrow end, hopefully away from any direct wind, and there will be some space not in the egg boxes for chickens wanting out of any breeze. the floor opening is protected from critters by both the catch pans and the hardware cloth. Anything the saw spacing or hardware cloth lets in will probably become chicken food, and the space along the top is small enough to stop anything other than snakes or rats, which would have difficulty getting up that high. Thinking about it now, I might add a strip of hardware cloth up there, just to make sure.

This is the first time I have done more than just repair a coop, so I am quite happy to get input.

 

[BearDrummer]

our new addition to our flock thanks to coastal farm and ranch who is having a buy one get one sale on all week old chicks. I went in to price check them with wilco today and they were more expensive then wilco by at least 50 cents. Yay for BOGOs!
(This was coastal in Hillsboro)

They did buy one get one? I think I like your Coastal better than mine. They raised the price of the Americaunas when they got bigger.

 

[hundleychickens]

just a good thing to know i think.
Banks has a chicken vet. i have looked all over the forest grove/Cornelius area even some Beaverton area. the Beaverton veterinary gave me a good number to a place in Portland on N.E. Lombard that also does chickens but that's a lot further from me then banks is.

 

[hundleychickens]

They did buy one get one? I think I like your Coastal better than mine. They raised the price of the Americana when they got bigger.

they were around $4.49 for the Americana but the buy one get one made them $2.25 a piece

 

[Suzierd]

I came across this quote from Unilever today. Unilever is the owner of such brands as Hellmann's and Ben & Jerry's ...

"We are committed to providing financial support to research and market introduction of in-ovo gender identification (sexing) of eggs, a new technology that has the potential to eliminate the hatching and culling of male chicks in the poultry-breeding industry. We are arranging meetings with animal-welfare experts, egg industry organizations, suppliers, and other stakeholders to develop a multi-stakeholder dialogue and tangible steps to address this important issue and explore alternative options. While our approach is to work in support of technologies that would eliminate the culling of male chicks in the industry, we are also exploring ways to further meet consumer needs for products with different nutrition profiles and preferences for plant-based protein sources through the use of egg-replacement ingredients in some product categories."

Link to Unilever's full statement here (warning, it contains some dead links) ...

http://www.unileverusa.com/resource/Animal-Welfarepolicy.aspx

If I'm understanding this right, it means Unilever will invest in research to find a way to sex a chick when it is still in the egg so egg farmers don't have to euthanize male chicks. 

Unilever will also invest in "egg substitutes."

Hmmmm. I'm more into Dual Purpose breeds and real food than the solutions Unilever is pursuing. 

Very cool that someone is looking into this! I would love to know the sex of a egg as soon as its laid!

 

[KAC hapman19222]

Hello all, I'm from Newberg OR. Starting up my backyard flock and wanted to to see what was going on around here. For those of you who don't know, Newberg veterinary hospital also sees chickens ( I work there otherwise I wouldn't have known)

 

[KAC hapman19222]

[/IMG][/IMG] I am also going to try my hand at hatching some eggs to add to my little friends

 

[KAC hapman19222]

 

[KAC hapman19222]