Aunt Tat
Songster
Greetings fellow cluckers.
This summer, unbeknownst to us, one of our neighbor's chickens had taken a liking to my husband and I and started hanging around with us in the garage. Earlier in the year, she had gone exploring and we were her new world. Somehow she managed to jump the 6' wood fence to our yard and began her exploration in earnest. We thought the cat had started digging in our raised garden bed, so we put some PVC pipes across the bed and topped that with some wire. The "Cat" didn't get in it again.
Later, I discovered a fern that had all been dug up and mulch all over the place! "Well that darn cat!!! (or it could have been our housemate's corgi!)
Well, after Ms. Henny Penny/Penelope/Penrietta, a Barred Rock Hen (I learned on my own), started roosting up in our garage...pooping on stuff, and I started reading up on chickens, I realized the vandal to our plants was a chicken!!
Later, upon going into our shed, we discovered she'd had been sleeping at our house all summer!!! Poop all over everything! But to her credit, we also discovered her nest. She had been paying her rent with delicious brown eggs!
To make a long story short, once we rearranged the shelf access and she turned her beak up at the roost we made, she figured out how to get in the cabinets between our furnace and kitchen door. There she stayed at night until Thanksgiving. The goofball comes over several times a week, hops up into her box and leaves an egg. At night, she's snug in her coop next door.
Needless to say, we've fallen in love with chickens. Makes sense. We have parrots too!
We need to get a new shed for garden equipment, take down the current shed and use it for the chicken coop/run. I need it easy to access because of balance problems. We'll be building a chicken tractor with PVC and chicken wire or similar, and let them free-range to keep pathways clear of weeds and to help cultivate the garden.
We have almost a half-acre and we can have 4 or 5 chickens/no roosters. So far my favorite, of course, is Barred Rock, but we're also open to Rhode Island Reds. We just want them for pets/eggs. And they need to be large enough to stand up to our cat (who does fine with Penny) as well as the resident Corgi.
On my own, I've learned quite a bit thanks to the internet and of course, nothing is an educator like experience - which is why I'm pretty good at learning from OTHER people's experiences.
This summer, unbeknownst to us, one of our neighbor's chickens had taken a liking to my husband and I and started hanging around with us in the garage. Earlier in the year, she had gone exploring and we were her new world. Somehow she managed to jump the 6' wood fence to our yard and began her exploration in earnest. We thought the cat had started digging in our raised garden bed, so we put some PVC pipes across the bed and topped that with some wire. The "Cat" didn't get in it again.
Later, I discovered a fern that had all been dug up and mulch all over the place! "Well that darn cat!!! (or it could have been our housemate's corgi!)
Well, after Ms. Henny Penny/Penelope/Penrietta, a Barred Rock Hen (I learned on my own), started roosting up in our garage...pooping on stuff, and I started reading up on chickens, I realized the vandal to our plants was a chicken!!
Later, upon going into our shed, we discovered she'd had been sleeping at our house all summer!!! Poop all over everything! But to her credit, we also discovered her nest. She had been paying her rent with delicious brown eggs!
To make a long story short, once we rearranged the shelf access and she turned her beak up at the roost we made, she figured out how to get in the cabinets between our furnace and kitchen door. There she stayed at night until Thanksgiving. The goofball comes over several times a week, hops up into her box and leaves an egg. At night, she's snug in her coop next door.
Needless to say, we've fallen in love with chickens. Makes sense. We have parrots too!
We need to get a new shed for garden equipment, take down the current shed and use it for the chicken coop/run. I need it easy to access because of balance problems. We'll be building a chicken tractor with PVC and chicken wire or similar, and let them free-range to keep pathways clear of weeds and to help cultivate the garden.
We have almost a half-acre and we can have 4 or 5 chickens/no roosters. So far my favorite, of course, is Barred Rock, but we're also open to Rhode Island Reds. We just want them for pets/eggs. And they need to be large enough to stand up to our cat (who does fine with Penny) as well as the resident Corgi.
On my own, I've learned quite a bit thanks to the internet and of course, nothing is an educator like experience - which is why I'm pretty good at learning from OTHER people's experiences.
Glad you joined.
Hello and welcome to BYC, You found an Awesome poultry Forum to be a part of with many great knowledgeable members who are more then willing to jump in and help you with any questions you may have. 
