Recently became crazy chicken lady..

[DanaNicole]

My boyfriend just had to have chicken for his birthday..
So we built a coop, went to barnyard flea market.. what a mistake. Our lil Polish died same day from what seemed to be mites and poor care...
Broke my heart the way this guy kept his chickens.. alas.. that's farm life I suppose..

Needless to say I have become quite attached to our little Bantam Cochin family of 4.

Looking for few more pullets to add to our family, and ideas to incorporate into our massive run

 

[FrankieDoodle]

Welcome to BYC!!!

 

[Playford Flats Farm]

Welcome to BYC! If you’re looking at all into good layers, I would suggest an Australorp. I have one, her name is Lady and she lays jumbo sized eggs daily. She’s about 8 months old now. She’s all black, and she shines purple and green. Not to mention that’s she’s incredibly sweet, she doesn’t put up with any of the other chickens fighting and she always has something to say. Every morning that I let the chickens out in the morning she follows me about while I do the daily coop chores and just talks.

If you’re looking into Roos I would tell you to get a Brahma. My light Brahma roo is about seven months old and he’s a giant sweetheart. He’s very good with our hens and our young cockerels.

As for ideas to fill up room in your run, put little roosts up. You can make them by putting a pole in the ground and nailing 2X4s to it. I’ve heard that planting little hedges in the run are also good. It gives them something to play on, get up off the ground if theres snow on it, and roosts provide an escape from other chickens if they’re being picked on.

I hope all this helped. Here’s some pics of my Brahma roo and Australorp hen

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[Hope Hughes]

Hello
Welcome to BYC!!
So glad to have you here!!
Thanks for sharing your story!!
There are maany people on here that are ready to help in anyway they can!
The learning center also has alot of great information on it as well!
Enjoy!​

 

[007Sean]

Howdy Happy to have you join the family. Enjoy your time here at BYC!

 

[lazy gardener]

Welcome to BYC. I'm sorry you had a bad experience with the health of one of your first birds. I'd like to take a moment to speak about that. A barnyard flea market can be the worst place to buy animals. B/C all these animals are together in a fairly small area, with all of these animals coming from different locations. This is the perfect set up for spread of disease. Many poultry diseases are forever diseases. Meaning that once you have a certain disease in your flock, it may live forever in your soil, infecting repeated generations of birds. many diseases are air borne, or even spread by chicken dander or feathers, which disperses wide and far.

As for your little Polish dying, I do hope that you don't have a stereotype in your mind that farm life allows room for poor care of animals. B/C that should be the rare occasion, and not any where near "normal".

Adding new birds from multiple locations can be risky business. Simply the stress of moving from one home to an other can be enough to cause a disease which has been latent (sub clinical) to become symptomatic. Some birds can be carriers, yet never look sick. This is why it's risky to combine birds from multiple flocks.

Some folks have great luck combining birds from multiple sources. And they never have issues with disease. But the risk is there, and I want all who are new to flock raising to be aware of the risk.

I wish you the best with your new venture, and hope that all goes well for you. I'm glad you've built a nice big run for your flock. Enjoy them.

 

[Teila]

G’Day from down under Dana Welcome!

I too am sorry to hear of your initial loss

I do hope you enjoy being a BYC member. There are lots of friendly and very helpful folks here so not only is it overflowing with useful information it is also a great place to make friends and have some fun.

You might want to also Find Your State Thread and pop in and say hello.

Personally, I have found the Topic of the Week articles a great resource and a one stop shop for questions which may have already been discussed within the BYC membership group.

If you would like to share pictures and stories of your flock, you have come to the right place. BYC’ers never tire of these and do not back away slowly or commence eye rolling when the photo album or home videos come out

 

[drumstick diva]

Lazy Gardener has given you the truth. Swap meets and such can also be very risky, sellers there one minute and gone the next. No recourse if you discover sick birds, cockerels instead of hens, wrong breeds etc. They feed on newbies who won't realize they have been "clucked."

BYC Learning Center is the best place to start a poultry education.

 

[Pork Pie]

Hello and welcome to BYC

Here’s a link to the Articles section - https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/ There you’ll find lots of information on almost every aspect of keeping chickens - from coop building ideas, to incubating eggs.

There’s a link on the page above to the Learning Centre - it’s a great resource. If you have a specific topic in mind, just type it in the search box - there's a wealth of information on past and present threads.

 

[blackdust951]

helloand welcome to backyard chickens!we're so happy you decided to join us here I hope you enjoy your time here.