Hi Again!
It has been a lot of years since I've been active, and a lot has happened in the meantime.
Coles notes, after 4.5 years in Europe, we returned to Canada and have been settled on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island for the past 2.
We are now, finally getting close to chicken time. First up is the need for a new coop. Fortunately, Feller still has the basic plans for the old one, and thankfully, I had posted pics here, so we're golden on that front. It's crazy rainy in this part of the universe, so building will be holding off until sometime in the spring.
Our last flock consisted of Rosie (Bovan), Gussie (Australorp), and Juanita (Araucauna). We were very happy with that mix last time, and intend to go with the same, but this time, the flock will double.
The big question at this point, is whether to try and get point of lay pullets, or day old chicks (I'm betting I could convince the school (18 students k-12) that building a brooder and brooding a bunch of chicks would be an excellent project).
There is a farm that keeps laying hens local to us, and our longterm hope is that they'll let us build a coop for meat birds up there (we have a tiny yard) in exchange for some of the bounty. So, in that sense, regardless of whether we go with chicks for our laying flock or not, brooders are definitely in our future, and could be a yearly (or more often) project for the school.
So there you have it. It's great to be back and I look forward to catching up on my reading and upgrading my chicken education.
~Crusty
It has been a lot of years since I've been active, and a lot has happened in the meantime.
Coles notes, after 4.5 years in Europe, we returned to Canada and have been settled on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island for the past 2.
We are now, finally getting close to chicken time. First up is the need for a new coop. Fortunately, Feller still has the basic plans for the old one, and thankfully, I had posted pics here, so we're golden on that front. It's crazy rainy in this part of the universe, so building will be holding off until sometime in the spring.
Our last flock consisted of Rosie (Bovan), Gussie (Australorp), and Juanita (Araucauna). We were very happy with that mix last time, and intend to go with the same, but this time, the flock will double.
The big question at this point, is whether to try and get point of lay pullets, or day old chicks (I'm betting I could convince the school (18 students k-12) that building a brooder and brooding a bunch of chicks would be an excellent project).
There is a farm that keeps laying hens local to us, and our longterm hope is that they'll let us build a coop for meat birds up there (we have a tiny yard) in exchange for some of the bounty. So, in that sense, regardless of whether we go with chicks for our laying flock or not, brooders are definitely in our future, and could be a yearly (or more often) project for the school.
So there you have it. It's great to be back and I look forward to catching up on my reading and upgrading my chicken education.
~Crusty
