Hey everyone,
I've been surfing the site for months now and learning tons about keeping chickens. All the while, I've been searching for a new property with acreage. I've lived the last handful of years in a tightly-packed, very typical, Central Oregon subdivision -- it's 1/10th of an acre and the house takes up 98% of the lot. Great house and neighborhood -- terrible amount of lot space. Also, chickens are not allowed within the subdivision. Pffft! However, I am almost closed on a new property just outside of town that has tens of acres and that means chickens won't be far off! What better time to register and shout out to the crowd?!
I have high hopes (and expectations!) for my flock and will be taking a very green approach. The goal is to get the coop running completely solar and to automate a handful of the tasks that many people do by hand (ie, auto-feeding, auto purge/refresh water, auto open/close coop door at dawn/dusk, operate fans/heaters/lights, etc). To achieve this, I'll be using the Arduino microcontroller, solar panels/inverter/controller, and a couple deep cycle batteries. I was thinking I was really onto something, but have since discovered that a few others have indeed used the Arduino to do exactly what I plan to do. This bodes well!
Anyway, I'm still undecided on breeds and numbers, but am leaning toward a couple dozen girls (and a roo or two) to start. The new property is not in a subdivision, there are no CCRs, and it's located within an exclusive farm use (EFU) zone -- or, in other words, a big flock of ladies and a few crowing gents are not going to be a problem whatsoever. For the win!
I would really like to sell most of the eggs and create a (monetarily) sustainable project, but my location will be somewhat remote (out in the sticks, long dead-end dirt road, few neighbors) so I won't be getting my hopes up for that. Any suggestions for selling eggs in this situation would be appreciated. There is a highway a few miles away, so maybe if I put up a road-sign with my phone number or something... Totally open to suggestions!
So, that's what I'm planning to do. I will most likely post updates and answer any questions I can regarding the "electronics" (or any other) part of my setup; feel free to ask. I will probably start a new YouTube channel as well -- though not yet sure if I will cover my whole city-slicker-gone-homesteader process, or if it will just be the chickens aspect.
Thanks for all the great knowledge that I've gained from the site and membership! Hope to be reporting successes soon!
CentralOregon
I've been surfing the site for months now and learning tons about keeping chickens. All the while, I've been searching for a new property with acreage. I've lived the last handful of years in a tightly-packed, very typical, Central Oregon subdivision -- it's 1/10th of an acre and the house takes up 98% of the lot. Great house and neighborhood -- terrible amount of lot space. Also, chickens are not allowed within the subdivision. Pffft! However, I am almost closed on a new property just outside of town that has tens of acres and that means chickens won't be far off! What better time to register and shout out to the crowd?!
I have high hopes (and expectations!) for my flock and will be taking a very green approach. The goal is to get the coop running completely solar and to automate a handful of the tasks that many people do by hand (ie, auto-feeding, auto purge/refresh water, auto open/close coop door at dawn/dusk, operate fans/heaters/lights, etc). To achieve this, I'll be using the Arduino microcontroller, solar panels/inverter/controller, and a couple deep cycle batteries. I was thinking I was really onto something, but have since discovered that a few others have indeed used the Arduino to do exactly what I plan to do. This bodes well!
Anyway, I'm still undecided on breeds and numbers, but am leaning toward a couple dozen girls (and a roo or two) to start. The new property is not in a subdivision, there are no CCRs, and it's located within an exclusive farm use (EFU) zone -- or, in other words, a big flock of ladies and a few crowing gents are not going to be a problem whatsoever. For the win!
I would really like to sell most of the eggs and create a (monetarily) sustainable project, but my location will be somewhat remote (out in the sticks, long dead-end dirt road, few neighbors) so I won't be getting my hopes up for that. Any suggestions for selling eggs in this situation would be appreciated. There is a highway a few miles away, so maybe if I put up a road-sign with my phone number or something... Totally open to suggestions!
So, that's what I'm planning to do. I will most likely post updates and answer any questions I can regarding the "electronics" (or any other) part of my setup; feel free to ask. I will probably start a new YouTube channel as well -- though not yet sure if I will cover my whole city-slicker-gone-homesteader process, or if it will just be the chickens aspect.
Thanks for all the great knowledge that I've gained from the site and membership! Hope to be reporting successes soon!
CentralOregon
That's a suggestion; I will definitely look into that. A restaurant would be a great place to sell many eggs at once without introducing any traffic to the property. I will start looking for any extra rules, regulations, and requirements involved with selling to a restaurant. Thanks for the great suggestion!
