Spring 2017 first timers post!

[OCeggs23]

Wyldflwr your pen looks awesome! Wish I could take my littles outside but rain makes it a no-go. I bet they are loving it!

 

[Honora]

Hi Honora!
We have lots of family in the Bay Area and NorCal!

My mom is always asking if we'll move the family up North one day. Whike I dont think we will mlce anytime soon, I do love the area so much!
Thank you, I posted in the Raising Chicks forum. Maybe I should have posted in the Emergencies section! It is so baffling. Not too hot (there are cooler places she can go). No pasty butt or bloody stools. And no other symptoms! No panting or anything. I might lose my mind.

Sounds very frustrating. I have been lucky enough to not have had many problems with sick chicks. I have had chicks killed by predators before though. It's always hard to lose them. I would give her some vitamins in the water and hope she pulls through. If you decide to separate her again, you can give her a stuffed animal or a mirror so she won't feel as lonely. GL!

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

Hi Idllwyld! Where are you ordering your chicks from? What kind and how many? I assume you've got some space out there in Idllwyld! We also must. Finish. Coop. This wet weather is making it hard....

Aeriechickens so sorry to hear you lost one.

It is so heartbreaking and frustrating. I feel your pain!
I'm afraid we are going that way with ANOTHER one, this time a Welsummer that we've had for a week! Little Camo started seeming kind of standoffish yesterday. She was tired in the morning but was eating and drinking fine once she was roused. Then we brought the Easter Eggers home and they are just bigger, more hyper chicks. They push her around. Our other Welsummer can take it but Camo just sits down. I separated her so she could eat and drink in peace but she isn't interested. Then I tried some egg and other treats but still no interest from her. She was lonely I think - chirping loudly. After a while I put her back in the brooder with the others. She ate for 2 seconds before being accidentally being pushed aside by two other roughhousing chicks. Then she just turned around and layed down. I shooed the other chicks away but Camo didnt go back to the feeder. She is just laying. Sometimes she will stand and walk over to the food/water, but just stand there and not eat/drink. It is so frustrating!!! I'm worried we are going to lose her and I dont know how to stop it.

I am getting 7 chicks the first week of April from Meyer's, one barred rock, one Golden Laced Wyandotte, one Blue Americauna, One Easter egger, one light brown leghorn, one golden buff (sex link) and a Myer meal maker. All females, I hope... I live on a half acre and have a great area for them, I am building a coop, calling it the barn, and they will have a big fenced area we are calling the barnyard... lol the coop is huge, about 175 sq ft, it has 12 foot ceilings, a loft, two skylights 3 windows... I am trying not to think about the cost. I figure if in the future we do not continue to keep chickens I can pour a concrete floor (currently dirt) and call it an office or tiny house...

Gary

 

[igorsMistress]

Wyldflwr your pen looks awesome! Wish I could take my littles outside but rain makes it a no-go. I bet they are loving it!

Thanks it's just recycled stuff we had laying around. They do love it but I use it just long enough to clean out the tub I use for a brooder. Then i sit out on the grass with them for some meal worm keep away and let em explore the yard.
It's been some time since we've had chickens. I forgot how fun they can be!

 

[Treerooted]

Welcome to all the new comers

Love the chick picks!

@AerieChickens so sorry to hear about Pan

(only 75 more days until I get my chicks...

)

 

[Chickengirl64]

Good idea! This is my first year raising chicks. I'm going to get them at our local Rural King and hopefully I can get an assortment. I'm going to get 6 chicks, I have 5 older hens. I want to get a variety of chicks if RK will let me. Doing my research before I get them in March.

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

52 days til chicks arrive.

Must. Finish. Coop.

Gary

 

[chickendreams24]

Hi all mind if I join?

We've been raising chickens for nearly two years now....or is it three? Lol we love love love our flock.

DH2B thinks I'm obsessed. I call it passionate.

I see many of you have learned that chickens aren't cheap. Lol

Hopefully I can get and give some advice on this thread. We will be having our first chicks ever direct mailed to our post office in March. I'm very excited. They are DH2B's choice and are 15+ extras heritage line Buckeyes.

We're very very excited!
We have previously purchased chicks from feed stores or gotten them from BYC friends. We have also done a fair bit of hatching.

We use the deep litter method in the winter and love it.

In our experience cream legbars are not flighty birds especially when handled as chicks.

We may also be adding some other chicks this year as well hopefully multiples. My choice for the year was CL hatching eggs but the seller backed out. Now I need to find more chickens lol

We keep our bantams with our large fowl flock except for breeding. This works best if they have been raised together as chicks so they don't pick on the "littles".

We have a mixed flock including Old English Game Bantams, English and American Orpingtons, SLW, cream legbars, silkies, a project breed that we started last year, EE, and a few odds and ends for example a Delaware, a golden laced sebright, a buff Brahma, and multiple others.

If you're looking into breeds and can't decide we love our Orpingtons, CL, EE, and Brahmas.. We have also had golden comets, ISA browns, and a few others that were wonderful birds.

We tried brown Leghorns last year but did not like them they were so flighty we couldn't get close to them without cornering them and they panicked every time they saw us walk into the coop and freaked the rest of the flock out so bad they were flighty for a couple weeks still after the Leghorns left. However we work very hard to keep only the calmest and gentlest breeds as we want a very peaceful flock so if that doesn't bother you they are great layers and personally I think the browns are stunning.

We actually replaced our original strain of SLW with some show stock chicks because of two reasons...predators and the original ones were not easy to handle despite being handled a lot as chicks they liked to follow you in the yard but didn't like being touched. There again they were great birds and we had planned to keep two of them but they were taken by predators, after we sold the other two and that meant starting over. We like to be able to handle our birds without stressing them out in case they should need any special care or treatment(any injury, mites, lice, bumble foot, possible egg binding, illness etc). It's also good if you plan to hatch chicks at all to have a hands on approach when choosing your breeders. I feel this give you an idea of their temperament but also their skeletal structure, weight, confirmation, and for hens checking the distance between their hip bones can be beneficial to seeing how good of layers they'll be.

Sorry if that was confusing lol. When we started with chickens(both our families had them at some point when we were kids- but they were "just chickens") we did research for over a year before taking the plunge. Then chicken math happened big time lol. Thankfully we had an old two room concrete foundation(and about a foot up the walls) milkhouse we were able to convert and use. It's been great! That being said for those of you building your own coops cover everything in hardware cloth lol. If we ever have the chance to redo the foundation or create any more we will lay hardware cloth in or under the foundation. We have never had trouble with mice before like we have this winter. Holy cow! It's been crazy! They have chewed through the concrete(yes through it) to get up into the walls where they are living in the insulation. This summer we will be working to repair all of their damage and rodent proof the coop for the future.

Unfortunately in the meantime we have quite the fight on our hands as some of the flock hunt the mice but the ones on the backside- currently cockerals destined to be guests for dinner do not. So we can't poison because they could be eaten we place traps under wire milk crates but haven't had much luck this way either.

Now onto predators. We live in rural southern Wisconsin and everything eats chicken. Unfortunately starting last May up until last month we have had a major problem with fox mostly but also coyotes and hawks. We lost 28+ birds to predators between May 2016 and January
2017. Over 500-800+$ worth of birds if we had sold them, not even including what they cost us or what we put into them to raise them. Obviously birds of prey are highly protected(I've heard a blast from a hose or super soaker can deter them) but coyotes and fox that are killing your livestock are legal to shoot from what I've read in WI.

I hope none of you ever have problems but it does happen. Even rats will kill and eat baby chicks we lost a chick that way one night when it was in another of our buildings in an enclosed run. The rat went through a one inch gap.

We live in a house that is surrounded by open fields but we have a large yard. Unfortunately where the milkhouse(coop) is situated we cannot fence in a run for the birds. Although we do have a couple smaller portable runs/tractors our flock all together will probably peak at over 60 birds this year not including cockerals to be eaten. That run would have to be a good hunk of the yard which would be insanely expensive plus we don't own the property so we can't just go fencing things in. We free range during the day predators and weather allowing and lock the birds up at night.

We added four guineas last year for predator lookouts we also keep roosters(have from the beginning and we've had some amazing and only two awful roosters).

We are also making a smaller coop that is basically a tractor coop but it's too heavy to move(we may put it on wheels) and have another coop that will be moved this spring from and uncles house. These other coops will mostly be used for breeding and growing out chicks but may end up being insulated and used year round.

We also added quail in December and have our first quail eggs in the incubator.

Sorry this is so long lol

Let me know if anyone has any questions about breeds or anything I'll help if I can. Glad to see all the little chicks I have two broodies right now and I'm dieing to give them some eggs.

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

^^^^^
Welcome to our thread!

Gary

Must. Finish. Coop.

 

[pknowles]

I'm in! I just received 4 chicks from a friend 2 days ago. I think they are about a week or so old. We have no idea what we are doing and trying to get started building a coop for my new babies. So... yes, lets see.

Peggy from Mississippi