Thank You for Having BYC for Folks Like Me!

It seems more straightforward to follow the suggested introduction template so that's what I will do!


My partner and I are both newly minted chicken owners buying our first flock of 18 birds the Monday prior to July 4th. We both love them so much but I have just been smitten more than I thought imaginable! We started with 5 two month old Barred Rock pullets and 13 various aged guinea keets (2-5 weeks).

We have grown our flock from the initial 18 birds (minus one hanging itself in the fence) from 17 to 22.

In addition to the guineas (2 Lavender, 5 Pearl and 5 Pied) we have the 5 Barred Rocks, 4 Buff Orpington pullets (one of which is sick so I will be perusing that section of BYC shortly) and 1 Black and White Laced Wyandotte pullet.

Initially I discovered BYC a few years ago through internet searches looking for great sites dedicated to chickens and from fellow forum members from TSP (The Survival Podcast). Since I'm now a chicken owner and a real novice at that I decided to get more serious about my involvement in the online chicken community.

We love to garden so adding chickens just seemed to be the next natural step in our homesteading adventure. We are also avid deer hunters and fishers but the fishing opportunities are less available than hunting. We love working outside which is a good thing since we recently built our home on ample acreage. Planning so many things on such a wide open design palette is a bit daunting but more invigorating than overwhelming.

We are a human family of two and an animal family of more, 3 dogs and 3 cats (that we know of, mama just had babies AGAIN but we have not seen them yet) in addition to our birds. I have been bitten by the bug to have birds and would love to expand our flock to other species later on. We have family that would love to have 'their' birds but have us raise and manage them. We're both OK with this as these few birds have brought us immense joy. Our long term goals are to build up a nice, small functioning farm with self-sustaining gardens and livestock. We have a long way to go but we're enjoying the journey! This summer we feel lucky to have the birds as it was just us two constructing the coop and run on our weekends off. It's simply too hot in this Texas summer to be very productive outside.....

Thank You All for this lovely site and we look forward to not only learning but hopefully one day to contribute from the experience we gain We look forward to reading all about you guys and sharing more as time goes on!

 

Thank you all so much for the warm welcome and the well wishes for the Buff

Buff update: she certainly seems much better. I'm still new to everything but I could find no outward evidence of a sickness or injury. I've come to the conclusion that she was simply being bullied off of the feeder and waterer. Since quarantine and about 36 hours of A/C and food and drink she seems perfectly normal. Whew! I truly hope that is a correct analysis as I have no other emperical evidence to go on!

I do so look forward to being part of this community!