Things You Wish You Would Have Known?

[User395221]

Chickens are addictive......Build a larger coop than you think you will EVER need.

and leave room for a second coop when your girls are mean to new chickens and you need 2 houses, one for nice girls and one for meanies.

 

[LilJoe]

and leave room for a second coop when your girls are mean to new chickens and you need 2 houses, one for nice girls and one for meanies.

we've gotta 2
sided coop

...which isn't enough for 32!

 

[Sandy80]

Water and food dispenser should be set up such that they are up off the bottom of the box or housing where you plan to make the home for baby chicks for first 3-4 weeks after you bring them home. Position the dispensers ~ 2" off the bottom - this keeps the chicks from pooping in the food and water (they are little poo monsters ). I spent way too much time (& stressed over it ) trying to keep the water and food clean. I finally got smart and hung the food dispenser from the side of the tank ( I used a 100 gal stock tank for my 12 chicks) and put the water container up on a wooden platform up about 3". The chicks had clean water & food because they leaned in to get the water and food (they couldn't really sit or stand in or poop in the dispensers) and I was less stressed

Have to be careful for very young chicks on the water dispenser that they don't fall in (they are just learning to drink and could easily drown).

 

[Lisa Wood]

Here is a biggy. We wish we had thought about nightfall. We are so afraid of predators at sunset, we are HOME! Whatever we are doing, stops. We make sure they are locked up asap.

 

[User395221]

I wish I'd known how chickens grow. I'd thought my girls were "all grown up", but they (or one of them, at least) just keep on getting bigger. I just caught sight of my little white girl in my avatar photo when I first got her. She is now HUGE, and she just seems to keep getting bigger.

 

[Lisa Wood]

I wish I'd known how chickens grow.  I'd thought my girls were "all grown up", but they (or one of them, at least) just keep on getting bigger.  I just caught sight of my little white girl in my avatar photo when I first got her.  She is now HUGE, and she just seems to keep getting bigger.  

Yes I agree! I have three Orpingtons that look like Amazons. In fact t
here is such huge discrepancy between big and small, I think the smallest look like bantams.
But what do I know,?

 

[chickrunfun]

It was a long day, but my friend and I were able to do my 8x8 in a day

Metal roof and siding yet to come...

Love the flags on the branch flag poles, very patriotic! When I finished our barn for the girls I wanted to add a flag too but my wife gave me 'the look'. I showed her your coop last night and said
"Hey look at this, hon! Dont the flags add style, don't ya think?" Again with 'the look' So our flag's going up today. I enlarged your picture here and gave it a close look see and I may be wrong but seems under your roof there's gaps for ventilation

but looks like there's no wire covering and all sorts of vermin and get in that way. Might maybe want to cover them up with the wire. I had the smallest gaps up on the underside of our roof and I mean fair small but rodents still got in. See what I mean? you can see the gap close there alongside the screws...THAT small. It was driving me near out of my mind, Rodent poop...the pee wetting the bedding, all that.

So I filled them gaps with that expanding foam. No more tossing out bedding, hay or feed due to rodent piss and poo. But I still check for sing of them getting in. They give me the willies and the thought of them in there creeps me out some.

 

[lcertuche]

I had a problem with pack rats getting in my coup. Rats and mice can actually collapse their heads to squeeze into cracks! I put rat poison where only the rats could squeeze into and yesterday we found our first dead rat lying in the coup. We also have seen big ole rats in the house so down went more poison. We haven't seen any dead ones in the house but boy does our house stink! I'd rather smell dead rats then see live ones running around.

 

[teaton]

I wish i would have known that most rhode island reds you buy no matter where you get them from are usually production reds and not true rhode islands, but I'm happy with mine I just did all the research and ended up with another bird lol and I'm sure that happens to alot of people!

 

[Elemes]

Have an established rooster contingency plan. Hah