My husband an I are looking into possibly raising chickens. I had some when I was little so much of the coop construction and maintenance is unknown to me. Basically I just gathered eggs and watched (and got chased by) the chickens. I was hoping to get some advice on building an affordable coop and run with an extremely limited tool box and good breeds to have for eggs and possibly meat. My husband's idea is to have the chickens and my garden supplement groceries to loosen the monthly budget a bit. So any advice would be much appreciated.
Hello and Welcome To BYC! check out the Coops section, there are plain and fancy coops and many of them have detailed plans that should help you figure out if you want to tackle building them https://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/2/Coops As for breeds, Here are a couple of links to some nice chicken breed comparison charts you might like http://www.sagehenfarmlodi.com/chooks/chooks.html and http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/chickenbreedcomparison.pdf when you have narrowed down your choices, don't forget to check the BYC Reviews section for member reviews on the different breeds.
Hi Glad you could join the flock! The learning centre is the place to start for lots of great articles on getting started, housing , feeding and keeping your birds healthy and safe from predators. Here is the link https://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/1/Learning_Center Definatly check out the coop section that Kelsie has left for you on coop designs. Wishing you the very best of luck with your new chicken adventure. Be sure to ask any questions you may have the forum is very diverse, everyone here to help and very friendly. Enjoy BYC
I will say that if one is looking at this enterprise as a cost saving measure that can be a bit difficult to actually realize in practice. The "profit" from keeping chickens is more of an intangible thing as for *most* the actual expense of eggs purchased on a monthly basis is not equal to the investment (especially for start up with the one time investments like coop construction, etc) that is made to build and maintain a happy, healthy flock. That being said - keeping chickens is WELL worth the investment, imo, even if that first egg costs you several hundred dollars or more.
Welcome to BYC! I'm glad you joined our community. You've been given some good links and advice already! If you're interested in meat and egg production, I suggest getting one of the dual purpose breeds like Delaware, Rhode Island Red, Wyandotte, Sussex, Australorp, and Orpington. These breeds should be very good layers and also work fine as meat birds. Alternatively, you could raise a special meat breed like the Cornish X, which are usually more effficient at converting feed to meat (and much faster, too).
Welcome to BYC! Please make yourself at home and we are here to help. @Kelsie2290 , @Yorkshire coop and @Ol Grey Mare have given you good advice. Good luck and glad you joined!
We have gotten chicken coops from free or very cheap wooden dog houses that we then modified. The chickens do fine in them even in the extremely artic weather we'very had this year. But they free range during the day, so theyes don'the need a huge coop.
