2ndCharter
In the Brooder
I know I had an account here before, probably around 2008 or 2009. I can't remember my username nor which email address I had. In fact, I remember the site being very different. So, mea culpa, I didn't post for awhile and I had to create a new account. C'est la vie.
2009 is when I pulled the trigger on getting my own layers. In the early 70's my family kept hens on our farm but I remember very little of it. As of 2009, I had already been a beekeeper and master gardener but I had held off on chickens due to covenants in my HOA. Mind you, the lot sizes are very large and in my area, mine is the smallest at 3.5 acres.
I had met Joel Salatin a few times, been to his house a couple of times, and read a great deal about coops. I built a movable coop and using an electric net, have a fairly decent system.
So the HOA decided to remove all agricultural-based restrictions for the community and this could not be reversed. I had a neighbor who complained to every single entity he could. They all deferred to the HOA or a county "right to farm" law. Win for me. The dude was lucky that we didn't keep roosters.
So, he kept complaining, and kept complaining and threatened a lawsuit. Now, we have 4 roosters. If you want to be a jerk, I can play too. Ok, we didn't do it to be mean but we'd had hawk issues.
About 4 years ago, our flock was up to 70 birds. We started losing a bird to a hawk about every other day. I talked to the state department of natural resources about getting a special permit (it's allowed here) to shoot the hawks but the wheels of .gov moved so slowly that it never happened and we were down to one single hen. The only reason she survived is that she refused to leave the coop. Smart bird or a case of PTSD. We named her "Marcus" because she was the lone survivor.
We got a bunch of day olds the following spring and thank God, Marcus decided to join the others in outdoor activities. In that bunch, which were straight runs, we had 3 roos. I can't tell you how mean they were. They were a scrappy bunch but they were the first to succumb to the hawk war. We kept the hens locked in their coop for many weeks and only let them out for about an hour before dusk while we were able to watch.
Fall came and then everything was fine. The next spring we got 3 more roos in a trade of day olds and excluding one, they have been nice as can be. That one and I got into a bit of a fight this summer and he's been chill towards me ever since. I'm the only one who can go in the run.
Since 2009, we've used a "fra-gee-lay" box as a brooder. I had given my dad a leg lamp for Christmas (see the movie Christmas Story) and had built a pine box just like in the movie. After 13 years, it was worn out and we threw it on the bonfire, committing to a new build.
We committed to many things this year. I bought a Nurture Right 360, a 1.5" spacer and 3 days ago, put 20 eggs on for incubation. Now I've got to build a new brooder with the lessons learned over the last 13 years. I've going a little high-tech on the heating/lighting system but am still indecisive about the brooder space in general.
So I created this new account to browse the brooder thread, hoping that being logged in would limit the adds and the resources consumed by the browser viewing the site but that wasn't to be had. Oh well.
2009 is when I pulled the trigger on getting my own layers. In the early 70's my family kept hens on our farm but I remember very little of it. As of 2009, I had already been a beekeeper and master gardener but I had held off on chickens due to covenants in my HOA. Mind you, the lot sizes are very large and in my area, mine is the smallest at 3.5 acres.
I had met Joel Salatin a few times, been to his house a couple of times, and read a great deal about coops. I built a movable coop and using an electric net, have a fairly decent system.
So the HOA decided to remove all agricultural-based restrictions for the community and this could not be reversed. I had a neighbor who complained to every single entity he could. They all deferred to the HOA or a county "right to farm" law. Win for me. The dude was lucky that we didn't keep roosters.
So, he kept complaining, and kept complaining and threatened a lawsuit. Now, we have 4 roosters. If you want to be a jerk, I can play too. Ok, we didn't do it to be mean but we'd had hawk issues.
About 4 years ago, our flock was up to 70 birds. We started losing a bird to a hawk about every other day. I talked to the state department of natural resources about getting a special permit (it's allowed here) to shoot the hawks but the wheels of .gov moved so slowly that it never happened and we were down to one single hen. The only reason she survived is that she refused to leave the coop. Smart bird or a case of PTSD. We named her "Marcus" because she was the lone survivor.
We got a bunch of day olds the following spring and thank God, Marcus decided to join the others in outdoor activities. In that bunch, which were straight runs, we had 3 roos. I can't tell you how mean they were. They were a scrappy bunch but they were the first to succumb to the hawk war. We kept the hens locked in their coop for many weeks and only let them out for about an hour before dusk while we were able to watch.
Fall came and then everything was fine. The next spring we got 3 more roos in a trade of day olds and excluding one, they have been nice as can be. That one and I got into a bit of a fight this summer and he's been chill towards me ever since. I'm the only one who can go in the run.
Since 2009, we've used a "fra-gee-lay" box as a brooder. I had given my dad a leg lamp for Christmas (see the movie Christmas Story) and had built a pine box just like in the movie. After 13 years, it was worn out and we threw it on the bonfire, committing to a new build.
We committed to many things this year. I bought a Nurture Right 360, a 1.5" spacer and 3 days ago, put 20 eggs on for incubation. Now I've got to build a new brooder with the lessons learned over the last 13 years. I've going a little high-tech on the heating/lighting system but am still indecisive about the brooder space in general.
So I created this new account to browse the brooder thread, hoping that being logged in would limit the adds and the resources consumed by the browser viewing the site but that wasn't to be had. Oh well.
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