Time to cut in door and Ventilation - Thoughts?

[bedpan]

Thanks kindly.. Seems like all good advice. Just spotted a new add that is up by my inlaws. We can drop off some groceries and pickup some chickens. I will talk to them as well.

Cheers,

If the birds are a year old, roosters should be pretty obvious compared to hens (as it doesn't sound like you're aiming to get something like Silkies where gender might be trickier to eyeball).

Maybe the seller would be willing to send some photos of the grounds in lieu of you actually walking around the grounds. If not, it should still be pretty obvious once you see the actual birds if they've been well kept or not - unscrupulous sellers aren't going to bother bathing and grooming a bunch of random birds just to make them more presentable for a possible sale.

Look for birds with bright eyes, plump red combs, legs and feet in good condition (no raised scales), reasonably clean and well feathered.

 

[bedpan]

While we had a whirlwind day. Far more done then I expect.. So much so we got chickens today! I lucked out. I happen to poke at Kijiji this morning and saw a post for some red sex link and easter eggers about 10 minutes from my home. We chatted back and forth in email and she seemed honest and easy to get on with. She has a couple coops in her back yard and sells some hens each spring. I just happend to get lucky to have looked within a few minutes of her posting.

Anyways we all tucked to and got the the finishing touches on the coop this morning and got it moved out to the yard. I arranged to pickup up food, straw, woodchips at a local feed store and then stopped and got our 5 birds. We got everything organized and set the birds free.

They seem happy and went straight to eating and scratching in run. The RSL's seem to be fearless and happy to be fed by hand. The Easter Eggers seem to much more timid both with us and the RSL's. The birds headed into the coop on there own right around 8pm. They took turns drinking and eat and went about finding there home on the roost.

We setup a camera so we could watch and proceeded to laugh as they pushed each other around and figured out what way to face. All said in less then 20 minutes they got into position and all but asleep. The RSL do seem to be pecking at the Easter Eggers a bit. Hopefully thats just them sorting out the pecking order.

A great day. The kids had a great time feeding them and watching them play around. I am happy with the seller we found and so far so good. I will likely build a larger temp run for them tomorrow. We will keep them confined to the coop and run for a few weeks. Then maybe sometime in May we will try some free range. Fingers crossed!

 

[bedpan]

2 days with chickens. Day one we had 2 eggs and day 2 another 2 eggs. I believe the 3 RSL have laid and one of the Easter Eggers has laid. Leaving 1 Easter egger as a dud ;-)

Despite better advice we ended up letting them out yesterday in the yard for a couple hours. We kept one of the Easter Eggers in as she seems very timid and hard to get near. The 3 RSL's we were able to walk up to and pickup no problems. The Easter Egger I had to sneak up on a little. Once I picked her up she settled right in. Now that she has been held she comes running when I open the coop and looking for affection.
We repeated again today this time my daughter let last Easter Egger out. I was a little worried about trying to get her back in. But the 4 of us corraled them all back to the coop where she cornered herself and I was able to pick her up. She also settled in nicely in my arms. I am hoping its the beginning of something ;-)

We worked today on fixing up a few things and finishing a few things. We have the hatch above the ramp hinged and latched now. I built another sliding door that allows the hens out of the coop and we got some last bits painted and ready to install.

A couple pics... Note the homemade PVC Feeder and homemade waterer. Both are working better then I expected. I am going to see if I can get a clear 3" pipe to put on the feeder. I will make it as long as will fit. Then from the camera I can see the water and food level as well as the egg box for presents I am sure its all a work in progress..