Welcome to BYC! I'm glad you joined us!
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Hello everyone my family is looking forward to starting our very own flock. (small flock). I just finished reading "Backyard Chickens for Beginners" by R.J. Ruppenthal. It gave me a lot of good information. We were going to get our chicks by the end of February but now we are more conscientious of what breed to buy. Any help would be much appreciated, just to give you some background we live in Southeast Idaho so winters can be rough. The coop we are going to have built will only be big enough for 4-5 chickens. Looking for good egg layers but also that will be good to eat when the eggs run out. My wife would like an Ameraucana and a Marans, if possible I guess the question is are these okay for our climate and are they better to have in pairs? Are there other breeds you would recommend? I know we will be leaning on all of you for a long time and we appreciate your help.
Kind regards,
Bridebeliever thank you for the recommendation on the blue tinted egg. I was afraid someone was going to say build a bigger coop, my wife said the same thing.
Thank you Bruceha2000 that was very helpful. We were originally looking at a prefab online coop but after reading the book we decided to build one instead. We found one on BYC and are making it a little bigger as well as making the run larger. I would love to make it bigger but my yard is not that big and I am eating up a large part of my garden to add the coop.
Birdrain I just found out today that my cousin (who I knew had chickens but had no idea how many) is expecting to have Black Astralorp chicks the first of March. She has agreed to give us one. Thank you for the offer in February but I think I will be taken care of.
Thank you Bruceha2000 that was very helpful. We were originally looking at a prefab online coop but after reading the book we decided to build one instead. We found one on BYC and are making it a little bigger as well as making the run larger. I would love to make it bigger but my yard is not that big and I am eating up a large part of my garden to add the coop.