# I got Chickens !!!!!



## biobacon

After 4 years of wanting and saying, "no, next year" I got 6 Rhoad Island Reds yesterday. Now I have to build a coop. My kids are already hooked. So I have live stock and a field to grow my crops, yes its 6 chickens and 1/8 acre but Im farming now LOL


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## alwaysready

Congrats I'm excited for you and happy for your children. My first pet at age 3 was a white crested black polish chick. Once she started laying the highlight of my day was to gather that one egg per day.


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## Grimm

When building your coop remember to make it big enough to house double or triple the amount of chickens you have now. Chicken math is tricky as they can be addictive.


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## dademoss

Congrats, you should have stayed away from the Farm Store at chick time. Here are 5 hens living the semi-covert lifestyle on .17 acres in an R-6 residential district. 

The neighbors know but don't care, they are quieter than other neighbors dogs.


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## Viking

We have 8 red hens and had 8 barred rocks until one was taken by a Red Tailed hawk yesterday. Thing is the day before we had gone to the Co-op to get some feed and scratch and they were giving away baby chicks, we ended up with 12 barred rocks, as if we didn't have enough to do with all the other projects around here, almost turned them down but realized it was too good of a deal, $38.16 worth of a good deal. Looks like I'll be using the old chicken coup again, I'll have to build a fenced run with chicken wire over the top to keep any hawks out, it's all good though, maybe we'll get a good rooster and enough extra eggs, hopefully most will be hens and can sell the excess eggs. The last batch of chicks we got ended up being all hens, with past experience, that is highly unusual.


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## Balls004

Congratulations! Hope you have a great time raising your own...

Just make sure that your kids know ahead of time that chicks don't swim like ducks...

My daughter learned that lesson the hard way, along with that lying wasn't tolerated in our house. It was a natural mistake, but we lost 5 chicks.


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## gilacr

Congratulations!!! There's nothing better than real eggs! As for the farming, I find it very relaxing. I really enjoy canning my home grown goods.


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## biobacon

Thanks yall for the support. We stopped at a Tractor Supply in a bigger city we were visiting for a kids B-Day and found ducks for $.99. I had to say NO about 10 times. We started small with the garden and have continued to make it bigger every year as we gain knowledge and skill sets. Maybe next year we can get some ducks. We have just a couple payments left on our car and then both vehicles are paid for. That might free up some cash to build a walk in coop. They also had bantams for .49 cents. Free would have been hard for me to say no to. I want to increase our rabbits as well, as we have just one pet bunny. But I live in the city so I have to walk a line, its pretty friendly to our kind of people and my neighbors arent to objectionable but their is always a line right? Course on one side they are spraying round up this year for poison ivory which pisses me off but then its their yard right?


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## oldasrocks

I have learned a lot about chicken breeds. I'm switching over to a breed that lays all winter called Red Star. I thought all chickens quit laying in the winter unless you kept a light on them. My sister educated me. She gets 4 dozen a day off 50 chickens.

So anyone who would like to come over and help pluck 25 chickens is more than welcome. I will not charge for the learning experience.


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## musketjim

Way cool, have fun, it's a blast. We've been raising chickens for several years, added turkeys a couple of years ago and adding ducks this year. Just small steps and I don't have a lot, but we get enough eggs that we give some to our neighbors and they enjoy watching and hearing our turkeys wandering around our yard. Maybe next year I'll add elephants and giraffes. 

"The whole world sucks, America sucks a lot less, and Alaska don't suck at all."


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## Cotton

Congrats… I picked up a dozen ISA Browns from tractor supply today myself. They are great layers.


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## IceFire

Congrats on your new additions! I have 9 layers, and picked up a new batch of chicks a few weeks ago, myself. They'll be going out to the coop in the garden this weekend...now that they're bigger and REALLY starting to make a mess (not to mentions stink), I am SO over them being in "the brooder in the bathtub". After that, the bathtub (as well as the rest of the bathroom) is going to get a thorough scrubbing/disinfection.


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## biobacon

musketjim said:


> Way cool, have fun, it's a blast. We've been raising chickens for several years, added turkeys a couple of years ago and adding ducks this year. Just small steps and I don't have a lot, but we get enough eggs that we give some to our neighbors and they enjoy watching and hearing our turkeys wandering around our yard. Maybe next year I'll add elephants and giraffes.
> 
> "The whole world sucks, America sucks a lot less, and Alaska don't suck at all."


They passed a law in Ohio so you cant have elephants and giraffes. A couple years ago a guy with several lions and other such animals oped their cages and then offed himself. Man I wanted a Mastodon when they used ancient DNA to bring them back. LOL


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## timmie

a friend gave me some rhode island red eggs[24] to hatch. they started hatching last night-----the first time i have ever hatched them in an incubator. so far so good


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## AuntB

biobacon said:


> After 4 years of wanting and saying, "no, next year" I got 6 Rhoad Island Reds yesterday. Now I have to build a coop. My kids are already hooked. So I have live stock and a field to grow my crops, yes its 6 chickens and 1/8 acre but Im farming now LOL


:congrat: Congratulations. I think it is great that your kids are hooked because those little sponges will be learning a skill that they will never forget. Most kids now a days think eggs and meat only come from a store.


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## Grimm

AuntB said:


> :congrat: Congratulations. I think it is great that your kids are hooked because those little sponges will be learning a skill that they will never forget. Most kids now a days think eggs and meat only come from a store.


Roo is 4 and a half and we have been working with her about where food comes from. If you ask what comes from a pig she will tell you pork, bacon and lard. She is so cute! She tries to ask what comes from a horse and so far I can only tell her hard work and glue. 

Seriously we show her the meats at the store and tell her what animal they come from. She seems to like sausage of all kinds including venison.


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## Cotton

timmie said:


> a friend gave me some rhode island red eggs[24] to hatch. they started hatching last night-----the first time i have ever hatched them in an incubator. so far so good


Great! The first time I hatched any with an incubator I'd come in the house to fix lunch. I kept hearing something, thought a bird had gotten in the house... a dozen of them had! lol.


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## crabapple

I am getting 11 reds & 11 black sex links.
These will come in with the turkeys & Easter egg hens.
We are looking at 3-4 dozen eggs a day in peak season, if all clicks live.
This will supply 4 families.


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## timmie

a customer at the store where i work gave me 19 guinea eggs to hatch. i know the things are loud but i don't like chemicals and these are supposed to take care of stink-bugs and other unwanted pests from our summer garden. they also do not like snakes. i think i can live with the noise if they can do their job.


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## tsrwivey

My chickens are loud. Really loud. But only when I come outside. When I pull in the driveway, they come running & squawking. They're hoping for some goodies.


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## Cotton

Update on the peeps. I've had them 50 days today. I lost one the first week to an unknown cause. But 11 still look healthy, still growing. Should start laying around Labor Day.


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## Grimm

Remember to check chicks for pasty butt the first few weeks. They can die from it and it is an easy fix.


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## Grimm

My five new chicks are looking rough as their heads are feathering. They are all flyers and fly around the brooder. I have to be careful when I open it or they might fly out!


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## Cotton

For a couple of months, since my last hen was killed by an unknown critter, my two roosters have been shut up in the main roost (the fort knox of roosts I built last summer). I didn’t want to lose them.

Since I have a few days off from bees I decided to change things up. I put a new tarp on the roost and put a new layer of pine shavings down. I spent a couple of hours and fixed the main perimeter fence. I let the two lonely bachelors out of the roost for a stroll.

While they were out I moved all my peeps from their 6x8ft pen and put them in the main roost, 10X10ft. Now the girls are safe behind two secure fences and have twice the living area.

I was tired of feeding and watering chickens in two different pens. Now they are all in the main pen. I even set the boys up a roosting pole with a little shelter from rain.


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## biobacon

Looks awsome. Im planning a run for mine, as Im putting in the garden this weekend and Im not growing it to be a chicken buffet.


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## Cotton

The peeps are 17 weeks old today, plus or minus 2 days. I got my first egg this morning, an accident by the feeder. It wasn’t tiny, it was grade A small. This was a surprise, I didn’t expect to start getting a few eggs until late in their 19th week, early 20th week. ISA browns usually start around the 20th week.

I don’t even have laying boxes ready, have to do that tomorrow!


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## Viking

Cotton said:


> The peeps are 17 weeks old today, plus or minus 2 days. I got my first egg this morning, an accident by the feeder. It wasn't tiny, it was grade A small. This was a surprise, I didn't expect to start getting a few eggs until late in their 19th week, early 20th week. ISA browns usually start around the 20th week.
> 
> I don't even have laying boxes ready, have to do that tomorrow!


My young barred rocks gave us two eggs yesterday and two today that look just like that egg. I let one of the young roosters out with the older hens but he didn't do too well, the bigger hens scared him, anyway I'm thinking of letting all the youngsters out to roam the fields with the older hens, they're only around ten months old so it shouldn't be too rough on the young ones for pecking order adjustments.


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## Cotton

Monday I got 6 eggs, 5 yesterday and 6 again today! Next week I'll sell a couple of cartons to pay for some feed! This is their 19th week... all the girls aren't laying yet...


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## DoubleR

Yay! Congrats! Nothing like home grown eggs!


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## Cotton

I got 8 eggs today and a double yoke. It’s been a few years since I raised some ISA browns. I had forgotten they lay a lot of double yokes when they first start laying. The number drops off in a week or so. Some excellent laying hens.


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## DoubleR

Interesting! I can't remember my last double yoke! 
Wonder what causes that. Since we don't have that happen here with our new or old hens....... Going to have to look this up  Must have something to do with the breed???? Hmmm..... 
Congrats on the eggs!


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## Cotton

Anyone know a tried and true method for breaking a hen from wanting to "set". I've one hen, every morning there is a ruckus because she wants to run the other hens off the golf balls...

Every afternoon she sits on the eggs that were laid (despite her objections). Every evening I have to pull her off the nest box just before dark and put her in the coop with the other hens.

There are three nest boxes for 11 hens, of course they all want to lay in the same one...


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## terri9630

Cotton said:


> Anyone know a tried and true method for breaking a hen from wanting to "set". I've one hen, every morning there is a ruckus because she wants to run the other hens off the golf balls...
> 
> Every afternoon she sits on the eggs that were laid (despite her objections). Every evening I have to pull her off the nest box just before dark and put her in the coop with the other hens.
> 
> There are three nest boxes for 11 hens, of course they all want to lay in the same one...


I'd let her sit them and raise some chick's to sell, if you have a rooster.


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## Cotton

Chicks in the fall will have a high mortality rate. If it were spring it'd be a different story.


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## Country Living

I had to put my broody hen in a cage (with food, water, and hay) for about 36 hours. Then she was over her broodiness. I didn't have a rooster so her egg-sitting was not going to produce chicks. Had I had a rooster, I would have done what terri said and let her hatch the eggs.


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## terri9630

Cotton said:


> Chicks in the fall will have a high mortality rate. If it were spring it'd be a different story.


I've never had that problem. But our summers are like an oven. That's when we loose birds. We lost 3 adult California whites this summer and almost half our meat birds. They do better in the fall/winter.


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## Cotton

Country Living said:


> I had to put my broody hen in a cage (with food, water, and hay) for about 36 hours. Then she was over her broodiness. I didn't have a rooster so her egg-sitting was not going to produce chicks. Had I had a rooster, I would have done what terri said and let her hatch the eggs.


Thanks for the tip! I'll give it a try!  My grandfather used run off the hen then dump a bucket of water in the nest. I don't want to carry the water or put fresh hay in the nest box every day... 
_
terrie9630 I've never had that problem. But our summers are like an oven. That's when we loose birds. We lost 3 adult California whites this summer and almost half our meat birds. They do better in the fall/winter._

I sometimes get a frost on easter. If I'm going to hatch out chicks I prefer they hatch after easter. By the time august heat rolls in they are big enough to handle it.


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## Country Living

Every summer I run a mister line through our Butterfly Bush (Glory Bower). It's the perfect hanging out place for the hens and Guineas on hot days. 

I got my misters from Lowes. They're seasonal so you have to get them in late spring or very early summer. Just hook it to a water hose and turn on the faucet a bit. I get replacement nozzles on Amazon. I tried soaking the nozzles in vinegar - it was too much of a pain so now I just replace them.


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## Country Living

I'm not hijacking..... if you've got chickens, you've got rodents.

I've been playing the rat/mice game in the chicken coop most of the summer. I tried bait traps, glue traps, rat/mice spring traps (if you put the glue and spring-traps where the birds can't get to them, the rodents probably won't go there either). I also put the food up at night and emptied the water containers. The game camera wasn't showing any decrease in population.

After spending way too much time on the computer researching alternaltives, I bought  live-catch traps  that were sized for both mice and rats and I'm happy to report the rodent population is decreasing nightly and I'm not even putting bait in the traps.

Where I'm going with this is not to make my mistake in waiting too long to put out live-catch traps. They are the only things safe to use around your birds. I reset the traps immediately after dispatching the rodents; however, if you have baby birds, you may want to wait to set the traps until after the birds go to roost.


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## terri9630

Cotton said:


> Thanks for the tip! I'll give it a try!  My grandfather used run off the hen then dump a bucket of water in the nest. I don't want to carry the water or put fresh hay in the nest box every day...
> _
> terri9630 I've never had that problem. But our summers are like an oven. That's when we loose birds. We lost 3 adult California whites this summer and almost half our meat birds. They do better in the fall/winter._
> 
> I sometimes get a frost on easter. If I'm going to hatch out chicks I prefer they hatch after easter. By the time august heat rolls in they are big enough to handle it.


Our heat starts in late March early April. We still get a frost in that time but 30 degree swings in day/night temps are normal here.


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