Anyone raise their own chickens and fowl?

[K813ZRA]

I ask because I grew up in the farming district and my great grandfather used to raise chickens, cows, pigs and other critters. Well, my parents and I have decided to get a little more self reliant and chickens are the first step. My parents, my wife and I have decided to sell off our houses and go together on a small farm (we are looking at a few places and have put ours up on the market here in Spain to use as a down payment when we get home in two months. Something with about 100 acres as there seem to be many on the market at the moment for what I find to be a reasonable price.). Not looking to get into this to make money just have some home raised meat and eggs. Maybe in the future get a few dual purpose goats. We have some money set aside to get a large stock pond too, something like 3-5 acres. A paradise for my parents who will be retirement age in about 15 years and future plans for my wife and I.

Anyway, I used to collect eggs and help with the butcher when I was a lad staying with my grandparents in the summer. (My grandparents and great grandparents lived together. Two family homes are pretty traditional in my family.) Anyway, dad and I have been researching coop designs and have come up with our share and we are going to go about 4 square feet per bird in the coop and 8 square feet in the run. My mother surprised me by ordering me a dozen Silver Laced Wyandottes, a Dozen Buff Orphingtons, half a dozen Cayuga ducks, half a dozen Pekin Ducks and three Bourbon Red Turkeys. We don't know what it means to start small...I wanted a pet snake when I was a child and dad got me a 6 foot boa, which I had for 15 years before moving to Spain and it now resides with my best friend.

I am rambling now, though. Although some time has passed since we last played with chickens I still remember the basics and do have family members that farm and raise such animals but I was just curious to see if anyone on here had some experiences they could share. Pictures of their coops, things they have learned the hard way, things they love about raising fowl in general, do's and don'ts etc. I don't currently have pictures of coops to share as mom just got the birds in the mail the other day and they are still in their brooder. Dad is building a temp pen and a smaller temp hutch this weekend. We will build the big boy when I get home as the birds will just be coming of age to go outside. I will post what pictures I do have as they come.

Any pictures or experiences shared sure would make our day!

Thank you all in advance.

 

[K813ZRA]

Seems that I am the only one that raises chicks. I will go ahead and add some photos.

So far we have Rhode Island Reds, Australorps and some Pekin Ducks.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1091831/lightbox/post/16769445/id/7324365

http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1091831/lightbox/post/16769445/id/7324366

Next I plan on getting some Silver Laced Wyandottes! Can't wait till they start laying eggs but we are a long way off yet.

Photos did not work so I added a link...

 

[santaman2000]

I know British Red also raises them but he's not been on the forum for a few weeks. Search back over his Started Thre4ads and you'll find some of his pix. Thanks for sharing yous!

 

[Countryman]

Hi there. I only have about 30 now, we did have about 60 at one time.

I have some amazing cedar coops and runs to spare if you are in the market.

One thing about keeping chickens is the issue of them attracting rats. We have a couple of vicious, murdering moggies that live in our barn. They solved the problem.

Read up on red mites too as your coop needs to avoid gaps and corners where these can breed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Drain Bamaged]

Bit like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted now but I would have said the absolute most important thing would be to make sure you have everything set up and ready equipment and accommodation wise and to have gathered as much knowledge as is reasonable BEFORE you get any stock. Different breeds react and adapt differently according to circumstances and conditions (which is one of the reasons there are so many different breeds and varieties) You might find you can get more helpful information once you can ask more specific questions.....Sorry I realise its not very helpful but I can assure you it is a better route to go down and will save you an awful lot of money long term and will definitely be better for your stock.

D.B.

 

[Clouston98]

We raise chicks, we had a variety of birds and had raised a bantam chick we hatched under a broody hen. They were all killed by the fox so we rebuilt the coop and run to make it fox proof (or as close as is humanly possible). We have got five young chicks on the go now and we've got some new hens. We have a silver laced Wyandotte as well actually - lovely birds they are too we've got a Maran and a blue egg layer as well - nice to have a variety I think. With regards to your coop idea we have a relatively small house and run, but the birds are only in there overnight- they free range around wherever they want during the day and get shut in at night to protect them from said fox. If you do it this way the coop area takes up less space (which can be used for something else, and the chickens get more room to play with- just an idea .

 

[K813ZRA]

Thank you for all of the ideas everyone. Dad is about finished with moms coop. We are using half inch hardware cloth rather than chicken wire as it seems stronger and the holes are smaller. We intend to run the hardware cloth about a foot or two outside of the cage leading into the ground about 4-5 inches to keep out burrowing animals as well. As others have mentioned, the chickens will only spend the night outside. Temporarily mom decided to buy a prebuilt coop to house the chicks until they are of age to go outside, they are setup in the garage.

Glad to hear the Wyandottes are good birds. I have done loads of reading and they seemed to be hardy but docile birds that do well with cold which is good in my area.

As I have said, I do have a bit of experience with this, I have read loads and do have family that can help so I am not going into this completely blind. Building the coop after getting the chicks is no big deal as a few hours a day over two weekends and it will be done. The chicks will be inside for about another 5 weeks, no rush.

Oh and thank you for the coop offer but my full time home is in the states, that may make things a bit difficult!

Once again, thank you all. I will continue to share photos. Like when the first coop is finished. I don't know if I can add attachments, have not figured out how to do that and the picture via link did not seem to work, maybe I need to use something like photobucket rather than direct from another site that I posted all. All forums seem to differ a wee bit with such things.

 

[Nice65]

You will need to use a hosting site for pics. It's a pain, but it's worth doing.

Good luck with the venture

 

[K813ZRA]

You will need to use a hosting site for pics. It's a pain, but it's worth doing.

Good luck with the venture

Thank you!

 

[richardhomer]

I use to keep chickens for their eggs. The most I ever had at one time were 11 of them.

 

[Le Loup]

I don't think I have any images of our chook pen, but if you have foxes in the area then you will need a high fence, & make sure there are no tree stumps or fallen trees close-by for a fox to jump from. We also have trees (Elms) growing in & around the chook pen to stop hawks swooping on the chooks, & it also gives them some shade during the hot summer days.
Keith.

 

[Avalina]

I have a small homestead and this past year we've raised a variety of ducks, quail, chickens, turkey and geese

One thing we've learned is to lock our birds up at night in our secure barn - except the quail which are always kept in their cage because they'll fly away otherwise. Our chickens have a hatch in the window and planks (with grips) that they can walk up so they are able to go in and out as they please - we open it up in the morning and close it at night. Our ducks and geese are currently nesting, so the mothers stay on their eggs in nests inside the barn in their own pens. The ones that aren't nesting go outside to forage - our geese out one side and roam freely, the ducks have a section they share with the chickens but they usually roam in different areas - the chickens stay in the field and the ducks go down to the creek.

We get lots of beautiful eggs the duck eggs are fantastic for baking, the quail eggs are so tiny and cute and we boil them for salads. We haven't tried goose eggs because she's sitting on them and we'd prefer goslings.

 

[Arya]

We keep chickens to Amazingly useful animals, and good entertainment to!

We don´t have a lot of them, but enough to be self sufficient with eggs, and we eat the roosters we get. I also help friends slaughter their roosters, if they for some reason can´t do it themselves.
I got a bunch of funny dwarf breeds (DK and Mille Fleur) for free from a friend, and I bought some Wyandotte's this spring.
The Wyandotte´s are growing really fast, and will lay their first eggs within maybe 2 months now. If I remember their age correctly, haha!
I chose them because they lay more (and bigger) eggs, have more meat on their body and are calm birds. They are also beautiful, full grown! An all-in-one bird
I can see that I have at least one rooster among the Wyandotte´s, and dread the day I have to pluck his beautiful feathers...

Right now we have three chickens hatching on eggs, so I hope we will get a lot of new chickens soon

We keep our chickens in a coop during spring/summer, let them free in the autumn when vegetables are out of harms way, and keep them in the barn during winter. I don´t let them walk around everywhere during summer, because they eat all my roses, vegetable spuds and other flowers.
They are like T-rex in the garden!

We easily get -20 degrees here, so we have to shield them from the cold during winter.
Last winter we had to keep them in a box in the stable with the horses for a period, because the horses produce a lot of heat in a room. This winter I am building an insulated room for them.

 

[Janne]

I was on the cusp of getting chickens when we lived in UK, had prepared a covered run, house, the lot, but then we took the fortunate decision to move closer to the equator.
Can not have any chickens here as our strata rules forbid that, plus we travel more.
A friend had chickens in Sweden, one sort for eggs mainly and one sort for the meat. The meat sort was the same kind as broilers, but she grew them for longer. Super meaty and tasty!