Chickens! Woo!
We're getting chickens tomorrow. Be prepared for a slew of posts about picking them up, bringing them home, and making their coop!
Our family is super stoked. We're seeing it as an investment. The kids are totally on board to help and earn some income on their labor. I'm excited about their excitement.
It feels like we're making a homestead now :)
We've noticed gray hawks around. They're pretty and fun to watch in the mornings as they chase birds all over our neighborhood, but I'm a bit concerned with the fact that they eat things like chickens.
I'd never seen one before moving here, and just yesterday we saw three. So much learning. I may need a shotgun.
Stay relevant
Nate
Chickens are a lot of fun, but if you've got hawks, you'd better keep them in covered pens for the foreseeable future... we also have eagles around here, so we ended up having to build a completely wired in chicken run.
Have fun, though! Chickens — and fresh eggs — are awesome!
=^..^=
From the pictures in the ad, the coop and run are completely enclosed. The coop itself looks about four feet off the ground and the run is about 7x20 feet. Rough guesses based on the size of pallets, which make up most of the construction. It looks about seven feet high as well.
More precise details when we get it all set up tomorrow evening :)
How many birds to go into this 140 sq. ft plus coop space?
Four bantams for now. Til the male starts being loud. No roosters in town.
Four bantams for now.
Til the male starts being loud.
No roosters in town.
- nateonsteemit
I'm a bot. I detect haiku.
Not a whole lot for now. If we end up loving it, we'll look into getting more this fall. If not, it'll be easy to liquidate the coop and birds.
I was wondering about the ratio of birds to sq. footage. If it is not a good one, behavior problems will appear pretty quickly...
From what I've read, 10sf per bird is pretty standard, right?
What you remember is what they've written. My experience, and that of many other owners, is that the amount is ridiculously low. I share my experience at various workshops and conferences and say that 20 sq. ft. should be the minimum and even that does not prevent behavior problems.
And once the problems start, they are VERY hard to stop. It's far better to be proactive and have too much space. And then there's chicken math, a well known phenomenon... :))
That hawk will keep a close eye on your chickens ....