Scott Roy

I may try that this year!

The run is certainly long enough to separate a few stragglers... maybe some straight up meat birds. I'd have to have a coop for those though...

Thanks for the great ideas!
I've never had to incorporate new chicks to a flock, any tips? I'v e seen the later birds going for a buck each... and wondered.

I'm from another planet where our "year" is only 8 months.


J/K, I only keep eight because they're
A: sort of pricey,
and
B: I just don't want to keep more then that in that sized pen.


I'm sure I could fit a few more in there, but that's more poop and eggs than I need. Plus, by the time you get to the final four, they're stringy. Stew is good, but it gets old. A bird only keeps so long in the freezer.

Still, you have me thinking now; maybe I should get some more young ones at the very end of summer...

You're going to build a shed that houses wood, tools/equipment and chickens, right?

Sounds like you will do well with the above reply, but look into getting or making an automatic door that lets them out in the morning and shuts them in at night. No getting up at 6AM for you.

Dry feet and a decent enough heat lamp will do your birds well. I personally don't keep chickens over the winter, I just use them for the summer months and eat the eggs and meat and call it a season.

Hi all, I'm new to this forum, but what I see so far, I really like! My introductory post will be this one.

I wanted to share my method of keeping chickens, free of the burden that comes with moving tractor coops and all. I am lucky enough to have a decent sized garden, measuring 40ft by 25ft. Along the shadiest side, I installed a chicken run, burying the fence 18 inches all along the perimeter to keep the coyotes and foxes out, (so far, so good,). They have a coop that they may enter or leave at will, sort of an open door policy, if you will. The waterer and food bucket are at one end, and all along the furthest end, plenty of naturally occurring, (read as: weeds and grass,) flora grow. The run is 40ft long by 5ft wide, plenty of room for the eight Black Star hens I have. Since I don't keep a rooster, (the hybrids I have wouldn't breed true anyway,) and the season's young birds end up as supper anyway, I don't have to worry too much about broiler pens, etc. They use the nesting boxes and give plenty of fresh eggs, and all of them get eaten before they reach a year old.

I buy my chickens from a local farm that raises them for egg production, where they run around inside a barn for their laying lives. Now... it's not what I'd call optimum for the life of a bird, but it's better than some giant agricorp egg factory, it's locally owned and operated, and the birds are fed well. I've seen no signs of unhealthy birds there, ever. They're $14 each for hens that have just begun laying. Pricier than buying chicks, but without the fuss of acclimating chicks to ambient temps and having to wait for eggs. I just about break even, cost-wise... but it serves my purposes well.

The birds eat, lay, are allowed to roam the garden two at a time, (supervised while I weed, of course, they poop a lot and get eaten eventually. In the fall, when the last one is ready for the fryer or roaster, I flip the top of the run back and shovel the topsoil to the growing side. That soil has been given not only poop, but weeds from the garden and all rubbish aside from avocados, onions and garlic waste. The avocados are poisonous to birds, and the onions and garlic ruin eggs taste. I then till the poop/compost soil in and let it sit until spring, when it is tilled over again, the top of the run set back up and a new flock for the summer is once again brought in. Rinse, lather, repeat. I even plant pole beans and cucumbers along the garden side of the run, and even though I lose some of the low-hanging stuff to the birds, bugs get snatch up through the wire and my bocks get some extra shade that they LOVE. It's a pretty good system.

I have family members rotate out their own egg cartons, one empty and one full so that we always have fresh eggs. We routinely take a chicken and fry it up or roast it on a Sunday, fresh and great tasting! I've stopped buying chicken from the store during months where I don't have any, (unless I REALLY get a hankering and then I buy organic and locally grown chicken,) and could never go back to eating factory-raised chickens.

Here is a pic from this season, after Spring tilling and the new hens go in. I don't have any from the years previous, (been doing this for four now,) but you can see the set-up. I can post more pics as the garden gets rolling if you guys like.



I'm proud to say I've created a very viable egg-chicken-veggie producing area of my property, and wish more people did the same. My daughter, age 8.) is also quite involved with he whole process, from yearly inspection and reinforcing of the run to planting/weeding/harvesting. She loves eggs and chickens, and "growing salad" as she says.

When it's time to cull a bird from the flock, we select the biggest one and use a cone to bleed it out. That's a method I only heard of recently, and am glad I did. I used to just give them a chop and fling them, like I was shown as a boy. The cone method is so much more controlled and meat doesn't get bruised. They bleed out. wiggle a bit and that's that -ready for a bath and plucking!

Have you tried electric fencing? Even just a thin wire around your enclosure at oh, nose level would keep those mutts from trying.

Is electric fencing not permie enough?
Maybe hook the wire up to a windmill or bicycle generator. You can ride and watch the dogs yelp and run away time and again!


That neighbor should be ashamed of themselves. I don't let my dog out of the yard, but if he did and killed someone's egg-layers, I'd feel obliged to replace them. Since they haven't offered, maybe losing in small claims court would help urge them to contain their stupid dogs.



Or... shoot them all. No dogs, no problem. Shoot, shovel and shut up. I couldn't do that, TBO, but it crosses my mind when I hear of these things happening.