Backyard Chickens!

[doublejj]

There has to be some chicken owners here.
Lets talk chickens

It receintly became legal in our town, to own chickens.
So I fenced off a side yard & bought this coop for $350 from craigslist. Came with nest boxes & roost.
Bought 2 hens from the same guy, & we had our first fresh eggs the next day.
I have my yard fenced, & they get to free range during the day.
Keeping chickens is fun!

peace
doublejj

 

[MsSweetPea]

Very nice! I'd love to have some chickens for both eggs and meat, but my SO is dead set against it. I don't know much about it, and I'm sure it's a lot of work, so I don't press the issue LOL.

 

[doublejj]

Emergency prep plan

Emergency prep plan

Chickens are now part of our emergency plan. You can feed them almost anything & they give you a daily shot of protein.
Chickens aren't any more work than other pets.

peace
doublejj

 

[trichrider]

...uh, haven't had to clean the pen yet huh?

we've a flock. they are some work.
we let them out occaisionally to scratch; they eat almost anything, but the scratch from the feed store is pricey so they get table scraps.

mmmn scrambled with cheese and chives...

 

[MyAssIsGrass]

Chickens are great pets, they can become really tame if you spend enough time with them and give them treats like grapes occasionally. They also eat most garden pests like slugs/snails and a lot of generic weeds, not to mention providing eggs. I like to give them drug names like Mari, Haze, Ket, Fet, etc

 

[Stoner4Life]

here's one of the greatest benefits of having chickens in the yard, most species of chicken will eat the ticks in your yard, guinea fowl are best for it, they live for eating ticks.......

 

[resinryder]

Am about to build a coop and fenced yard for about 15 to 20 for the wife and daughter. Also getting some guinea hens and a couple of turkeys to eat the bugs in the horse pens. I don't want a damn single one of them but they are the ones that will be taking care of them. Yeah right, lol

 

[Stoner4Life]

I live in the country & everyone that raises chicken up here (some for eggs others for slaughter) all let them free range. when I buy some birds from down the road the flavor is exceptional. city folk mostly miss out on this unless they go in search of.......

 

[Hydrosun]

Am about to build a coop and fenced yard for about 15 to 20 for the wife and daughter. Also getting some guinea hens and a couple of turkeys to eat the bugs in the horse pens. I don't want a damn single one of them but they are the ones that will be taking care of them. Yeah right, lol

What do you do with turkey eggs? Here they are just thrown into the yard for the chickens and ducks to eat. The duck eggs are great for baking and chicken eggs are great for all kinds of stuff!

 

[Hydrosun]

dbl

 

[resinryder]

Not a thing HS. May incubate 1 or 2 here and there for a future dinner but I'm not going into the turkey raising bidness, lol

 

[doublejj]

...uh, haven't had to clean the pen yet huh?

we've a flock. they are some work.
we let them out occaisionally to scratch; they eat almost anything, but the scratch from the feed store is pricey so they get table scraps.

mmmn scrambled with cheese and chives...

We have switched from pine shavings to alfalfa hay for their bedding, so we can compost their droppings. The pine is too acidic. The alfalfa will add a lot to the final compost.
The way this coop is built, you can easely rake their bedding right into a wheelbarrow & dump into the compost pile.

peace
doublejj

 

[lost in a sea]

they're obviously good for eggs but are a pain in the arse in other ways,, they turn your grass into a dust bowl, eat most plants you enjoy, bully each other, go broody and stop laying and break out of the area you keep them in,, at least thats what i keep thinking more and more

 

[SeaMaiden]

We plan on setting up a coop with chickens, but my plan is to make absolutely certain that the birds we get fulfill the different requirements we'll have of them. First, the hens must be willing and able to brood. We want chickens for both eggs and meat, so that means that someone's going to have to raise each brood of chicks. I don't want to have to do it, why not let the hen? Just like I've always seen in Puerto Rico (those chickens are STRINGY, but TASTY).

I've also been doing a bit of reading, and just finished the issue of Acres, USA that was focused on poultry, so I've learned a lot about how to select better birds, though still have a long way to go.

Since we keep our veggie gardens fenced IN, to keep unwanted critters OUT, it will be a lot easier for us to let them feed on pasture than it may be for others. The only thing I'll need to be careful of is if they try to roost in the manzanita (we have a neighbor who uses his pellet gun to let his birds know they've strayed too far, it's pretty funny to watch).

Another excellent animal that's easy to raise and feed are pigs. The only problem I foresee is due to the fact that I've never raised them in an area where they need protection from the weather (SoCal), so I'd need to learn about that aspect. Otherwise, they're awesome, especially if you need ground turned. And if you've never tasted homegrown pork, you're really missing out.

 

[resinryder]

Used to raise and slaughter our own pigs back home. I'll break it down into 2 categories. Pros and Cons.

Pros-The meat is better that any you'll ever buy in the grocery store

Cons-Need cover they will sunburn
-They generate more shit than you can imagine
-That shit reeks
-It is costly to raise them as far as what it takes to get them to weight properly
-Much better to raise 2 at a time. Having 2 forces them to compete for food. They eat better and get to weight quicker.
-Better to have a floored pen. This will keep them from rooting and working weight off.
-If you've never scraped the hair off a hog after the beginning the slaughter process it's a pain in the ass

 

[SeaMaiden]

Ah, you must have never raised them on pasture, resin. That's what we did. Very few pigs got about a half acre, so their shit and the smell were never a problem like it was when we tried raising them in a small pen on concrete floor. It's a WORLD of difference.

We always killed our pigs ourselves, and if my grandfather was around we did the butchering as well. I've been involved in the process using suckling pigs (truly, nothing better for Christmas dinner) as well as animals that we raised up to about 400lbs. We raised them the way the family in Puerto Rico always did it, lots of table scraps and the old veggies, along with chow, and access to plenty of natural forage. Since we were never planning on selling the meat we weren't as concerned with attaining a minimum weight as might otherwise be necessary. Since I was the one responsible for them, I was also responsible for training them for slaughter day and moving them from one area to the other (caning, which you can also use to herd cats! seriously, it works, I herd our cats with my cane all the time)(I can't recommend cats for their meat, however).

I don't think I can tell you just how much hair I've scraped. We boiled them, first, in a huge vat, required a way to lift the animal into it, over a fire my dad and grandfather built in the pit they dug that would often be used to roast whole pigs. Boiling whole, or pouring boiling water over the animal (more difficult/dangerous, IMO, it's easy to splash it onto yourself, dad did it a few times) if you can't get the whole thing into a tub, makes scraping the hair a lot easier. I like it better than plucking feathers, myself. Also, you can never train the chickens to be calm for slaughter, it's a lot more traumatic.

Raising them on pasture with natural shade options also makes providing additional cover unnecessary.

 

[festivus]

I live next to peeps that allow feral chickens to roost in their yard, and I've gotta say it's really a pain in the ass- roosters crowing at all hours of the day and night, all the squabbling and noise totally sucks! If you live in the country, it's no problem. If you live in the city and have chickens, plan on being hated by your neighbors. The crowing at 3:30am will condition everybody to be on "chicken time"- up at 4 and in bed by 8.

 

[doublejj]

Roosters are not legal here & hens don't crow!

peace
doublejj
P.S. I just found out our neighbor behind us also has chickens!

 

[resinryder]

Ah, you must have never raised them on pasture, resin. That's what we did. Very few pigs got about a half acre, so their shit and the smell were never a problem like it was when we tried raising them in a small pen on concrete floor. It's a WORLD of difference.

We always killed our pigs ourselves, and if my grandfather was around we did the butchering as well. I've been involved in the process using suckling pigs (truly, nothing better for Christmas dinner) as well as animals that we raised up to about 400lbs. We raised them the way the family in Puerto Rico always did it, lots of table scraps and the old veggies, along with chow, and access to plenty of natural forage. Since we were never planning on selling the meat we weren't as concerned with attaining a minimum weight as might otherwise be necessary. Since I was the one responsible for them, I was also responsible for training them for slaughter day and moving them from one area to the other (caning, which you can also use to herd cats! seriously, it works, I herd our cats with my cane all the time)(I can't recommend cats for their meat, however).

I don't think I can tell you just how much hair I've scraped. We boiled them, first, in a huge vat, required a way to lift the animal into it, over a fire my dad and grandfather built in the pit they dug that would often be used to roast whole pigs. Boiling whole, or pouring boiling water over the animal (more difficult/dangerous, IMO, it's easy to splash it onto yourself, dad did it a few times) if you can't get the whole thing into a tub, makes scraping the hair a lot easier. I like it better than plucking feathers, myself. Also, you can never train the chickens to be calm for slaughter, it's a lot more traumatic.

Raising them on pasture with natural shade options also makes providing additional cover unnecessary.

LOL. Yup you know about scraping hair. Quite the job. We always added a small green pine branch to the hot water. Makes the hair a lot easier to scrape for whatever reason.
Always liked the Poland China x Duroc hogs. Just a pretty pig if you can find beauty in a pig, lol Nice red coat with black spots.
We used the floored in pens mainly to keep the weight on the ones we raised for slaughter. Made a big difference in the feed and time it took. Had a friend a couple miles away that had the hog pen like you are talking about. Big ass pasture for em. Put in many a day helping there. They'd eat anything you throw in the lot or that finds its way in there. Wouldn't feed em butter bean hulls tho. The pointed tips will get caught in their throats.
Man I haven't thought about those hogs in years. lol

 

[SeaMaiden]

I live next to peeps that allow feral chickens to roost in their yard, and I've gotta say it's really a pain in the ass- roosters crowing at all hours of the day and night, all the squabbling and noise totally sucks! If you live in the country, it's no problem. If you live in the city and have chickens, plan on being hated by your neighbors. The crowing at 3:30am will condition everybody to be on "chicken time"- up at 4 and in bed by 8.

Chickens are feral in a large part of Puerto Rico, they're ALL OVER the town where my mother grew up--San German, which can boast the oldest church in the entire western hemisphere. I spent many years there as a child and one of my favorite memories is the sound of the roosters crowing. I love it. My neighbors absolutely WILL hate me, but fuck 'em, they already do.

The animals that kinda weird me out if I don't know they're there are goats. Often they really *do* sound like kids crying or something. Don't know much about goats, either.

Oh! I wanted to share some chicken links, not like sausage:
American Livestock Breeds Conservancy - Heritage Chicken - FAQs
APPPA: Pastured Poultry for Everyone
Welcome to the American Poultry Association
Heritage Chicken Breeds for Your Backyard
The International Center for Poultry

And a forum just for folks raising backyard chickens: BackYardChickens Forum

I'm also considering trying some heritage turkeys. I've wanted to sample some local wild turkeys, but I'm told they're well and truly awful, so I'll leave them be.