Chickens

Thank you! They are fearless squirrelly little things.
And you'll find they're some flyers, too. If your run is topless, they'll be free-ranging birds eventually. Our Sussex's aren't as squirrelly as our Australorps. We have Orpingtons, too.
 
Interesting thread, Wife and I recently had to get rid of her chickens back a few months ago since we are in the process of selling the house.. We got some good ideas about different styles of coops and runs from the pics most of you shared.. We had 8 laying hens,no roosters, some White leg horns and some what Tractor supply called red sex links Most would produce an egg every day, until they reached the age of about 2 1/2 then their production would drop in half. We found that free ranging them every day for a few hours increased the quality of the eggs. I guess the addition of bugs they would find and grass made the yolks more yellow, the whites whiter and taste more rich. Use the best quality commercial feed for good shell hardness, the cheaper feeds I think lack in calcium and will lead to weak shells. I know you can add supplements to their food to help with that, buts just another cost and hassle, the good feed solved all that. Since we had more eggs per day then what we could use, the both of would sell them at our places of work for $3 a dozen. They were like a drug, once people bought them once, they had to have them every week. We had no trouble selling, and the money paid for the feed cost plus some left over. Weren't getting rich, off of 8 layers, but they paid for them selves. My Wife really liked her chicks,spent every day after work in the back yard caring for them and really misses them now that they are gone. Had to promise her that the next house we buy will be suitable for hens and she can have as many as she wants.
Edited this post for this, anyone interested in selecting hens for egg selling? Buy brown egg producers, folks perfer brown eggs to white and will pay a higher price even tho they taste the same. Guess they equate brown eggs to being farm fresh as compared to white eggs they see in the grocery stores,thus being better.
 
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Does anyone store their feed outdoors? I've been storing my chicken feed, pig feed and scratch in the back of my garage in steel cans. I'm about to renovate my garage into living space and need to come up with a plan for moving everything outside. Any ideas of how to accomplish this?
 
I have mine in a galvanized steel container that we slide under the the coop. I usually buy 2 bags at a time, one gets opened and put into the container I just mentioned, the other I store in a 35 gallon drum with lid in the overhang of the shed where I park the lawn mower. I could probably fit 2 unopened bags in there. I wouldn't think you'd have a problem with it outside in the drums even if it does get rained on.
 


Perfect and thank you for the link

I have mine in a galvanized steel container that we slide under the the coop. I usually buy 2 bags at a time, one gets opened and put into the container I just mentioned, the other I store in a 35 gallon drum with lid in the overhang of the shed where I park the lawn mower. I could probably fit 2 unopened bags in there. I wouldn't think you'd have a problem with it outside in the drums even if it does get rained on.

I'm going to have to build a chicken coop outbuilding for storage. I'm exited about the possibility of space in my house, but I picture bears ripping me a new one. Probably going to build a raised structure to hold the aforementioned containers in a user friendly way. I'm cleaning up and will probably weld up a steel sided safe room and clad it with slab wood to deter wayward vermin while maintaining curb appeal.
 
I've got am idea for gravity fed food to alleviate some of the outdoor food storage burden (and labor), but what's everyone running for water? I want a gutter fed system ultimately. Best way to keep gutter water storage clean? Gravity watering systems?

I've had birds for some time and want to up my game and keep a few more in a kinda more self sufficient and sustaining manner. Or more plain talk, more eggs and less work.
 
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I have a 5 gallon bucket suspended in the run with poultry nipples screwed and siliconed into the bottom. Find a clear bucket if you can, it helps to reduce algae growth and you can see the water level. The poultry nipples you can get at any farm and garden or tractor supply, they are pretty cheap. I put a pvc fitting through the lid and ran 1 inch pvc pipe to the outside where I can fill it without going in or opening the lid. Make sure you incorporate some sort of vent to ease filling, but put some sort of screen over it to keep bugs out. 5 gallons lasts my 5 birds about 4-5 days or so.420220_1.jpg
 
Been looking at nipples and I think you are onto something. Have you tried the radial arrangement? Bottom seems easy with gravity. I'm in the mountains so cold weather function is required. Maybe use a tractor supply water element threaded into the lid. Ideally I could keep the food and water outside the coop and against the fence.
 
Been looking at nipples and I think you are onto something. Have you tried the radial arrangement? Bottom seems easy with gravity. I'm in the mountains so cold weather function is required. Maybe use a tractor supply water element threaded into the lid. Ideally I could keep the food and water outside the coop and against the fence.
If you mean the ones that attach to the side rather than the bottom, no I haven't tried those. One benefit those would have is when I take the bucket down (once a year to clean out algae), I wouldn't accidentally set the nipples down in the dirt. I seem to do that every damn time, gotta find a 4x4 or something to set it on.

If you have access to power keeping the water from freezing is easy. You don't have to spend a lot, I just bought a cheap aquarium heater from walmart and dropped it down into the bottom of the bucket. Ran the power cord out of the bucket through one of the little splits in the lid. Simple as that.

This is the one I bought, it has worked fine for me so far, but I've only used it 2 years.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Tetra-Su...ategy=PWVUB&visitor_id=V6gZYEloCZ1Nicir6BDkFg
 
So to give you some reference, here are two chicken tractors that we built.
The smaller my wife can move by herself easily. The larger takes 2 people.
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We added an axle at each end and 8-10" wheels to get it about an inch off the ground. A kid can move it to fresh ground.
 
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Been looking at nipples and I think you are onto something. Have you tried the radial arrangement? Bottom seems easy with gravity. I'm in the mountains so cold weather function is required. Maybe use a tractor supply water element threaded into the lid. Ideally I could keep the food and water outside the coop and against the fence.
These birds can be a bit dumb, but can be trained pretty quickly.. When I first installed a nipple waterer, they all came running and just sort of looked at it.. I had to jiggle the nipples and they followed the water drip to the ground, still sort of just looked at it.. I jiggled the nipple some more, they watched the drips hit the ground and one of them pecked the ground, then looked back up. Another jiggle,she then pecked the nipple. Got water on her face, then got it.. The rest followed quickly.
Wish my dog learned something new as quickly as a scatter brained bird does.
Member Rock River did you right by suggesting a water heater, just make sure and get the submersible one like he suggested.. Most are hang on the back style and can not be covered in water.
 
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Right now we have 20 chickens of various breeds, 2 Peking ducks, 4 heritage bronze turkeys, 2 kune kune/ potbelly cross pigs, 1 potbelly, one mixed breed horse a pit and a English mastiff. 6 of the chickens should be going in the freezer in a month or so and they others should start laying around the same time. All of our chickens and turkeys are free to roam, the only predator issue we've had is my dads wife's dog killed one of my turkeys a few weeks ago when he got out of his pen. I told her I wouldn't hold that one against her but it need not happen again. Out of all of our critters the turkeys are my favorite livestock. Funny to watch and I like to listen to them as they chat with each other.
 
Right now we have 20 chickens of various breeds, 2 Peking ducks, 4 heritage bronze turkeys, 2 kune kune/ potbelly cross pigs, 1 potbelly, one mixed breed horse a pit and a English mastiff. 6 of the chickens should be going in the freezer in a month or so and they others should start laying around the same time. All of our chickens and turkeys are free to roam, the only predator issue we've had is my dads wife's dog killed one of my turkeys a few weeks ago when he got out of his pen. I told her I wouldn't hold that one against her but it need not happen again. Out of all of our critters the turkeys are my favorite livestock. Funny to watch and I like to listen to them as they chat with each other.
Question, do your dogs have access to the fowl or are they kept separate ?? Why Im asking is this, we are probably going to be moving and getting more chicks here soon and the wife likes to free run them some of the time. She also recently bought a 10 week old Leopard Dog puppie that she "thinks" is going to protect the fowl from predators...
Personally, I think he is going to go thru that flock of birds like a weed eater. Your thoughts?
 
Question, do your dogs have access to the fowl or are they kept separate ?? Why Im asking is this, we are probably going to be moving and getting more chicks here soon and the wife likes to free run them some of the time. She also recently bought a 10 week old Leopard Dog puppie that she "thinks" is going to protect the fowl from predators...
Personally, I think he is going to go thru that flock of birds like a weed eater. Your thoughts?
The pit has one of the electronic collars that gives her a boundary. The chickens and turkeys wander into her area all the time, sometimes she will herd them back towards the pen other times she doesn't mind them at all. She was a full grown rescue when we got her but haven't had any issues. The mastiff is still a puppy that's mostly inside. A rooster pecked him once and he won't go near the chicken pen any more. He shows no interest in them when they are in the yard looking for bugs. I don't have any experience with leopard dogs, but I would try to get him around chickens asap to see how he handles it and go from there. If he shows aggression you may be able to train it out, or you may have to protect the birds as long as the dog is around.
 
Found our first eggs today, about 25 of them right after we bought a dozen at the store. I wasn't expecting them to lay for another month, so no nest boxes ready. We found one nice big brown egg, and the rest were small white ones. About 10 in their fenced area and about 15 under the horse trailer parked beside their fence. Went and bought some neat boxes and ceramic eggs, hopefully they will quickly understand what they are, I don't have enough time to go on egg hunts everyday.
 
Dman, all of ours grew up looking at the nesting boxes and when it was about time we would use cheap plastic eggs and they seemed to think that was there they were supposed to deposit them. All of our chicks would lay by 11 am and it was about 12 when we would let them out of the coop/run area for their daily forage time. Hopefully they will retrain quickly and you dont have to have to hunt everyday.
 
RIR's and a Barred Rock.

We let ours free range a little in the evenings keep them up in the day. Didn't take time to read the whole post but a good rooster will watch over the hens. It doesn't take much to get fresh eggs everyday.
 

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This was a dog pen put up by the previous owner many years ago. It was severely overgrown when we moved in, like chainsaw kind of overgrown. Still in progress but I replaced some of the 2x4" wire and added 36" chicken wire around the bottom.
Scratch built the coop using 3 existing post from the fence. It has a nest box kick out on the back side but other than that I'm not really happy with my creation. For little more I could have made it a walk in but then maybe less secure from varmints? It stays dry, has ventilation and they seem comfortable in it so whatever, I guess.

6 Cinnamons and 4 Silkies, a few weeks age difference and the Silkies are a smaller breed. They sure do get harassed.

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Question, do your dogs have access to the fowl or are they kept separate ?? Why Im asking is this, we are probably going to be moving and getting more chicks here soon and the wife likes to free run them some of the time. She also recently bought a 10 week old Leopard Dog puppie that she "thinks" is going to protect the fowl from predators...
Personally, I think he is going to go thru that flock of birds like a weed eater. Your thoughts?

We have two German Shepherds, one is years old, the other is 12 weeks.
Both like to spend time with the chickens. When we had chicks in the house under a heat lamp we actually found our GSD had taken one out or it got out.....she had it on her dog bed with her... covered in slobber but no worse for wear. She regards them as "her" chickens and is protective of them outside now.
The puppy has gotten gone after by a few of birds, he keeps his distance now.
I think it depends on the dog, you can do avoidance training with a E Collar if they annoying birds.
 
I wouldn't mind a few birds but I just want the meat, not the eggs. Lol I grew up with them but haven't had any in a long time. Hmmmmm
 
We have two German Shepherds, one is years old, the other is 12 weeks.
Both like to spend time with the chickens. When we had chicks in the house under a heat lamp we actually found our GSD had taken one out or it got out.....she had it on her dog bed with her... covered in slobber but no worse for wear. She regards them as "her" chickens and is protective of them outside now.
The puppy has gotten gone after by a few of birds, he keeps his distance now.
I think it depends on the dog, you can do avoidance training with a E Collar if they annoying birds.
Funny story,, thanks for the advise..
 
I wouldn't mind a few birds but I just want the meat, not the eggs. Lol I grew up with them but haven't had any in a long time. Hmmmmm

If your just after meat there's a lot of people who are always looking to get rid of roosters that they got as part of a mixed flock, it's what we do with ours that we end up getting.
 
Anyone else go to chicken stock today? Jersey steer for 85 bucks a piece. Guienee hogs for 20.
 
These are the backyard variety, but if you had to assign a breed to these roosters, which would be the most accurate? The guy I got the eggs from said barred rock. I agree for the lighter colored two, but what about the black one in the middle?

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No need in answering now. The two roosters have found a new home in the freezer. Lol.
 
These are the backyard variety, but if you had to assign a breed to these roosters, which would be the most accurate? The guy I got the eggs from said barred rock. I agree for the lighter colored two, but what about the black one in the middle?

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Barred Rock just not a very good looking one in terms of the breed standard.
 
Barred Rock just not a very good looking one in terms of the breed standard.
Well, I hope the appearance doesn't affect the taste. He and his clutchmate to the right reside in the freezer. Lol.

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The chicks we got in July have started laying. Got an egg an day for 4 days then 4 eggs a day for the last 2 days.

One of the goofy little silkies is a rooster, doing rooster stuff like a jackhammer every chance he gets.

If anyone is on the fence about doing the chicken thing, I highly recommend it.

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I have 9 hens and a rooster. Orpingtons, Australorps, and Sussex's. Two coops in a ~12' x 36' run.

I keep a coffee can in the kitchen for food scraps, and slop the chix with a treat once it gets full, every 2-3 days. When one of them sees me coming around the corner of the house with that red can, the chicken signal goes out and they stack up at the gate like a swat team on a 4AM no-knock raid.

The other day, however, I'd been clearing some brush where they couldn't see. And I came around the house in the same direction and manner, carrying a bush ax. Walked right in front of the chicken run, to the pump house, and left the bush ax in there...walked back out, latched the door, and back into the house. From the moment I came around the house til the time I went back inside, all eyes were fixed on me, and all ten of those birds remained unstirred, like ten little blocks of ice.
 
I keep chickens, at my brother and sis in laws house. All I need to do is take eggs home, voila. Best way of raising chickens.
 
Just got 4 chicks yesterday from tractor supply. This is all new keeping and raising chicks so hope all goes well. They are cute lil fuzzy buts lol.
 
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