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The Pit Chicken Keeping Thread

jhmd2000

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In case anyone else is venting their repressed agrarian instincts in the form of sub/urban chicken keeping, I thought I would start a thread. Also, I expect the tags to be merciless.

What do you have? Where did you get them? Eggs, meat or just pets? Feel free to post predator challenges/solutions, as well as any other tips.

I'll get it started:

I currently have four remaining (from an original order of five) pullets, just under one year old. All brown egg layers from an order I piggybacked from a friend. He ordered a brown egg laying sampler, and I'm pretty sure I have an Australorp, white Plymouth Rock and then two fairly ordinary brown hens that I haven't been able to specifically type. I had them free ranging in roughly 0.15 acres in my backyard and never had a predator problem (despite living in hawk country).

They did a really good job of cleaning the yard and getting after the weeds, but wanted to pen them in to get back to gardening. Currently have them penned in a four-by-four-by-four cube of a henhouse attached to a 35 square foot run. Despite free ranging in my yard without incident for a year, I lost one to a hawk that found a week spot in the stand-alone two bird tractor I built (built to give them some relief from the same ground underneath their run).

What say you?
 
Going to get a few yard birds this spring after we move into the new place.
 
want to do this; had a friend in our traditional neighborhood who kept 5 or 6 very successfully.
 
want to do this; had a friend in our traditional neighborhood who kept 5 or 6 very successfully.

It's less time consuming than you think, and every bit as fun as you hope. The hardest part is waiting for the young hens to lay their first eggs. That feels like an eternity. You'll spend two hours building nest boxes, check them every day and get skunked, look all over the yard and one day you'll find a cache of three weeks worth of eggs in the oddest place (in my case, the compost bin).

If you compost, chickens are like steroids for your bin. You let three of them go to work and in two days the entire thing is completely picked clean. Honestly, the soil in their pin is as rich and fine as coffee grounds.
 
I want to but the wife and pit bull may have issues w/ a chicken coop.

I have a client that sells a very interesting chicken coop. Its actually a portable one so that they can graze throughout the yard like free range chickens. Tell your wife you could move it around and hide it.
 
My bro in law did this last year. Bought a dozen, one turned out to be a rooster, so it got got, and the other eleven were eventually picked off one by one by the local fauna.
 
Backyard Chickens Thread

I'm wrapping up plans for building my coop right now and thought I would start a thread to gather wisdom, ask questions, share progress, etc.

Initial plans are to build a 10x6 covered pen with a raised coop inside. Planning to make it tall enough to walk into so that cleaning/feeding/etc require less bending over. Going to use the deep litter method to limit cleaning and spread the composted litter on my garden every spring. Between that and a new worm composting setup I'm about to build, I shouldn't need to buy any soil amendments for the garden going forward.

The coop will support 8 birds, but I'm probably going to start with 4 at first and go from there. Planning to buy some Black Australorps from my buddy who raises heritage poultry for meat (Buckeyes) and eggs (Australorps). His flock are proven layers and the larger size and dark color will hopefully serve as a deterrent to the hawks in the area. If I decide I want more birds, I will probably grab some New Hampshire Reds because my grandfather raised them.

Anyone else have yard birds?
 
You should also cross-post it on the NC State board.

I get the joke, but not really. They specialize in large scale, commercialized, industrialized and genetically altered birds over there that live in disgusting conditions and must be pumped full of drugs and antibiotics to stay alive and squeeze out eggs. I'm raising my own specifically to get away from those type birds.
 
Not really. They specialize in large scale, commercialized, industrialized and genetically altered birds over there. I'm raising my own specifically to get away from those type birds.

Yeah, I think we all know the real reason you're breeding livestock... Pervert.

Incidentally, I'll take Little Racer Seinfeld against Rhode Island Lectro in the cock fight.
 
Yeah, I think we all know the real reason you're breeding livestock... Pervert.

Got ya...now your PM asking if I knew anything about raising goats makes a lot more sense.
 
I get the joke, but not really. They specialize in large scale, commercialized, industrialized and genetically altered birds over there that live in disgusting conditions and must be pumped full of drugs and antibiotics to stay alive and squeeze out eggs. I'm raising my own specifically to get away from those type birds.

Geez, guy. It was a joke. You are taking this chicken deal very seriously.
 
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