I didn't want to screw up your sale thread with questions. Do your chickens free range around the yard or are they fenced into a run? How do you keep them from scratching up a garden, but let them in to eat the bugs? Any shrinkage due to predators? You have multiple roosters. How noisy, ornery, inclined to fight each other are they?

Thanks.

Just saw this now.... :-)

http://sgtnam.camstreams.com/

Picked up 25 chicks via mail around the beginning of March. 4 breeds. Ended up getting 26 in the box. Note: The post office will freak when a chirping box arrives.

Several breeds we ordered female only. Others were straight run (unsexed, cheaper).

Breeds:
Americauna
Buckeye
Delaware
Silver Laced Wyandotte

We also picked up 5 guineas about a month prior.

Our yard is about 1-1.5 acres, and is fenced in. We let them run loose during the day, and lock them in the coop at night.

Our Garden is a small square foot style garden, and is located outside of the fenced in area. The chickens do like to dig and peck, but so far, that's been a good thing. They've been going agood job of peating bugs and weeds and whatnot. They've also found a few trinkets and odd items.

Lost zero so far, mostly because we keep them in the coop at night, and have the fence. We do still have small critters from time to time, but they don't seem to bother the bird. The guineas are good protectors, and squack to high heaven if anything is out of place.

We used to have ticks all over. Really bad. Anytime the dog came in, he had ticks. Haven't had a tick on the dogs since.

They don't really fight. They were all raised together, so they get along for the most part. In the coop, the guineas like to bully the chickens from time to time when they want the food to themselves, but they're not too bad overall. The roosters tend to be a bit more....ballsy. when we try to gather them up at night, the hens go right in, and the roosters are the ones that want to hop on the roof, or run around, or just be general pains in the ass. That is what prompted the decision to get rid of a few. Once they start laying eggs, we dont' want to have to worry about them being fertilized, and dont' want to separate them.

We will probably keep the buckeye rooster(or two?), and get rid of, or eat the other roosters.


(pic was not staged. They like to sit on the fence and roost)

Thanks, man. The coop cam is awesome. I'm watching a few white hens scratch around in the shavings by a feeder.
What are you using for brood boxes? They look like industrial parts shelves.

Can you post some overall pics of your coop?

Oh yeah. LMAO @ the post office freaking out ever the chirpy box.

It's a standard Menards special tool shed. 10x12 or 12x14. A few custom mods added. Walls are 1.5" styrofoam... cheam insulation crap at menards. Bottom banels are covered with standard paneling, as they like to peck at the styrofoam.

They just for eggs or eatin too?

All of the above. I have roosters listed in the EE. If they don't sell, I'll start eating  them one by one.

Cock camera!














Well....someone had to say it eventually.

Nah. NAM beat you.
There's a chat window next to the coop cam. When I logged in he typed, "Hey, you're looking at my cock, aren't you?"

Just put them in the coop for the night, and fed em.

The brood boxes are from Lowes. Fleet Farm and Menards didn't have any big enough. Right now they ignore them, but they're not old enough for laying yet.Right now they use them to stand on, and peck at the styrofoam. lol... I need to put up more paneling.

Cock Gazers

What happened to the cam?

We are raising 20 guinea chicks here to help keep the ticks and such down. Theu are dumber than a box of rocks but raise one hell of a ruckus if anything or anyone comes near them. (real cheap alarm system)

My entire network got taken out in Wednesday night's storm.

two Cisco switches, DSL modem, Wireless router (300mb), my main PC (gaming...higher end).

Everything was on UPSs. My thoughts are a spike hit the phone system, came into the modem, and went back out the network. Seems to have been a pretty common occurence in the area. They ran out of replacement DSL modems.

Hopefully I can get it back online tomorrow. The network is up (new router and new modem), but my switches are toast, so I can't connect to the coop or barn. We also picked up two goat kids today, so I'm looking into a cam for them. May just do a rotational.... chickens 5 sec, goats 5 sec. Not sure yet.

Hopefully the insurance company doesn't F me.

If anyone is interested in some roosters, let me know. They are getting to the age where they are starting to pester the hens. Time for most of them to go. pet, food, i don't care. If they don't find a place somewhere else, they're going to find a place in my stomach. lol.. (might be able to bring to the Shiocton shoot if interested)

VERY very true. They like to fly outside of the fence, which is fine. But towards evening, they'll all fly back in, or come back in a hole, minus one. That one sits and squaks, then the others squak back, and it's a squak fest until they are all together. They can be a pain in the butt, but we haven't had ticks since.

Coop cam = Kid Kam.

Picked up two goats last weekend. finally got the network limping enough to get the cam going. You can still hear the roosters in the background.

Whoooo Hoooo target problem solved!!!!  

 

Target practice!

Nam's chickens lol