Picked them up at the post office yesterday.

Cute! It must have felt good to get out of the box they were shipped in.

We started ours 3 weeks ago. About the end of April they'll meet the headsman.

Good for you guys!

Twasn't quite the thread I was hoping it was, though...

They arrived in good shape, did not lose any. Our niece and her daughter will be staying with us for awhile as her husband has been deployed to the middle east.

The little girl needs some little critters to play with and take care of.

Congrats for winning the USPS challenge.

We lost 2 out of 30. After they hatch, they can go a couple days running on the nutrients from the egg before they have to eat. I can't prove it, but I think the ones that they might not ever start eating and die after the yolk runs out.

Critters are great therapy for her. I bet she misses her daddy.

Well I just cleaned my keyboard 2 days ago, and when I read this I spit coffee on it, LMAO.

I am thinking about getting some
.

How do I build a coop?

www.backyardchickens.com has everything you need to know about raising chickens.

I may do the same thing.

Lord knows we eat enough eggs to justify it.

Very cool, and the chicks come in a close second!

If all goes as planned, I should be closing on my house 5/4, although a first timer, I plan to build a coop and raise a few myself for the eggs and lawn maintenance.

There. Is that better?

mtbugler63 posted a link that should provide plans for a coop.

Make sure the baby chicks are in a round enclosure otherwise they will crowd up in the corners and injure one another.
These chicks are in a small, round kids wadding pool out in the garage then will be transfered to a 8'x 10' chicken coop.

This farm used to have a round brooder house, but when I bought the place I was too late to save it.

Looks like you have a few guinea keets there too.

11 weeks before we get our Cornish cross.

I've been raising chicks for many years in a square pen without ever having that problem. I don't have the heat lamp in the corner, though. It's out in the middle.

Too bad,..TRH had been waiting years for this post.!

Oh, Baby!

I've been threatening to get some layers for years, now. Gotta scratch up the $$ for a coop and enclosure first, though. I think it'd be a good thing for my kids to experience having some kind of livestock to care for and benefit from.

That coop and enclosure, though. We've got 'coons, skunks, weasels, opossums, foxes, coyotes and lots of raptors, though, so nothing half-assed will do for an enclosure.

My Mom and Dad let me order, keep and sell 24 "rare breed" Easter chicks from Murray McMurray when I was in 6th grade......in a refrigerator box on the porch off the kitchen. Great experience, made a few bucks.....and got most of them back when they grew up! Still smile every time I see the spring chicks at the local feed store.

Are those California Whites and Black Orpingtons??? And where did you get them?? I have 10 egg layers. Five are going on three years old and will be getting rid of those . I get mine from Sunnyside or Abendroths in S.E. WIs. I will be getting a few more and will try California Whites this time around. I am sure your neice will like them and hope the best for her dad.

My last order of chickens was from McMurray- I hadn't used them in over 10 years. I ordered Mediterranean breeds on their advice. I raised them to 6 weeks and distributed them to some buddies. In a year we got no more than a dozen eggs out of all of them combined. The feedstore chickens were laying like crazy. McMurray customer service were complete jerks to me. I will never order from them again. Just did an order at Privett.

Bear bait for the yard up here - well- in my southern home on the Kenai - pass.

Grew up raising chickens and damnedturkeys in NoDak. I miss real eggs and poultry meat!

I got 28 eggs today. You can only eat so many eggs and selling them is a pain in the butt. I need to get rid of some hens.

I was really praying one had made it down to Florida or Cabo for spring break.

http://www.chickensforbackyards.com/Brown-Egg-Layers_c24.htm

You can custom order from this company, or in this case I asked them to mix for a potluck delivery.

I have heard a lot of things about pure bread ,, more exotic egg layers. Most always they do not put out eggs to the degree egg layers should. I actually get a mix breed that is part Rhode Island Red and Black Astrolop. They crank out eggs, nd going on 3 yrs this July they seem to be doing ok, but not like a 1 yr chicken. One thing I can agree with the other poster,, those egss are far superior to store bought but I just cant eat that many as much as I like those orange yoke free range eggs. And yes,,, selling them is a pain so I give them to the neighbors and customers. Then in Winter we cant buy an egg from my chickens...

Put a light on a timer in the hen house.

Sister has chickens. She has a Bantam rooster and he is the boss of the yard. At a towering about 7 inches tall. First one in the morning on top of the coop to crow. She named him Napoleon. She has 2 full size roosters that don't mess with him. It's the funniest dynamic ever. i keep telling her one of the big roosters is going to kill him someday but it hasn't happened yet

If you really want some egg layers, check out Khaki Campbell ducks. They will outlay any chicken by 40 to 50%. Duck eggs are slightly different than chickens but not that much.

My sister raised some of those ducks a few years ago and they were very aggressive. Her kids would not attempt to collect the eggs. Before too long the ducks were on the chopping block.

Our family does not especially care for the taste of duck so we don't raise them anymore. When the laying hens don't lay enough eggs to justify the feed, they go on the chopping block. A stewing hen satisfies the palates here.

Have a buddy with a serious allergy to duck eggs. It took several years to decipher, but every time there was an office gathering/pot luck he'd nearly crap and belch his brains out. Finally tracked it down to one lady who used duck eggs in her baked goods.

My wife can't handle duck or goose eggs either. We were eating both for a while and she was having all kinds of problems until we tracked down the problem. We still have a few geese but we let them raise the goslings for meat.

My neighbor had a little mini-farm at his place. He had geese, turkeys, duck and chickens. He gave me all manner of eggs. We ate them all with adverse effects. Turkey eggs were the mildest.

I have never successfully raised any white egg layers that laid but several hundred brown egg chickens over the years as well as some green/blue egg layers of unknown breeding. I had really good luck with Dominiques laying nearly year rounds and gave as many as 320 eggs a year. Australorps were pretty good too.

320 is more than mine do. Mine stop in winter though/.

They go great in gumbo.

I run the light in the coop until 9pm all winter. That makes the difference.

Roundoak, what's your survival rate on those chicks so far?

Thank you