Found a hen in the street "Backyard Chicken"

[fitz19d]

I'd love to have chicken again but wide is dumb

[Great-Kazoo]

Yeessssssss, join us. You have caught morhens disease. Soon enough you'll be picking up desperate chicks on craigslist to give them a good home. Just gotta watch out for that, since sometimes you get a cock or two. It is craigslist, after all.

(I'm not being totally facetious here, I have three roosters because of that.)

You should put me on your mailing list for a spring get together. we'll probably get some cluckers then. Or grab some from the daughter, if the coyotes don't get em.

[Irving]

Can we move this thread to the DIY section and put the phrase "Backyard Chickens" in the title so it can be searched please?

[brutal]

Certainly I can't be the only one who finds Irving's chicken adventure amusing.

Seems like a lot of trouble to me. Building habitat, taking care of the bird, possibly redoing the fence pickets at your house so you can keep it, etc.

Of course, keep in mind I'm not an animal person so I don't fully understand any love for anything outside my species.

And it hasn't laid a single egg...

[Irving]

To be fair, I haven't really concentrated on an egg laying, more just getting it a house out of my garage. It's basically just been in a barren cage for days now. Since I'm not going to run lights outside, it probably won't lay eggs for a while anyway.

[sampson]

Certainly I can't be the only one who finds Irving's chicken adventure amusing.

Seems like a lot of trouble to me. Building habitat, taking care of the bird, possibly redoing the fence pickets at your house so you can keep it, etc.

Of course, keep in mind I'm not an animal person so I don't fully understand any love for anything outside my species.

It is amusing. Not much trouble really once you get em set up. Feed and water em and give em your kitchen scraps. Unlike some pets, they give something back. My girls put out.

[The Rat]

It is amusing. Not much trouble really once you get em set up. Feed and water em and give em your kitchen scraps. Unlike some pets, they give something back. My girls put out.

Same here. Dog keeps the raccoons and foxes away, and then all the chickens need is to be let out in the morning, have some feed thrown to them, and shut in at night. Easy and super low maintenance.

[Irving]

Got it set out in the garden. It has doors on it, but they are terrible and need to be re-done. I suppose a big thing to take from this thread is to actually plan things out and do them well; that really goes for everything in life though. Since we just found this chicken in the street, and I'm on an extremely low spending binge, I just had to throw everything together with junk that was already taking up space at my place. So the trophy wife wants the chickens in a run so they aren't crapping all over the place. We agreed to do a run, but I can wait till spring to build it. With that said, I realized my raised bed gardens that I also am nearly finished building would work perfectly for something like this. Also, with the raised beds, I don't have to worry about burying chicken cloth and the fence serves as one side already. I think some pvc pipe bent into a hoop (from 4x4 corner posts to fence) will make for a fast and easy run.

[The Rat]

If you're on a budget, check craigslist for scrap wood and other materials. I was fortunate enough that there was enough scrap left over from decades of my family's home improvement projects to throw a coop together for cheap. Doesn't have to be pretty, just has to keep the elements off of them!

Also I highly recommend the books 'Raising Chickens for Dummies,' 'Chicken Coops for Dummies' and 'Chicken Health for Dummies.' They all break it down pretty well and are a great resource for someone starting out.

The only other item I'd add is that if your coop will be on ground level, to dig a trench and bury chicken wire to keep raccoons from digging in under. But it looks like yours is raised, so you won't have that problem.

[Irving]

Thanks for all the tips so far evereyone. I have an attic full of used wood from years of the previous owner's projects that I used. The dog house was free. I got to thinking and if I had to do this again for very few chickens, I'd just run to Habitat or that place at I-70 and Colorado and pick up a cheap sink base or bathroom vanity. Board up the back, place a board over the top with hinges, and you're pretty much done since it already comes with cupboard doors and possibly even a shelf. Attach a small run off the back and you've got yourself a perfect coop and run for an urban set-up if you have a tiny yard like mine.


For those of you with experience, I've been reading about introducing new chickens to a flock, and it seems like you're supposed to keep them separated for up to a month. Since I only have one chick, but want to add two-three more, I feel like I'm basically adding my one chicken to a pre-existing flock, which is supposed to be a no-no. Could I get pullets from different coops so there isn't an already established pecking order and just put them together at night? What do you recommend?