Homesteading Chicken Coop Build, Chickens, Pond, Garden & Projects

That looks great DaveGunter . Obviously the inspectors made sure you did things right and it is now puppy approved.

 

Probably almost as entertaining as watching the owner chasing them around after they flew over a retaining fence that was too short.

 

Thanks for the tips, I'll pass them along to Mrs DG, she has really taken to the chicks...named a few. Not sure whether we are going to be able to free range, the Hounds are showing waaaay to much interest, maybe in the evening when the Hounds are in for the day. The plan is to turn that greenhouse you can see in the background into a chicken tractor, similar to what Chvymn99 made it has a nice galvanized tube frame but the covering is shot and we are looking to upgrade the greenhouse anyway.

Do you feed and water your flock inside of the coop or out in the run?

Sorry man, did not pick up on that at all!

 

We’re nearly there. The chicks are now mingled with the rest of the hens and younger chicks. Noticed one of Sugarbug87 sisters hens had some ‘free range rash’ thinking a coyote got a few sharpies to graze her but her sister said this is more of a mating issue. So we confined the hens to the coop and afterwards confined Fully grown Roos to the Run. Did some ladder and Nesting box work in the coop as well.


Side note on the turkeys: we brought them in the coop thinking they were going to be fine as they were constantly pecking at the smaller chicks we have back at the house. Not so, they were attacked sadly and one of the Browns passed. A lesson though. We had told her sister to put them in the former brooder box In the coop, unfortunately that didn’t happen she was free ranging them after they had been attacked with day or two of healing and may have been subjected to high heat as we recently had some 80°ish weather. One of the white ones wasn’t looking great(dehydration...) so we took that one home and seems to be recuperating fine. The two back in the coop have the brooder box and lid. We’ll turn them loose when they are in better shape and bigger. We also hope to acquire blue slates next week as heritage birds are going to be more of the goal later. I like meat birds but I’m gonna have to figure out a bin system where we can keep birds coming in without making them pressured from others in the flock.

 

Turkeys on chicken feed will eventually develop "swollen heads" and die due to the antibiotics in the chicken feed.

Generally is deadly so keeping turkeys and chickens separate is a good idea.

 

Ok How do we fix this?

 

Best bet at first, get them separated. Feed turkey feed to turkeys, chicken feed to chickens. The older the birds, the longer it takes to develop and get rid of if they survive it. I had students mix up the feeders and fed chick starter to young turkeys, less than an hour, the turkeys were drenched in sweat like they had been hosed down. Lost 3/4 of them.

 

Dislike, I’m new to this so want to just get the information on what to do when this happens