Chicken poop can be good for fertiliser but you want it all decomposed fully and mix it in with other things so you don't burn the roots.
If you can't let them out even an hour before sunset (they will go in to roost about sunset) to let them scratch around for awhile and retain their sanity, I hope you will build them a very large enclosed run outside their main coop. Living 'cooped' up is a drag. Chickens are very cool, they become pets. You *must* predator proof every fence/wall/gate in your coop enclosures. Good luck!
Yes, I have been talking to my Texas friend. He use to raise chickens but stopped. However, his sister still does (sells the eggs) and he has been helping her. He told me to take the fence down and out to prevent predators from digging under the enclosure.
I bought heavy livestock wire, I guess it is 4 ft wide and x-ft long, in a long roll. I cut in two, so, it's 2 ft wide. I then attached that at the bottom of the coop run fence unrolled it so it lays 2 ft flat outside the perimeter of the coop fence. Attached it all along the way with wire. It's very unlikely any predator will tunnel beneath a 2 ft barrier. You also have hawks and owls, so, beware! And climbing critters like possums, raccoons, minks; it seems everything likes a chicken. One reason is they are cooped up and defenseless. We lost 30 chickens in one raid by three dogs, it was pitiful. And one here and there to the aforementioned critters. But I think I got it close to predator proof now except for hawks in the daytime outside the main coop. If the chickens are inside the main coop, they are safe; outside, in the run, there is no top. We could put netting over the top but we have a HUGE run, biggest I have ever seen... it's probably 50 ft x 100 ft. The chicks got it made even if they don't get outside the run to scratch in the yard. Putting a netting over that large run would be expensive and costly to maintain, as there are several large trees inside the run and the limbs constantly drop and would hit it. This is actually my gf's chickens, at her place and I kept warning her over and over and I finally put my foot down that it has to be done or predation will never end. She finally agreed to spend the money and it wasn't cheap; she loves the chickens, I don't know why she was hard-headed about it. Well, I do, spending the money, lol. Of course, I dunno how many predators you have but I have never seen any place around these parts that chickens are not preyed upon when people raise them.
Nice work! I have subscribed! Here is some feed back that I wish I would have known when I started. Some of it others have mentioned. You will learn this, but when recording with a phone, always orient the phone in landscape mode. Portrait mode makes for poorer YT videos. Get yourself a GoPro with the Media Mod and that can help you a lot, that is mostly what I use. Also use a tripod for smoother vids. Although it takes time to learn, a good video editing software is important. Is the water mark "KineMaster" the video editing software you use? I use a paid version of VSDC Editor. There are tons of others. Upload in at least 2K. That will give the better YouTube Codec which will minimize blurriness. I typically record in 1080p and then when rendering the video, make the output in 2K (1440p) Invest in more hard drives to store the raw videos. Determine a frequency you want to upload. I have been going at 1 per week, but that for me can get busy. If you have a lot of content, you could go more frequent, but you might get burned out on the editing and producing videos on a high frequency. Consider the work that goes into each video. Good luck on the channel!
Thanks for the great feedback. Everyone of you who have subscribed means a great deal to us. We really appreciate the support!!! We learned pretty quick that the orientation matters. The "Kinemaster" water mark is the free editing software we used at first. We've since switched to using iMovie on our new iPhone. It is much better quality software and more user friendly with more options as far as music, volumes, etc. In addition the upload speed and storage on the new phone is impressive. My 12 year old daughter does all the editing herself. I'll look into getting some hard drives, and will check out the go-pro's. I also want to look into drones. We could get some amazing shots. The videos do add up quick and take up a lot of space, even with 512GB of storage. I hear you on the upload frequency. We now have 8 videos and its been exactly one week. I feel each video we get better and learn something new try or to do differently. Its been fun thus far, but I'm thinking once we have a decent selection of videos in the queue, then the 2 videos a week will be about all we want to do (My wife and I both work a full time job), and our daughter is only 12. A shorter informational video on Wednesdays, and a longer project or work video on the weekends. For now we're trying to get subscribers and get some traction, putting out some quality content that's informative and entertaining to some degree. What is the name of your channel? I'll check it out. Thanks again
Anytime! Drones are pretty impressive. A lot of the bigger channels have them. But they also look at Youtube as another job. Ha. I'm nowhere near that yet. It takes quite a bit to get to that 1000 subscriber mark. here is mine: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCktb_9fEWZ1gX7SWIga0WSg
Subd to your channel, great to see you and your daughter partnering on the projects. Spend a ton of time on our property with my daughter making memories? What part of Mass are you from?
The only advice I have is to keep it like real life; or at least to me that is the ones I like to watch. I stopped watching a lot of channels when they decide to go "Pro" and have sponsors and such and then heavily edited content. It was fun "following" you around your homestead and just listening to you and your daughter. By the way, you need to invest in a big stick because the boys will be chasing her; you have a beautiful daughter and she seemed very intelligent as well. It was a pleasure watching your video.