New chicken momma in Maricopa, AZ

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Glad to meet you. Is it Janell or Janellin? Either way, welcome to BYC!

Here are my favorite beginning articles that helped me as a newbie. I hope you will find them helpful as well. All articles are short, have illustrations, and reviews, which are often worth looking at for the comments.

1. Intro to chicken keeping

2. Common mistakes & how to fix them

3. Ventilation (important to chicken health), with helpful links to coop designs organized by climate (because what is just right for my New England hens won't work for my brother's Arizona chickens)

3(a). Farmers Almanac on Building Coops (Includes size requirements!) Allowing plenty of space for chickens is really important because, even as chicks, they will start pecking each other or plucking their own feathers, or become unhealthy if they are overcrowded. Here is a link to Colorado State Extension's publication on space and temperature requirements for chicks as they age.

4. Predator protection for new & existing coops

5. Dealing with a muddy coop and run

6. Gardening for chickens

7. BYC Lists of Chicken Ailments and Cures

8. Chicken toys

9. Why hens don’t lay

To look for articles on your own:

A. Use the SEARCH button, but use the Advanced Search choice, and select ARTICLES at the top of the box. Just enter your keyword(s) and scroll through your results!

B. I find it helpful to notice the rating and reviews. All articles are by BYC members, and all the reviews/ratings are as well. The ratings help a newbie like me sort the most useful and reliable articles.

C. You can bookmark the articles or posts you think you want to refer to again using that bookmark icon at the top of articles or posts. You can find them again by clicking on your own avatar and looking at the list of bookmarks you have built up!
 
PS, there are a lot of different "right" ways to keep chickens. Be aware that there are lots of different opinions here, but the basics are that
* they need plenty of space,
* they want to be dry, and not too hot or too cold.
* They need clean water, good food and grit, because chickens don't have teeth, and they want the grit to grind their food.
* When they are laying, they will need calcium, usually bought as oyster shell fragments.
* Some folks free range them, or let them out for supervised foraging. But there is always a risk that a hawk or other predator will take them, so some folks just keep them in a coop and run.
 

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