Hi Everyone,
Thanks to all the great info available on the internet about owning chickens (99% of which I'm pretty sure I found here), I just brought home 4 young ISA Browns early this afternoon. A nice family the next town over had some extras from their brooder and was looking for homes on Craigslist, and
Wanting to do this on a budget, I had scoured the interwebs on how to just put together a simple coop from a "rain barrel". I have access to this at work so figured why the hell not. Having not found anything in all my search, I busted out the circular saw and drill i'm barely qualified to use... see pictures 2 and 3.
I knew Hawks would be a problem around here (southern NH), and I already had my first scare. I just happened to be outside by the temporary pen I had put together when a hawk swooped down just above ground level making a line right for girls. I ran towards it hissing like I do when my cat is being a turd... it was just over them ready for the kill and I scared it off. Fortunately it didn't know I had no plan for if I actually got to arms length of it, those talons are sharp. Idea is to free range as I have an acre full of all kinds of bugs- though I'm not sure my dog leaves any ticks outside, but I'm going to have to devise a better temporary solution tomorrow until they are big enough to not be hawk food. This is supposed to be the dogs job!
This thread is useless without pics, so here they are. Thanks for having me!
Thanks to all the great info available on the internet about owning chickens (99% of which I'm pretty sure I found here), I just brought home 4 young ISA Browns early this afternoon. A nice family the next town over had some extras from their brooder and was looking for homes on Craigslist, and
Wanting to do this on a budget, I had scoured the interwebs on how to just put together a simple coop from a "rain barrel". I have access to this at work so figured why the hell not. Having not found anything in all my search, I busted out the circular saw and drill i'm barely qualified to use... see pictures 2 and 3.
I knew Hawks would be a problem around here (southern NH), and I already had my first scare. I just happened to be outside by the temporary pen I had put together when a hawk swooped down just above ground level making a line right for girls. I ran towards it hissing like I do when my cat is being a turd... it was just over them ready for the kill and I scared it off. Fortunately it didn't know I had no plan for if I actually got to arms length of it, those talons are sharp. Idea is to free range as I have an acre full of all kinds of bugs- though I'm not sure my dog leaves any ticks outside, but I'm going to have to devise a better temporary solution tomorrow until they are big enough to not be hawk food. This is supposed to be the dogs job!
This thread is useless without pics, so here they are. Thanks for having me!
