Larsen Poultry Ranch - homesteading journey

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Orpingtons are nice too. MIL had a buff Orpington that hatched well over a dozen chicks, and raised them all. Speckled Sussex are similar in color to your jubilee I think, but different body type. Speckled Sussex are good moms.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Almost got the chicken pen assembled yesterday, going to try to finish today. We got the frame up with only a little trouble, but started attaching the mesh with wrong overlap. Now we have to take off the middle piece and reattach. Then end pieces can be attached and skirt buried. Then it's ready for chickens.

 

[Bruce]

What will keep the foxes from digging into the pen, are you going to skirt wire?

but I also want the white eggs as I'm going to try to sell the hollow eggs online or decorate and sell them.

I have 2 Austra Whites from Meyer. They are a cross between a Black Australorp and a White Leghorn. They are much more the body type of the WL and lay Large to XL. LOTS of them. I do NOT know which is the rooster and which the hen in the cross and maybe that affects the egg color. Aurora lays a pure white egg and Gretel's are barely off white. They are pretty chill birds, I've heard that WL can be somewhat flighty.

Anyway, if you can figure out which way to cross them to get white eggs, you might like to make your own personal line of Austra Whites (which is probably a trademarked name).

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

There's a wire skirt about 1 foot wide, and I will be placing rocks or bricks around the edge. We have seen foxes and coyotes here, so we will need to make sure the pen is secure otherwise we will lose birds. This pen is not the permanent placement of the chicken pen, just for now until we get more infrastructure and materials.

We have seen fencing panels at an online auction that look beefy and decent for chickens, I think it is basically 2*4" holes, so it should keep out bigger critters, but we'd have to add smaller mesh along the bottom to keep rats out and small chickens in. I want to get this fence, and install over a poured concrete perimeter, and possibly add bird netting above the pen.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

White leghorns can be super flighty, depends on the strain and how much they are handled while they are young. You can get a bird pretty tame if you spend time holding and interacting with the bird as it's growing up. The ones I have are flighty, but I want to get some eggs out of them and then replace after the new generation is hatched. There are brown leghorns too, but I don't think they are that pretty.

 

[Baymule]

A big YES on the wire skirting. Bear in mind that raccoons can climb and they can tear up chicken wire, if you are using that over the run top.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

I don't use chicken wire, as it doesn't protect from predators only contains chickens. The chicken run we are in process of installing has 1" welded wire mesh. The future chicken pens might have bird netting (lightweight stuff), or 2" welded wire mesh, or nothing on top. It's probably going to depend on our budget, pen size, time, etc.

 

[Bruce]

but we'd have to add smaller mesh along the bottom to keep rats out and small chickens in.

I don't think rats are a danger to the chickens but weasels are and they can fit through 2x4" fencing like it was a cattle panel. And they climb so you would need that 1" wire all the way up.

 

[farmerjan]

Rats are a big danger to small bantams but especially to chicks. And they will eat eggs if there are some that are cracked or broken.... Rats also get into the feed and carry too many diseases....

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

We went by Green Acres and looked at their seed options. I'm thinking if we get seed we can broadcast it during the next rain so the seed has a chance to get to the dirt and sprout instead of being immediately eaten by birds/critters.

Any thoughts/issues with these seeds? I am leaning towards the erosion control mix, because it might do better with sun/shade and intermittent watering. Maybe the annual ryegrass too?