how to get chickens (but no roosters!)

[Hotzcatz]

There are many ways to build a chicken coop since we don't have to keep them warm in the snow or keep opossums, foxes and coyotes out. Ignore all the mainland articles on how to build a chicken house. Chickens aren't fussy about a coop. Stack up a few bricks, plastic milk cartons or whatever you've got around the place, put a couple branches across it for roosts and then some more bricks and a bit of old tin roof on top to keep off the rain and the chickens will be happy.

Two wooden pallets on edge, some two by two boards between them, some two by two or two by four legs, a bit of tin roof at the back and a bit of tin roof on top and the chickens will be happy. Even a bit of tin roof in a tree above a handy branch would work, wouldn't it? Especially if there was a milk crate nearby filled with dried grasses for them to put their eggs in. Maybe a bit of tin roof over that, too. Tree houses for chickens, that could be fun.

[NanawaleJulie]

I have just GOT to ask: is this the norm? I mean, people are really MAKING their own way. I am a typical mainlander used to going to the poultry area when I buy chicken, so reading this, I just couldn't believe that so many catch and kill their own chickens. And have them on their property to begin with. How much space do they need to roam? I had no idea there was so much info about chickens and their eggs. I love this site.

[morganlady]

The Nanawale sub doesn't allow any livestock. However, if a stray chicken shows up, I don't know if anyone could complain about it. I wouldn't build a shelter for it/them, though. Lots are only 60 ft wide, so the neighbors can peer at each other, much less at your stuff.
I've seen chickens running wild in HPP, and wild-type pigs running through HA, so anything may be spotted.

[mella l]

Perhaps the Nanawale sub doesn't allow any livestock, but while staying a week at a rental there, we had many chickens visiting our spot. It seems the free roaming chickens would visit am and pm on their daily jaunts, scratching and preening. They never made nightly noise and I don't know where they lived. They were white and numbered around 12+! We liked watching them on their twice daily rounds!

mella l

[Hotzcatz]

Aloha KathyH,

The County sprayer has a long hose so if you can get a truck with a trailer within several hundred feet, you could get the frogs. Otherwise, they just brought in some baking soda dusters which are hand held units and would be much easier to deploy. From what they said, though, you have to apply the baking soda as a dry dust on dry frogs and foilage, dunno when that would be! We usually spray with the hydrated lime since we know that works and we already have the lime.

How many hens would you like? I can inquire and see how many would be available and for how much. Our last batch of chicks which we hatched out about two months ago are almost adult sized. They live in a coop still, though, but we will let them out soon. We still haven't sorted the roosters out and they haven't started crowing yet so we aren't sure who's who just yet.

NanawaleJulie, I think the amount of folks who keep chickens is about the same here as for any other rural area. Although, I think we probably have a much higher number of rooster farms and fighting chickens than the mainland does. Also, chickens are becoming a trendy pet in some areas!

It doesn't take much room to keep a chicken and if you don't have the roosters, then they are pretty quiet, too. They can live entirely in a coop sort of as if they were an overgrown canary. Depending on the size of your yard and how much foliage there is and how much you mind them digging things up, you can have more or less birds. We have about an eighth of an acre back yard (fifty by a hundred feet?) and it has a lot of green growies in it. If we have six hens it is all fine but when we have a dozen, then they start digging holes and it looks a little worn and threadbare.