This past weekend, San Antonio Jane and I spent time assembling our chicken coop. We bought The Foursquare Coop with Run from My Pet Chicken (but we must have got an after Christmas special because it was way cheaper than what it is listed at now), which houses three chickens. This turns out to be the perfect number, because the City of San Antonio allows you to have three fowl without requiring a permit.
I was surprised at how easy it was to put together our chicken coop. While I wish that some of the instructions were more detailed, we were able to have it set up in just over an hour. Originally, we were going to paint the coop, but we both ended up liking how the wood looked on its own.
I am a little concerned about the safety of our chickens. There are many different predators that pass through our backyard: raccoons, possums and cats. I am concerned that they are going to try to dig under the coop to snatch a chicken. To help prevent this, we purchased this edging material that we can hammer into the ground around the perimeter of the coop that goes about five inches into the ground. Whether or not it will be enough to stop a hungry raccoon has yet to be determined.
Now all we need are some chickens, so we checked out Rudy’s Feed Store on South Nogalitos. This small store has just about every type of animal food that you can imagine and an employee told us that they would receive a shipment of chicks by February 15th. There is another option of a lady out at Canyon Lake who has a hatchery, so we are in the process of deciding which route to go.
Regardless of where we get the baby chicks, there is one problem: it is pretty difficult to tell the gender of a baby chick. Contrary to popular belief, the city does allow you to keep roosters, however I don’t want them because they won’t be laying eggs and my neighbors most certainly don’t want to hear them crow.
Seeing the chicken coop in the backyard is exciting, and I am looking forward to getting some chicks in the backyard. Stay tuned to this series to find out more about our adventures with raising chickens! The next time I post I should have pictures of the chicks as well as their names (this is a current hot topic in our house!).
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