Chicken Keeping for Rookies
Chicken Keepin’ for Rookies. I wrote this blog some time last year and never posted it for some reason. So here is a quick run down on some basic advice that I wish I could of found in one place when I was making the decision to chicken keep. But having back yard chickens is the best decision we have ever made. A few challenging moments from building the coop to dealing with frozen waterer, but having fresh eggs every morning has been well worth the effort. If you are thinking about having backyard chickens here are few things every chicken keeper should know to have a great first flock!
Research People: First off, I can only provide you with what I have discovered based on our location and needs. You will need to do some research on what coop is right for your location and your specific breed of birds. There are several type of coops, but you need to make sure you give each bird ample space; about 3’ sqft. per bird in the coop and 8-10’ sqft in the run. Each bird needs about 10-12” in. per bird on the roost and make sure you use 2×4’s so they can warm/rest their feet at night. If your bird’s live in cold climate, they will appreciate being able to stretch their feet out fully on the board and sit down on them when they sleep at night. This keeps their feet warm with out exposing their toes and risking frost bite. You might even notice they tuck their heads under their wings to protect their combs from frost bite.
Once you have your design plans – go for it! Make sure you have a good building partner and be patient. We found an awesome blog about the Top 34 chicken coops and we chose the “Downeast Thunder Farms Chicken Coop” and this specific design comes with some decent blueprints. Here is the link to Morning Chores 61 DIY Chicken Coop Plans & Ideas That Are Easy to Build (100% Free) – to help you start brainstorming. https://morningchores.com/chicken-coop-plans/. This blog post provides Blueprints for each coop, granted some are better than others. We modified the plans to be a little shorter of a coop, we are not very tall people, so we just have to mind our head when entering and exiting the coop. We did not think we needed a 10 ft chicken coop and it helped cut costs.
So, what do chickens need besides an awesome coop? A good sized run offers about 5 sqft. per bird; and lot of activity. From scratching to dust bathes, your bird needs to be entertained day in and day out – if you want a good egg-layer. Birds love to scratch for their food, I suggest adding a straw bail in their run so they need to kick up and search for the food you throw in the run on the daily. They love most scraps from left over steak to blueberries to oatmeal. Great protein supplement all year around are mealwormsbythepound.com or GrubblyFarms – Black Soldier fly larvae. It’s a toss up on which product of dried bugs they like better. Also, Make sure your flock gets daily food in the run for their searching and eating pleasures. If you are every unsure about what you should or should not give your hens google it and typically backyardhens.com always comes up with some great answers from fellow chicken keepers. We have two self feeders; but more often then not the birds will use their beak and knock out the food until it is all in the run and on the ground so they can look for it. Make sure you provide grit and/or oyster shells to amp up their calcium needs (for strong eggs) and for their digestive system. (Chickens don’t have teeth so they store grit aka small rocks in their gullet to help grind up and process food) Also, if your chickens are molting they will need the extra protein and calcium boost to help build back up their feathers. Chicken feathers are mostly made up of this protein called keratin .
If you haven’t heard of dust bathes, you are in for a treat. This is how chickens clean themselves. Just set up a tire fill it with a mixture of dirt and your chickens will have a blast splashing all over themselves and then standing up and shaking themselves off. No ticks or mites on these dust bathing beauties. If you don’t know what a chicken swing is , it is a great way to entertain your birds, whether its a good swing, hanging something to peck at or hiding some food for them to find later. Your curious chickens will only benefit from these activities. If you do offer a chicken swing for your birds, make sure you make the bar for them to stand on less than 4” and maybe rounded so they can get good grip other wise I don’t think they will use it for swinging. At least that is the case for our birds; I have not seen them swinging and I think it is because we used a 2×4. (Note: We changed our swing out to a different rounded plank for them to stand on and they still won’t swing – I guess they are not the swinging type).
The Best Bedding: Chicken’s need a couple inches of bedding in their coop to help keep their space clean, dry and warm (if you live in a cold climate). Chickens poop and pee at the same time and do it a lot while they sleep so having a couple inches of bedding makes it easy to keep the coop clean and catch their droppings. I did a lot of research before my first flock on the best bedding and I learned all about how chickens are prone to respiratory problems so it’s best to get a bedding that has very low, if zero dust particles. In comes, hemp bedding. Hemp bedding is the shit. Literally, It catches the bird shit and has zero dust shit. Zero shitty smells. Sorry for all the “shits” but it’s amazing. I hate the smell of “hampster cages” or “pet stores” and our chicken coop has zero of those smells. I am in Love with hemp bedding , the cost is comparable but shipping costs come into play if you are not in the distributors state, but it catches the moisture from the birds droppings, zero dust, no smells, and PEST RESISTANT. We overly cleaned the coop when we first got the chickens but now we do it every couple of months. Depending on how messy the coops is I like using a rake and pushing it out the trap door; however I have found it saves a lot of bedding if I use a sifting method to clean out the coop; and it makes the hemp last twice, if not 4x as long. Basically, I take two five gallon buckets, and a 3′ x 3′ tray to catch it (any type of tray will work) and one piece of metal mesh that sits over one of the buckets . The Metal stops the dried droppings from falling through to the empty bucket but the hemp is small enough to fall off the sides on to the tray and or into the bucket. Put hemp bedding back under roost to reuse one more time.
Worms, Crickets, Grasshoppers and bugs. If you don’t let your chickens free-range you should, and if you live in an urban environment may I suggest a chicken tractor to at least allow them to enter new space every week. Free-ranging allows your chickens to get out and explore the world, eat some insects and make some high-speed flying runs they want and deserve which may not be possible in the run. Plus if you are a farmer/gardner talk about great fertilizers and bed-preppers. Chickens are the cheapest and most productive employees I have ever had. Either way, give your chicken some type of insect and they will love you forever. In the summertime, I will go on a grasshopper/cricket hunt for my chickens and they have a blast when I release the bugs into the run and talk about the extra protein. Insects = protein for chickens and humans, if you are into that sort of food. We bought our chickens in October 2016 and have not had a chance to make a “Maggot Feeder” courtesy of Justin Rhodes youtube channel. Just find some road kill or a dead animal carcass, drill some holes in a bucket, and bam you got your chickens a self-making maggot feeder. Your chickens will thank you forever; here is the link to Justin Rhodes maggot-maker video https://youtu.be/4z2ZuF0XZQw . In the winter, if we can’t make worms for our chickens we by meal worm by the pound and/ or Grubby Farms – Black soldier fly larvae. This is the second winter we have had them and their egg production has gone way down . They use to put out one egg a day but now only about 1 a week. I am not worried , they are molting right now and we still have short winter days so less sun to amp up the egg production. I would never suggest supplemental heat or light to encourage egg laying. It is unnatural for your chickens to lay year-around as they get older and or are molting and they have a stronger immune system for not creating an unnatural living situation with all the heating/lighting gimmicks.
Pasture Raised vs Free ranging vs Cage free vs Caged: Caged and Cage-free chickens equals unhappy birds. Your birds need the coop space and run space required but what they want more is the Freedom to free-range and live life beyond the cage and barn. Did you know a “cage-free” hen has less than a iPad 9”x12” space worth of room to roam in their dark warehouse world? Birds need way more space than that to promote and optimal healthy life; birds stuck in enclosed environments are prone to disease and cannibalism. So I suggest letting the chicken outta the coop once in awhile. Here is a quick breakdown of the difference between the eggs and chicken meat you can buy at the store. If you are after quality and not quantity or cheapness , then you want pasture raised birds. These birds spend their life outside free ranging however their little hearts desire. Now a couple of years ago I thought Free-ranging meant pasture raised but it doesn’t, it means at one end of a big barn is a tiny chicken door that leads to an outside pad (It doesn’t even have to be a grass pad, it can be a cement pad so they have access to “outside”) Now I wouldn’t call this free ranging, would you? Cage-free birds are in just a bad situation as “free-ranging” but they have it worse in they have no access to outside what’s so ever. Sometimes zero light is offered in both free-ranging and cage free scenarios. The barn can be packed so full of chickens that it can lead to all the same issues as caged hens. There can be 8-10 birds to one cage and they are stuck in the cage their entire lives unable to perform basic grooming needs. If you don’t have time to raise birds of your own then make sure you look for the the real free ranger at the grocery store which is the Pasture raised chicken who has access to anywhere they want once the coop door is open.
Off grid chickens and freezing water: If you live on the grid than just go buy a 160 watt water heater and skip this section of the post. If you live off grid, may I suggest to not waste your time and become friends with your neighbors to help you take care of your chicks if you are on vacation for 5 or more days. I have found that our Barred Rock hens are tough ass girls and can go 4 days with self-feeder plus water that may freeze or not. Hopefully not, but we have been shredding in Breckenridge every weekend since the 2017 new year and our 6 chicks continue to lay 12+ eggs each weekend we our away. Talk about a great present to come back to after an amazing weekend of fresh powder runs on the slopes. So, how much water does a chicken really need (summer vs winter)? I’ve read they need about a liter per bird per day; however I have found they drink a little less than that in the winter. I am sure come summertime they will be drinking a whole lot more water. FYI , their egg is 80% or more water so it is very important to make sure your chickens have fresh access to water. Again I have found that we are able to leave Friday morning with a 5 gallon waterer in their coop and whether it freezes or not our birds seems happy and alive when we get back Monday late-afternoon. They lay eggs and we do not offer extra-light over these winter months and their production has not stopped. (This will change as the girls age – like right now, They are only laying 1 egg a week during this 2018 winter season)
Grit vs oyster shells: Both provide that bite-size pieces of rock needed to help them grind up food because chickens don’t have teeth but Oyster shells offer the extra calcium boost needed to help your chick lay hard-strong shelled eggs.
October 2016 is when we started our Chicken raising adventures. We started with 8 Chickens, 1 rooster and 7 hens. Now we only have 4 left. Find out what happened to our first flock by subscribing to our email list.
Why Roosters are Free? (And sent to the grinder on factory farms)I am finding Roosters have one use and one use only – Strutting there stuff and letting you know who is Boss and the obvious reason fertilizing the eggs for sustaining the flock. Not to say there can’t be any nice roosters in this world, but our Rooster Sriracha lives up to his spicy name. He is everything spice and not so nice. He tries to “get-it-on” any chances he can get with the girls, he didn’t protect “Gladys” the chicken who lost her head to an owl over Christmas 2016. Subscribe to our email list and we will email you the story about how our chicken Gladys lost her head over the holiday season and what happened to the other chooks (graphic photo included). Anyways back to Roosters, they are free because we only need one male to get lots of female chickens being productive egg-layers. There high testosterone makes them natural fighters and aggressors and I’ve heard that there presence helps keep egg production up which appears to be true on our Boomstead. So if you choose to keep one in the flock make sure they are introduced at an early age to the girls and you watch your back! Sad note if you do not know this about male chicks in the Factory Farm world. they grind them up as chicks because again we only need 1 to sustain the flock.
One more fun fact about chickens that everyone should know by now: Chickens lay eggs with or without the rooster. He fertilizes the egg to make the baby chicken. If he is not around one should consider the chicken egg to be one of the most nutritious sources of protein and fats one can get their hands on. Plus laid Eggs when done correctly are cruelty free, No Chickens were harmed in the production of laying an egg on the boomstead. (I know this is not the case for Factory farm chickens) So if you have the time or know your farmer having fresh eggs is will worth the time and money spent plus we get freechicken hugs, cock-a-doodle-doos and chicken coos whenever we want.
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