Chickens are relatively easy to care for, compared with other livestock. As long as they have shelter from the weather, fresh water and food, they produce eggs and meat for the table.
Shelter is especially important in the wintertime. Even with good shelter, the rooster’s comb might get frostbitten on the tips. Below-freezing temperatures also can freeze any eggs left in the nest, causing the shells to crack. So what you want in a shelter is four walls and a roof, and any doors or other openings should face east or south. You need a solid wall on the north to block cold winter winds. In the summertime shade from trees or the side of the hen house, and plenty of fresh water, should be sufficient to keep the birds comfortable.
Inside the hen house, you need enough roosting poles for all the birds to gather there to sleep at night. It is the nature of the creature to roost off the ground, to avoid being eaten by ground-dwelling predators like foxes and weasels.
A second line of defense against predators should be a good solid fence with no gaps – especially near the ground. Even if you let your flock free-range during the day, they should be locked up at night, when predators are on the prowl.
The third (and optional) line of defense is a livestock guardian dog that is bonded to poultry. The dog stays with the chickens day and night, and prevents any predators from attacking the flock.
A final addition to the inside of the hen house is nests. The simplest nest would be a milk crate or wooden box sitting on the floor of the hen house full of straw. The easiest nest to use, however, is what we’ve got – nesting boxes attached to the front wall of the structure. The hens can get into the nests from inside the hen house, but I just lift a lid to retrieve the eggs from outside. Keep the nests full of straw. Chickens are notorious for scratching the straw out of the nest, but you need the straw to cushion the eggs so they don’t get broken.
Fresh water is essential to a healthy flock. You can purchase the big, 3-gallon water container offered at most farm-supply stores, like Tractor Supply and the local farmers’ co-op, or you can get a heated dog dish that sits on the ground, and plug it in with an extension cord. We recently switched to this method of watering my chickens. It generates just enough heat to keep the water from freezing on a cold night.
I feed my chickens once a day, every day, and check the water when I do, to see if it needs refilling. Currently, I am feeding a pelletized laying ration from Tractor Supply, and I put enough in the feeder for the chickens to eat completely by about mid-afternoon. If that’s all the feed they get, it is a complete ration. However, I feed kitchen scraps like left-over grits, bread, and banana peels, and sometimes I let them out to free-range just before dusk. Because of that, the chickens don’t get enough calcium in their diet to counteract the calcium that’s going into making their egg shells.
When I had dairy goats, I would feed leftover milk and whey from cheese production to the chickens, and that was plenty of extra calcium for them. I don’t have goats anymore, so now I save the shells from their eggs, toast them, crush them, and mix them in with their feed. It boosts their calcium intake.
Chickens rarely get worms, but I still worm mine about once or twice a year, with Wazine – available at your local farm supply store. You just mix it in their drinking water. The label says not to feed it to chickens raised for egg production, so I just feed the eggs to the dog for about a week-and-a-half, until the medication clears their system.
NEXT WEEK: Chickens, Pt. 6: Using fresh eggs
Shelter is especially important in the wintertime. Even with good shelter, the rooster’s comb might get frostbitten on the tips. Below-freezing temperatures also can freeze any eggs left in the nest, causing the shells to crack. So what you want in a shelter is four walls and a roof, and any doors or other openings should face east or south. You need a solid wall on the north to block cold winter winds. In the summertime shade from trees or the side of the hen house, and plenty of fresh water, should be sufficient to keep the birds comfortable.
Inside the hen house, you need enough roosting poles for all the birds to gather there to sleep at night. It is the nature of the creature to roost off the ground, to avoid being eaten by ground-dwelling predators like foxes and weasels.
A second line of defense against predators should be a good solid fence with no gaps – especially near the ground. Even if you let your flock free-range during the day, they should be locked up at night, when predators are on the prowl.
The third (and optional) line of defense is a livestock guardian dog that is bonded to poultry. The dog stays with the chickens day and night, and prevents any predators from attacking the flock.
A final addition to the inside of the hen house is nests. The simplest nest would be a milk crate or wooden box sitting on the floor of the hen house full of straw. The easiest nest to use, however, is what we’ve got – nesting boxes attached to the front wall of the structure. The hens can get into the nests from inside the hen house, but I just lift a lid to retrieve the eggs from outside. Keep the nests full of straw. Chickens are notorious for scratching the straw out of the nest, but you need the straw to cushion the eggs so they don’t get broken.
Fresh water is essential to a healthy flock. You can purchase the big, 3-gallon water container offered at most farm-supply stores, like Tractor Supply and the local farmers’ co-op, or you can get a heated dog dish that sits on the ground, and plug it in with an extension cord. We recently switched to this method of watering my chickens. It generates just enough heat to keep the water from freezing on a cold night.
I feed my chickens once a day, every day, and check the water when I do, to see if it needs refilling. Currently, I am feeding a pelletized laying ration from Tractor Supply, and I put enough in the feeder for the chickens to eat completely by about mid-afternoon. If that’s all the feed they get, it is a complete ration. However, I feed kitchen scraps like left-over grits, bread, and banana peels, and sometimes I let them out to free-range just before dusk. Because of that, the chickens don’t get enough calcium in their diet to counteract the calcium that’s going into making their egg shells.
When I had dairy goats, I would feed leftover milk and whey from cheese production to the chickens, and that was plenty of extra calcium for them. I don’t have goats anymore, so now I save the shells from their eggs, toast them, crush them, and mix them in with their feed. It boosts their calcium intake.
Chickens rarely get worms, but I still worm mine about once or twice a year, with Wazine – available at your local farm supply store. You just mix it in their drinking water. The label says not to feed it to chickens raised for egg production, so I just feed the eggs to the dog for about a week-and-a-half, until the medication clears their system.
NEXT WEEK: Chickens, Pt. 6: Using fresh eggs