How much time

Hi All,
I am new to this chicken thing and was thinking about all of the time I spent on getting the coop, run, and the brooders set up for my massive flock of 3 chicks which are now 8 weeks old and finally out in the coop. I would guess that I have well over 160 hours in the building of everything and countless hours thinking about what else I was needing. I was anticipating that there was a couple of hours a day to tend to my chicks but am finding out that I only spent about 30 minutes a day actually tending to them, I give them fresh water every morning and every evening, check to see if they have plenty of food for the day, clean out the poop board and the bedding in side the coop. Mind you that my coop is only 4X4. My question is how much time do you take to tend to your chickens on a daily basis, just tending and not including play time with you and just watching which I have found myself doing quite a bit lately.

One other thing that I have noticed about chickens is that they are all about "Monkey see, Monkey do" If one does anything the other two come running and start doing the same thing what ever it may be. Very funny to watch.

Its always good to go out there for as long as you can to check to see if anyone isn't acting right.But just doing chores it takes me 15min or more to clean the coop feed them ect.

I find myself spending way to much time out there with them. I have a fire pit fairly close to their run so I sit there next to the fire having a cup of joe and watching them do what ever chickens do. All of my normal duties are being neglected and piling up. Oh well, there is always tomorrow, and OBTW, the chick that we were worried about is out and about with the other two enjoying life.

Haha yeah, chickens tend to be as time consuming as you make them be. Man, when my chicks are babies I'm on the floor watching tv with them on a towel and everything--they just make me so happy and calm me down. I like prepping them to be held when they are older and I like chatting with them-- I've found when they grow up they are much more fond. I have a super happy flock of 5 super calm roosters and 9 hens who are just so wonderful... wouldnt trade any of them for any other chicken that's for sure.

On the other hand, chickens are crazy awesome at taking care of themselves when you need them to! You wouldnt be the only person to not want to spend more time needed on them.

Just remember why you bought them and what your initial plans were!

Great!.Thats my favorite part about chicken keeping (Chicken t.v).This is just some advice when they get older,Get a poop board! half of the time spent doing duties is cleaning up poop.Its take me around 1 to 2 min to clean there poop up.

I did forget to mention that I do have a poop board in place, they have not started to use the roost yet. Hopefully soon. I hate to say this but I think I have taken more pictures of these 3 chicks than I did with my three kids, which I might say that all 3 of them think that we are wacko for getting chickens. As the old saying goes "if I knew that chickens were this much fun, I would have had them first" or maybe that is Grand kids, I forget.

I have 8 birds and I probably spend 10 minutes in the morning and 5 at night tending to daily chicken chores.

That's putting food out, checking to see that waterer is full and its heater didn't crap out during the night, tossing out scratch, opening the pop door, scooping the poop tray and fluffing the bedding with a pitchfork. At night I put the food away, do a head count on the roost and shut the pop door. Now they started laying again so I check eggs once at mid morning but just stick my head in.

When it's not winter I spend way more time watching them but it's because I'm outside doing yard stuff or working the dogs.

I have 20 birds right now and probably spend on average 20 minutes per day on the regular daily duties.
6x16 coop with 30 sqft of poop boards.

That can change if there's a problem to monitor.........like right now I have a thin shell layer,
so am watching like a hawk to catch her at it so I don't have to spend yet more time cleaning the nest.
Too cold to isolate her.

Oh and due to frigid temps, there's the multiple trips per day out to coop to get eggs out before they freeze.

Just like with your kids, the first chickens have more pics and attention than the following years will....haha!

The actual tending is about 5 minutes per day. Big waterer with heater, feeders that hold 40+ pounds. Grab the eggs daily, scoop the poop out of the PDZ every once in a while, fill the feeders every few weeks and the waterer every week or so and repeat.

I'm probably the laziest. Officially it's like 5 min in morning, 5 in the afternoon/night. Morning: pop open coop door, check on food and water levels (and make sure the waterer is thawed), check for eggs, distribute mealworms, rub every back that wants to be rubbed. If I think someone's due to lay soon or the waterer needs attending, I'll go out a few more times to take care of that. Afternoon, check for eggs again, more mealworms, more backrubs. And then I close up coop after making sure everyone's accounted for. Clean up days take longer of course.

I do end up spending a lot of time in there doing other stuff. My garden beds are in the run, there's always something that needs to be fixed or tweaked. When the weather is warmer we put out little folding stools to watch them run around, otherwise it's chicken TV from indoors for now.