I am a kid trying to convice his parents to have chickens! Please help!

[HorsebackBrony]

Hello!

I am a teen trying to convince his parents to have chickens. I am trying to get reasons, so help me out!

Thanks!

Ha! I just went through this with my mom. The fresh eggs do help your argument. What I would reccamend, do your reserch and find out any reasons your parents would not want chickens. Eliminate them one by one. Give them no reason to say no. Good luck!

 

[ILoveChickens01]

You might call your country extension office, and ask if there is a local poultry club near you. There you could see lots of chickens, see lots of set ups, and get some hands on experiences.

Mrs K

I do not believe there is a poultry club near me. Thanks though!

Ha! I just went through this with my mom. The fresh eggs do help your argument. What I would reccamend, do your reserch and find out any reasons your parents would not want chickens. Eliminate them one by one. Give them no reason to say no. Good luck!

That is exactly what I am trying to do!
I am eliminating reasons for them to say no.

 

[kadoer12]

Hi! Glad to see another youth interested in poultry! As everyone else said, do your research and entertain your parents with what you learn. My parents were our homestead starters after considering it for a few years and when we moved to our 11 acres it became a reality for them. I'll warn you though, it's hard to keep yourself from getting more. We have about 80 birds(chickens, pheasants, turkeys, and guineas.) I too right now am trying to get my parents to let me get a couple silkie hens, reminding them that they are one of the best broodies ever.

Anyways, You had a few questions that I would love to answer!

Breeds to chose:

This really depends on the area you own, purpose, ect. First you have to decide between bantam and Large chickens(LF). Bantams require less feed, less area, but have smaller eggs. LF need more food and area with large eggs. LF also are better if you have to cull for meat. Since your interested in breeding, you may have to cull any extra roos.

After you decide on size, you have to decide on purpose. You already mention eggs, but what if you decide on a dual purpose. Many heritage breeds of LF are good dual purposes. However, they take longer to mature. There is, I believe, a couple bantam breeds that are dual use as well.

Before, you mentioned breeding. Their is more money in pure, but people will also pay a pretty penny for mixes as well. That being, if you go for pures, some breeds don't go broody well so you'll have to incubate yourself. Or you can get a broody breed like a silkie to do the hatching for you. If you get a silkie, hatchery silkies can run bigger then show-quality, meaning more eggs to put under them.

Just some Ideas and factors to look at. Oh! If you don't live in the country, you may needs to see if you can have chickens and if so, whether you can have a roo and how many is allowed. Most places let you have six birds.

If you do decide to let broodies brood, You may consider seperating her for easier care, safety for her and the eggs/chicks. A dog kennel works well or a wooden "box" with chicken wire can be built. You can place these broody pens in your garage, shed or basement.

Coop:

Yep, general rule is 4 sqft for coop and 10 sqft for run. If you get small bantams, you might be able to get away with a smaller coop, but the run area may be a good Idea to keep for them.

The coop size may change depending how you build and take care of the birds. If you want to get up close to when they do (4 in the morning) you could get away with a couple extra birds. If the run is predator proof and covered, you could leave the door to it from coop open, which allows them to let themselves out when they get up. You will have to train them for a week to get them to bed in their coop and if you get winters you'll want to tarp the top of the run and maybe the north side as well which should limit the amount of snow and encourage them to go out. Extra roost and haveing your nestboxes on the outside instead of taking up room on the inside will help as well. Adding entertain,ent can help with coop behaviors.

A poop board was mentioned earlier, great idea. If you have some old tarps that have a few good sections, you can use it as a poop hammock that you can untie, dump, rinse, and retie. Maybe make two, so you can dry the rinsed on and put a dry one in.

Bedding, Lots of people use pine shavings which are great. Other options are saw dust and sand. I hear a lot of good things about sand. Don't have to empty it out all the time, might have to replace it once a year and you can shift all the poo from it.

With the amount of birds your thinking about, one of the feeders from the store will work just fine and so will the waterers. There is a type of waterer that is like rodent waterers that keep the water clean and free of algae. They can fix the waterer parts to a bucket, water bottle, or pvc pipe

We have two coops right now: The old one is 8X6= 48 which means 12 birds can be kept. We are splitting it in half to put two large breeding groups in. The runs for each side are 20x8=160 means 16 birds meaning each 6/8 size breeding group has plenty of space to forage. Our Main coop is 16x12=192 equaling 48 birds. For this winter all the hens are using the coop space and the roos are going in 4 sq ft cages on shelves. the coop has two 8x16= 128 runs(13 birds) along with a giant fenced in area around our pond they can get too. During winter they'll need entertainment, but we plan to have winterizable tracter for most of the breeding groups.(except for polishes, they'll be in the main coop, probably. Turkeys, guineas, pheasants, and ducks all have their own houses and pens. The ducks share the pond run and so does the guineas and turkeys at the moment.

Feed:

I noticed someone mention fermented feed, great idea. Haven't tried it myself yet(still getting the folks to understand How your saving in dry feed), but alot of folks give it the five stars. Though, you can't use the feeders from the store for it. Other feeds you can consider to add to their normal feed is fodder(growing seeds to sprouts), raising meal worms and soldier fly larva. You can learn alot about it on here and pinterest had great ideas for setups and other chicken related items.

Getting birds:

There are a few options on getting birds. The best is finding a reputable breeder near you. One way to do that is finding out if you have a poultry club. You most likely have one in your county or a close by one. If you have a feed store near you or a tractor supply store there may be animal swaps there. You could get your birds from there but for reassurance of breed and health(always quarantine new birds) Get to know some names and a few people may point you to a group your family can join. My folks went to one and now are part of a poultry fanciers association which I believe was free to join, but might have a small fee (like ten dollars) for higher membership. But once you find a group you will for sure find someone with nice, healthy, pure breeds. They may have a facebook page your family can join.

Another option is hatchery birds. The downsize with those is many require a limit of 15 chicks ordered. I believe Meyers limit is three. If you do order from a hatchery that has a higher number, you can find someone to split the order with(with parent help). If you decide to get Ameraucanas or Auracanas read to make sure they are pure. Some places will sell you EE's(mixes) but will try to pass it of as one. Meyers has two colors that are pure I believe, the others they say are EE's. Another problem with hatchery is you get a wide variety of faults and traits in the bird, but you can look up more about that when you research breeding.

Last option, not a bad option but not always reliable, is searching the farm and garden section on craigslist in your area. Have your parents permission with this and keep them onboard. If you find birds on there you are interested in go and see them before you commit yourself to buying. Familarize yourself with whatever the breeds standards are to determine whether they are pure and familarize yourself with any visible signs of illness, such as mites, lice, droopey eyes, ect. For the most part people sell birds as what they are. We had a couple problems: we bought a 'cochin pair' that we noticed after had mites, five toes, and dark skin. We realized they were part silkie. We also believe the 'hen' is a young roo they might have mistaken, as we haven't seen it lay an egg and it mounts the polish bantam all the time. (hens can act rooish like this so we're not completely sure.) Another issue we had, too my sadness, is three dorking hens we were givin. They ended up being part partridge rock which we were made aware that the color hasn't been seen in dorkings. we found an ad from the same address for partridge rock/dorking chicks which confirmed my thoughts. It also explained why they have been laying so well throughout this summer as dorkings are winter layers mostly and are broody during the spring and summer. Not all are bad though you can get some nice birds from folks. Layers, pullets, chicks, ect.


Oh MY! I rambled a lot. This is like a mile long. I get to excited about these kind of things XD Hope this was helpful! If you do get them, watch out for that chicken fever, haha . You would be overrun with birds if you don't. Good luck with your adventure.

 

[ILoveChickens01]

Big post! I did read it all! Thanks!

 

[dsgnrone]

A great salesman can make you believe it was your idea!

 

[SwedishDude99]

Any other questions you have?

 

[ILoveChickens01]

A great salesman can make you believe it was your idea!

Exactly what I am trying to accomplish

Any other questions you have?

Well, this one is for the small time hatchers:

I am looking into mareks vaccine. I see that it is one time use. I would only have 4 laying hens, so per round of chicks I might have like 15 chicks. $20 for a whole bottle can do 1000 chicks, but I would only be using it on 15. Is there any way to make it more than one time use? Any way to buy a smaller quantity?

 

[lazy gardener]

Mareks is not a very common illness. And if you've not raised poultry before, the chance of your chickens getting Mareks is very slim. Also, I've read that chickens living in an area habitated by wild turkeys are even less likely to contract Mareks. Some hatcheries recommend against vaccination for the BY flock.

 

[ILoveChickens01]

Mareks is not a very common illness. And if you've not raised poultry before, the chance of your chickens getting Mareks is very slim. Also, I've read that chickens living in an area habitated by wild turkeys are even less likely to contract Mareks. Some hatcheries recommend against vaccination for the BY flock.

Wow, you just made my day. That is exactly what I wanted to hear.

 

[ILoveChickens01]

Hey!

I am looking at doing quail instead of chickens. What do you think?

Thanks!