packleadr1
Hatching
- Aug 31, 2020
- 2
- 1
- 7
Hey all, I've been a follower and spying on the content here for a year or so, just joined today. I'm new to the chicken world and need some advise on a few things. I know there are a lot of experts and pros here so here I am. I have included a few pictures to better explain.
First a little backstory, I know that can be important. We are located in central South Carolina and have recently stared a garden and chickens on our acre lot in the country. I got interested in chickens for 3 reasons; to become more self sufficient in case of an emergency, to eat more nutritious and safer foods, and to teach the kids where their food comes from while treating our food more humanely. We have been raising chickens since March, 2020 so have had them for 5 months. We originally ordered barred rock baby chicks from Meyer hatchery online for 15 hens and 5 roosters, I ordered them with the Mareks immunization. We didn't realize how much of a problem that ratio was going to cause but when they hit 4 months it was obvious we had too many roosters for our hens. The boys were very aggressive with them, I guess fighting over who owned what girls, lol. While they were little everything went pretty smooth, we had to adjust our plans several times as they grew much faster than expected so we had to keep updating and growing their 'baby home'. We raised them on medicated chicken starter and then moved to the grower. We had 1 chick that in the second month was not eating and was very lethargic. We broke her off and isolated her, trying to baby her back but she didn't improve so we ended up losing her. A couple months later we had a rooster get bumble foot which we tried to do surgery on at home based off of things I read and youtube but we didn't do a very good job. At the same time we were having the issues with the over aggressiveness of the roosters with the hens so decided we were going to cull down a couple roosters. We picked the one with the bumblefoot and another which had a weird looking wattle. Since we plan on hatching more later we didn't want to pass a bad trait so figured since we needed 2 to go that's the way we'd decide. That left us 3 roosters and 14 hens.
For our chicken area, when the chicks outgrew the inside the garage house/ cage we moved them outside to their permanent coop. We self-built an 8'x16' coop with 7' ceilings. We separated it down the center with chicken fence and a door with the intent of having 2 separate 'families'. We wanted to keep at least 2 roosters in case we lost one. Each side of the coop has 4 chicken roosts in a ladder fashion of 3' long made with 2x2"s. There are 4 chicken boxes on each side about 13"x14"x14" with curtains in front for privacy, which the hens are using fantastically. We have our main entry door, and there are 2 windows, 2 chicken doors, 4 floor vents 6" off the floor, and around the entire top of the coop it is open about 3"-8" for air flow and to avoid dust and ammonia issues. The entire plywood floor of the coop is lined with 1/4 inch fence as well as all open places such as the windows, vents, and open top. The wire on the floor is covered with 1/4 inch thick rubber matts used for horses and cattle to protect against water and the bird droppings and to keep their feet protected. We use shredded pine shavings on top of that for poop and comfort. Under the roosts I built a fold-able 'hammock style' poop catch with 2x2" boards and vinyl flooring which is water proof. We built a run outside of 10'x50' and cut that in half so each family has their own run. Originally there was grass but they picked that clean pretty quickly. The entire run is enclosed with chain link fence with 1/4" wire around the bottom, spanning 2' up the side of the chain-link and 2' from the base to protect against raccoons, rats, etc. Half of the run is roofed with metal roofing and the rest is covered with horse fence to keep the hawks or any climbing creature out. We put a couple inches of sand down in the run once all the grass was gone for drainage and to give them a little more comfortable area and to allow dirt baths, they seem to love it for that. We have a hanging food dispenser from Tractor Supply inside the coop on each side and outside on each side of the run. We have constructed a watering system using 3" pvc pipe with chicken nipples installed, there is a piping water system inside and outside with both nipples and cups available to make sure they have plenty of water. I have purchased a small solar fan system that I plan on installing inside the coop so that when it's hot they can get a little additional air flow but just haven't had a chance to hook it up. I clean out the poop catchers 2 times a week by removing them and scrubbing them with soap and water. I then turn the pine shavings with a rake trying to keep the poop away and to promote better air inside.
We have 1 rooster on each side of the coop with 7 of the girls and have taken the 3rd rooster out and he has his own bachelor pad. We allow him to "mix" with a few of the hens every couple days so he doesn't go crazy. We will eventually cull 1 more rooster once we decide which 2 are the best for the girls and to make sure that the 2 we want to keep are fertile. We also plan on hatching a few eggs in the next couple months to bring our hen/rooster ration up to 10 hens for each rooster. We feed our chickens 17% protein layer food and supplement that with their own finely crushed eggshells. We also provide grit in feeders inside and outside. We give them treats such as scratch grain, watermelon, cabbage, cucumbers or whatever we have about every other day. We let the chickens out into their respective runs each morning around 8 am and they are outside until a little before dark. We let them out into the large yard to rummage, play, and scavenge for about an hour or two each day where they can eat grass and search for bugs and stuff.
I think that's pretty much our story and plans. Now to the questions I have:
1) a couple of our chickens have been sneezing recently, over the past couple weeks. It's not consistent sneezing, just every once in awhile. I know this can be a sign of some sort of infection or problem. However none of our chickens are showing any other signs of problems; we don't have any issues with runny eyes, crusty butts or beaks, diarrhea, or excessive mouth breathing. All the chickens are also eating and drinking really well and are active and seem happy (except when one of the boys jumps on her). I also believe with our coop build and the fact they are outside most of the daytime then we don't have a dust or ammonia problem. Please let me know what I should do.
2) One of our hens is weird looking. She looks different than the others and she is a dwarf in comparison. They pick on her a lot and we're thinking since she's so miserable that we should cull her out. However she's very nice chicken and is my daughter's favorite so we haven't done that yet. We've explained to her (she's 13 so not a baby) what's involved with raising animals and she understands what we may have to do. We'd like to find out if she's just an abnormal bird or if we got a different type in our order. Mainly if she's not happy and being picked on all the time then it's more humane to let her go. Her picture is attached.
3) My long term goal is to be able to provide our chickens all the food they need in house, without having to resort to buying from the store. Any ideas on this? I've done some reading and looking at crickets, worms, and the like but from what I understand too much of that is too much protein so isn't good. If we provide worms and crickets and round it out with just grass around the yard is that sufficient? I want to keep them healthy, laying, fat, and happy and don't want to result in bad nutrition.
4) Is the 10:1 ratio that I'm planning to build to good? Or should we stick with the 6/7:1 ratio? I want the roosters to be happy but I also don't want the girls abused and stressed.
5) We got our first eggs about 4 weeks ago and now are getting about 8-10 eggs a day; yesterday we got 12, yay! The eggs are still on the small size but they taste good. In general the eggs have a very thick shell, much harder and stronger than store bought eggs, however we've occasionally gotten a soft egg. We find a soft egg about every 3-4 days. We feed them the crushed eggshells from their own eggs, feed them layer food, and also have oyster shells in their runs. They seem to like the food and will eat the crushed eggshells if mixed with their food but they don't touch the oyster shell. I'm attributing the soft eggs to possible stress but would like any insight that I should do or look for. I usually find these soft eggs laying in the poop catch under their roosts, they aren't laying these in the boxes. Also twice I've found a regular egg in the poop catch but it's usually the soft ones. Is there a concern with them laying eggs like that on the roosts vs in the boxes? I'm thinking theses eggs are being laid at night when they are asleep on the roosts but not sure.
6) We fed the chicks medicated food, which was hard to find sometimes, when they were little but now they are adults I can't find medicated layer food. Should we supplement their food with something? Or are they ok once they get to adult age?
All comments, constructive criticism, advise, and suggestions are super welcome. Please let me know what we need to consider in our future with chickens! Thanks in advance and I apologize about the lengthy post.
First a little backstory, I know that can be important. We are located in central South Carolina and have recently stared a garden and chickens on our acre lot in the country. I got interested in chickens for 3 reasons; to become more self sufficient in case of an emergency, to eat more nutritious and safer foods, and to teach the kids where their food comes from while treating our food more humanely. We have been raising chickens since March, 2020 so have had them for 5 months. We originally ordered barred rock baby chicks from Meyer hatchery online for 15 hens and 5 roosters, I ordered them with the Mareks immunization. We didn't realize how much of a problem that ratio was going to cause but when they hit 4 months it was obvious we had too many roosters for our hens. The boys were very aggressive with them, I guess fighting over who owned what girls, lol. While they were little everything went pretty smooth, we had to adjust our plans several times as they grew much faster than expected so we had to keep updating and growing their 'baby home'. We raised them on medicated chicken starter and then moved to the grower. We had 1 chick that in the second month was not eating and was very lethargic. We broke her off and isolated her, trying to baby her back but she didn't improve so we ended up losing her. A couple months later we had a rooster get bumble foot which we tried to do surgery on at home based off of things I read and youtube but we didn't do a very good job. At the same time we were having the issues with the over aggressiveness of the roosters with the hens so decided we were going to cull down a couple roosters. We picked the one with the bumblefoot and another which had a weird looking wattle. Since we plan on hatching more later we didn't want to pass a bad trait so figured since we needed 2 to go that's the way we'd decide. That left us 3 roosters and 14 hens.
For our chicken area, when the chicks outgrew the inside the garage house/ cage we moved them outside to their permanent coop. We self-built an 8'x16' coop with 7' ceilings. We separated it down the center with chicken fence and a door with the intent of having 2 separate 'families'. We wanted to keep at least 2 roosters in case we lost one. Each side of the coop has 4 chicken roosts in a ladder fashion of 3' long made with 2x2"s. There are 4 chicken boxes on each side about 13"x14"x14" with curtains in front for privacy, which the hens are using fantastically. We have our main entry door, and there are 2 windows, 2 chicken doors, 4 floor vents 6" off the floor, and around the entire top of the coop it is open about 3"-8" for air flow and to avoid dust and ammonia issues. The entire plywood floor of the coop is lined with 1/4 inch fence as well as all open places such as the windows, vents, and open top. The wire on the floor is covered with 1/4 inch thick rubber matts used for horses and cattle to protect against water and the bird droppings and to keep their feet protected. We use shredded pine shavings on top of that for poop and comfort. Under the roosts I built a fold-able 'hammock style' poop catch with 2x2" boards and vinyl flooring which is water proof. We built a run outside of 10'x50' and cut that in half so each family has their own run. Originally there was grass but they picked that clean pretty quickly. The entire run is enclosed with chain link fence with 1/4" wire around the bottom, spanning 2' up the side of the chain-link and 2' from the base to protect against raccoons, rats, etc. Half of the run is roofed with metal roofing and the rest is covered with horse fence to keep the hawks or any climbing creature out. We put a couple inches of sand down in the run once all the grass was gone for drainage and to give them a little more comfortable area and to allow dirt baths, they seem to love it for that. We have a hanging food dispenser from Tractor Supply inside the coop on each side and outside on each side of the run. We have constructed a watering system using 3" pvc pipe with chicken nipples installed, there is a piping water system inside and outside with both nipples and cups available to make sure they have plenty of water. I have purchased a small solar fan system that I plan on installing inside the coop so that when it's hot they can get a little additional air flow but just haven't had a chance to hook it up. I clean out the poop catchers 2 times a week by removing them and scrubbing them with soap and water. I then turn the pine shavings with a rake trying to keep the poop away and to promote better air inside.
We have 1 rooster on each side of the coop with 7 of the girls and have taken the 3rd rooster out and he has his own bachelor pad. We allow him to "mix" with a few of the hens every couple days so he doesn't go crazy. We will eventually cull 1 more rooster once we decide which 2 are the best for the girls and to make sure that the 2 we want to keep are fertile. We also plan on hatching a few eggs in the next couple months to bring our hen/rooster ration up to 10 hens for each rooster. We feed our chickens 17% protein layer food and supplement that with their own finely crushed eggshells. We also provide grit in feeders inside and outside. We give them treats such as scratch grain, watermelon, cabbage, cucumbers or whatever we have about every other day. We let the chickens out into their respective runs each morning around 8 am and they are outside until a little before dark. We let them out into the large yard to rummage, play, and scavenge for about an hour or two each day where they can eat grass and search for bugs and stuff.
I think that's pretty much our story and plans. Now to the questions I have:
1) a couple of our chickens have been sneezing recently, over the past couple weeks. It's not consistent sneezing, just every once in awhile. I know this can be a sign of some sort of infection or problem. However none of our chickens are showing any other signs of problems; we don't have any issues with runny eyes, crusty butts or beaks, diarrhea, or excessive mouth breathing. All the chickens are also eating and drinking really well and are active and seem happy (except when one of the boys jumps on her). I also believe with our coop build and the fact they are outside most of the daytime then we don't have a dust or ammonia problem. Please let me know what I should do.
2) One of our hens is weird looking. She looks different than the others and she is a dwarf in comparison. They pick on her a lot and we're thinking since she's so miserable that we should cull her out. However she's very nice chicken and is my daughter's favorite so we haven't done that yet. We've explained to her (she's 13 so not a baby) what's involved with raising animals and she understands what we may have to do. We'd like to find out if she's just an abnormal bird or if we got a different type in our order. Mainly if she's not happy and being picked on all the time then it's more humane to let her go. Her picture is attached.
3) My long term goal is to be able to provide our chickens all the food they need in house, without having to resort to buying from the store. Any ideas on this? I've done some reading and looking at crickets, worms, and the like but from what I understand too much of that is too much protein so isn't good. If we provide worms and crickets and round it out with just grass around the yard is that sufficient? I want to keep them healthy, laying, fat, and happy and don't want to result in bad nutrition.
4) Is the 10:1 ratio that I'm planning to build to good? Or should we stick with the 6/7:1 ratio? I want the roosters to be happy but I also don't want the girls abused and stressed.
5) We got our first eggs about 4 weeks ago and now are getting about 8-10 eggs a day; yesterday we got 12, yay! The eggs are still on the small size but they taste good. In general the eggs have a very thick shell, much harder and stronger than store bought eggs, however we've occasionally gotten a soft egg. We find a soft egg about every 3-4 days. We feed them the crushed eggshells from their own eggs, feed them layer food, and also have oyster shells in their runs. They seem to like the food and will eat the crushed eggshells if mixed with their food but they don't touch the oyster shell. I'm attributing the soft eggs to possible stress but would like any insight that I should do or look for. I usually find these soft eggs laying in the poop catch under their roosts, they aren't laying these in the boxes. Also twice I've found a regular egg in the poop catch but it's usually the soft ones. Is there a concern with them laying eggs like that on the roosts vs in the boxes? I'm thinking theses eggs are being laid at night when they are asleep on the roosts but not sure.
6) We fed the chicks medicated food, which was hard to find sometimes, when they were little but now they are adults I can't find medicated layer food. Should we supplement their food with something? Or are they ok once they get to adult age?
All comments, constructive criticism, advise, and suggestions are super welcome. Please let me know what we need to consider in our future with chickens! Thanks in advance and I apologize about the lengthy post.
