Speckledhen's Ten Commandments of Good Flock Management

[speckledhen]

Chickens may be livestock or they may be pets, but they deserve and desire attention and care. If you are going to maintain a healthy backyard flock, there are certain rules that should be followed. For those of you who frequently PM me for advice, or for those of you who are new to chicken-keeping, here is the "Speckledhen Method" in a nutshell.

Speckledhen's Ten Commandments of Good Flock Management

1) Keep a clean, dry environment...change bedding as needed, watch out for leaky waterers/windows/roofs, etc.

2) Fresh air/ventilation is essential..poop and respiration add moisture in the air. Ventilation overhead, not at roost or floor level.

3) Provide fresh water, daily. Would you take a sip out of the waterer? If not, clean it.

4) Give fresh, nutritious food, formulated for the age/function of the birds

5) Provide a safe, predator-proofed, uncrowded coop and run...they depend on you for protection

6) Periodically, check over each bird in the flock for lice, mites, wounds, etc.

7) Practice good biosecurity..disinfect shoes before and after visting the feedstore and shows, quarantine new birds, etc Under no circumstances, sell, trade, or give away a bird that shows sign of infection or has contacted another bird who shows signs of infection, or comes from a flock that has shown signs of infection, now or in the past.

8) At the first sign of contagious respiratory illness, i.e., discharges from nose or eyes or bad smell, cull, cull, cull...birds don't get colds, per se; they contract diseases, many of which make them carriers for their lifetime. That means they are able to infect others even if they seem to recover themselves. See Rule #7.

9) Do not medicate unnecessarily, including wormers and antibiotics

10) DO YOUR RESEARCH! There are numerous books and articles profiling poultry management and poultry disease. Read, study and then formulate a plan of action, should the worst happen, before it happens.


Happy Chicken-Keeping!

 

[ranchhand]

Thank you!

I have printed 4 copies- so far. From now on, anyone getting a chicken from me or anyone else gets a copy on parchment paper!

 

[Buster]

Very nice Cyn! Rule #8 was especially important to me. I haven't had any birds that have been sick like that, but now I know what to do if they are.

Rule #3 made me laugh out loud.

Thanks for taking the time to post that.

 

[Gloria]

Very well said, Cyn! I think you covered that really well! Might be a good idea for someone to sticky this. Should be a great post for the new people out there. Very helpful for them.

 

[herechickchick]

LOVE IT! Well said and valuable information for anyone keeping chickens.

 

[Double Yolked]

One small and to me amusing problem with #3. Provide fresh water, daily. Would you take a sip out of the waterer? If not, clean it.
I have a fairly large run for the girls and I live in an area that gets a lot of rain. So, where do my hens prefer to drink? From the sparkling clean waterer? From the chicken nipplers hanging from the carefully sanitized buckets? Noooooo.
The little feather heads would much prefer the dirty mud puddle down at the far end of the run. Or the rain run off they can 'just' crane their necks and reach coming off the side of the coop roof.

 

[namreknat]

Thanks speckledhen!! That's a very good list of rules.

 

[speckledhen]

I'm not trying to be short with you and I'm sorry if it came across that way, but I've had this same conversation with hundreds of new chicken owners. I don't know how long you've had chickens or if you have actually studied chicken disease at all, but these are facts that every chicken keeper needs to understand, no matter how much he/she doesn't like it, no matter how real it is. Avian species are completely different than mammals like dogs and cats or even humans and cannot be treated the same way.
Let me tell you about veterinarians. Though they have a unit on avian species in school, unless they specialize in it, they rarely know much about chickens. They choose not to do that. I have had the ear of several excellent ones who know chickens, have treated chickens and a couple own chickens themselves, as well as two PhDs in Poultry Science I've consulted over the years about reproductive malfunctions. Even my dog/cat vet owns chickens, but I don't take my birds to the vet, never have. Many vets will charge you and experiment on your chicken, but won't admit they really don't know what they're doing.
I have never had a bird with contagious illness in the over 17 years we've kept chickens. If I determined that one did somehow contract a contagious illness, YES, I would cull that chicken! It's not worth endangering my entire flock.

I have birds that have lived to over 14 years old and most live to at least 10, and they deserve that much care. That is how I care for my birds. You can ask anyone who has known me for the past 17 years on BYC, even before this one was revamped by Rob Ludlow and they'll tell you what care I give my birds. Signs and symptoms won't get you very far because many respiratory illnesses have very similar ones. A few years back, I had a small group get a fungal infection, determined it was such, treated with Oxine AH in a vaporizer once or twice a day for several days and they were all fine, however, one 5 year old hen developed bubbles in her eyes, alarmed me, so I consulted the former state vet. He said it was a bacterial infection left over from the fungal infection and told me how to treat it, that she was not contagious. HOWEVER, if she had been, I would have euthanized that very valued hen. Yes, I would have. She did go on to live to 10 years old, but we were ready to do what was necessary to protect the rest of the flock. Add that to the fact that I sell hatching eggs and occasionally, chicks, and I could not ethically do that any longer if there was any contagious carrier disease in my flocks. I realize many do and don't care that they are causing heartache to someone else, but I won't do that so I have a strict policy about disease. So far, I have not had to cull one for any contagious respiratory disease because there has never been one here. That is by design.

 

[getaclue]

I have to agree with speckledhen on this. If you know for sure a respiratory illness is not contagious, and how to treat it, that's one thing. If you don't, or are uncertain, then don't risk an entire flock over 1 chicken. Some of the worst of the worst serious, contagious illnesses for chickens, begin with respiratory distress.

Sadly, there are several serious illnesses that the best solution is to cull. Fortunately, they're not an often time occurrence, but as a responsible flock keeper, one must be prepared to cull if, and when needed. Unfortunately, even vets are not miracle workers. If one of your birds, or your flock does get exposed to one of the serious contagious illnesses, there is little they can do. Coryza comes to mind.

When we were looking at places to buy, we went to look at a place. The woman kept chickens, and some of them were free ranging in her yard. I mentioned I too had chickens. Later on, after she showed us a good bit of the place, and outbuildings, she mentioned that we could not go into the coop, because she had some chickens quarantined, and the vet would be out the next day to treat them again. ??????????? Coryza had wiped out about 1/4 of her flock before she could get the vet to see her chickens. The vet had treated them, but not all of them had responded to treatment. The ones that did live, were still infected, and contagious. Every couple months, when one or more would die, OR when one or more would start gasping for breath, OR when they would get an odor, she would have to call the vet to come treat them again. There is no cure for Coryza. She felt it cruel to confine them, so she let them roam the yard. It spread to her neighbor's flock. The ones that did not die from the Coryza, the neighbor culled. It takes awhile after the last one is gone, and with decontamination, for it to be safe to put new chickens on the property.

Needless to say, when we came home, we disrobed in the garage, and I put our clothes straight into the laundry. I then decontaminated the entire vehicle including the tires, and our shoes while hubby showered and washed his hair, then I too went to shower and shampoo my hair. No way was I going to risk exposing my chickens.

There are even a very few illnesses, that the county/state will come cull all of your flock, if your birds are exposed, or catch one of them. Newcastle disease comes to mind. It was devastating in California for a long time, with mandatory euthanasia for most chickens in the state, in their efforts to get rid of it there, and prevent the spread to other states. It all started with 2 roosters.

Please, don't misunderstand, thinking that all illnesses need to end in the culling of your chicken, or flock. That is NOT what's being said. Chickens will sometimes sneeze due to dust. It's not an illness, nor is it a reason to cull. There are respiratory issues that can be treated, won't make the chicken a carrier, and won't affect the rest of the flock, BUT it's best to be certain.

 

[getaclue]

Here is a link to show how to properly hold a chicken. Watch it, and in the beginning, you may want to practice daily for a few days. This trains both you, and your chickens. After that, you should be holding, and checking your chickens over at least once a week.

Hold them like this to carry them to where you can sit, and set them in your lap to trim spurs, and toenails, do any doctoring, etc. OR one person can hold them, while the other does the spurs, etc.

Don't forget to talk to them, or gently pet them to calm them down, if/when needed.