What do you wish you had known before you got your chickens

[Missyktsm]

I wish I had known more about the predators in my area and how much squirrels, chipmunks, rats, and other small animals like chicken feed.

I have a covered run because of hawks. We covered it with some extra hog wire we had and figured that would work well enough...it works fine for the hawks but not for small animals. Inside the run, I have an automatic feeder and waterer. I had to make a cover for the feeder and cover it every night or everything in the feeder would be gone in the morning.

My biggest scare happened a couple of days ago. When letting my birds out for the day I heard a noise and looked around. Less than 4 feet from me was a rattlesnake looking for a chicken dinner and trying to get into my run. Unfortunately, he crawled through the rocks surrounding and protecting my coop and hid UNDER the coop before I could kill him. I waited around for hours and never saw him again. The only way for a snake to get to my flock would have been through the top of the run since the bottom of the coop inside the run is completely boarded up. Sooo...we spent most of yesterday installing small holed wire over the top of the run. It will keep out any snake big enough to eat my birds AND keep other critters from gorging themselves on chicken feed. It sure would have been nice to have known about these things to begin with...would have saved time and money.

 

[zengrrl]

Its been quite an event having chickens. Successfully raised a flock, lost one to "failure to thrive" and one to crooked beak. Then got 2 new birds, separated for 30 days but still infected my entire flock with some illness. In the midst of treating all of them twice a day something (weasel maybe) got in and killed them all. Chickens are NOT as easy as everyone has told me. Now a reinforced coop and 10 new birds doing well.

 

[dwgov]

I'm sorry for your loss and I wish you the best with your new flock! I'm kinda new to this too. I've tried to put in place all the critter protection I think I need to worry about. KNOCK WOOD. My biggest foe are hawks. I covered my run with plastic netting and haven't had any issues. I do let them run around in the yard every morning and try to keep an eye on things. Just started getting my 1st eggs (very exciting). Again, the best of luck.

 

[Collete]

I wish i knew how cute they were-- i would have gotten 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of them!!!

 

[SwedishDude99]

I don't know how much land you have, but if your raising them in a small backyard with neighbors super close to you, be ready for the noise! Yes, even my hens are extremely loud. Not rooster loud normally, but I have a welsummer hen who's voice is louder than any rooster I've ever heard. Not all are like this, but be prepared in case you get one and get complaints form neighbors (they might not be too pleased with the noise) ;

 

[PrimroseMom1]

Hey Does this mean that I can name my silkie hen George?

I had a baby rabbit that I wished so hard to be a girl I named her Ginger. I hand raised her and when I would feed her I would say, " you're a girl, Ginger." Well, her name is now GinGin and it's a boy. Lol

 

[mlowen]

I had a baby rabbit that I wished so hard to be a girl I named her Ginger. I hand raised her and when I would feed her I would say, " you're a girl, Ginger." Well, her name is now GinGin and it's a boy. Lol

Ginger can be a boy's name. If you're old enough, you'll remember Ginger Baker--played drums for Cream.

 

[outdoorschick91]

I wish I had known how to better predator-proof my coop before I put my chickies in to live. I unfortunately lost 2 wonderful little chicks due to an overnight fox invader, but unfortunately I think alot of raising chickens is a live-and-learn type of thing. I now have revamped the entire chicken coop and run, having looked at every possible predator-proofing forum I could read and taking multiple trips to home depot, and have not had a single problem since.

Another thing I wish I had known is how each chicken's personality can vary so much, I had no idea. My buff orpington "Blondie" is the chick in boss who doesn't take any lip from the others and never bites. My other buff "Sweet Pea" is extremely quick but if you can catch her she loves being held. She also likes to bite at any foreign object that enters her coop. "Red" is my red sex-link who liked to bully the others until "Blondie" put her in her place today, "Red" also loves to follow me everywhere and loves people. And my little SLW who has yet to be named is a little hot head to likes to get herself into mischief. I have found the chickens so entertaining to watch and have learned so much since I have gotten them all. Not to mention this website being the biggest help ever!!!

 

[Chickens R Us]

Your online name should be Roosters R Us!

Glad you ended up with some pullets.

 

[LBejaran]

Just thought of another thing.

I wish I had known more about training our dogs to be chicken-friendly. Oddly enough, our oldest dog, Sandy- who had killer parents that killed cats and goats- is the best guard dog ever and happily plays with our ducks.

Our rat dogs took a note from Sandy and now they hunt rats, rabbits, snakes, possums, and other critters away from the coop, keeping it protected at night. They even find eggs for us.

We had a puppy awhile back, a beautiful purebred fawn doberman, and he killed all our Pekins and a few of our chicks.

Before that, my Mom adopted a blue tick coon hound. He consumed several of our hens and a rooster.

I'm much more selective with our pets now. I am getting my kitten used to the chickens. Any dogs we get from this point will be a puppy. We'll be putting the fear of God in them early on, making sure they know that the birds are off limits.