How much time

[jeffsmith13]

How much time do you spend taking care of your flock a day , week ?

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Does the time that I spend sitting on a rotten tree stump and watching my birds count?

There is an old proverb that goes like this, "Nothing fattens the calf better than the eye of it's master." Live by it.

 

[aart]

How much time do you spend taking care of your flock a day , week ?

Depends...if everything's going hunky dory and no poop sifting...maybe 10-15 minutes a day to top off water and feed, gather eggs, close up coop.
Poop sifting every other day...add 10-15 minutes.
Freezing temps...add 5 minutes every few hours.
Annual clean out can take several hours.

 

[Mrs. K]

Generally I walk down and feed and water - I do this every morning. Gets me some exercise, some fresh air before I go to work, and it does not leave food for rodents, or at least not a lot of feed out during the night. So max 7 minutes, then I walk down before dark, gather eggs.

On a week-end, I go through the bedding taking it to my garden, and adding fresh to the coop-run. However, I don't do this every weekend. In fact, I will do it tomorrow, but don't think I have done it since November. We are having a warm spell, so it will feel good to be out, and about and get things freshened up.

I might be guilty of sitting on a stump and watching my girls too sometimes!

Mrs K

 

[donrae]

It depends on the weather and what day it is.

If it's raining, I'm out about 20 minutes, door to door. That's feeding the horses, topping off feeders/waterers on 5 coops and doing a quick visual check, and collecting eggs. I hate being out in the rain.

My feeders and waterers are all designed to hold enough for several days, so in theory I could skip days if I need to.

Nice days, on weekends when the boys are home, maybe an hour or so to keep bedding in shape, clean out/bleach waterers, things like that. Most of my bedding is simply adding more shavings or hay this time of year, I'm not cleaning much out until later in spring. I hose out nest boxes and replace with clean hay as needed. My feeders are covered with baffles and hung, so they never really need cleaning, just dumped out and refilled. I have a hose with a sprayer end at the coops, and most of my waterers are open containers that just get topped off, or dumped out and sprayed clean as needed. I do have one large 7 gallon waterer for the large coop that gets bleached every so often as it grows algae. I do go through every couple of weeks and scrape poop off the shelves where birds roost.

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

Normally about 10-15 minutes a day to feed and water 3 coops and my brooder. Now, if its a day for coop clean outs, it can take me a few hours. I do deep litter, so I usually clean out the coops once or twice a year.