Thank you! Any tips for a fellow first-timer?
It's a fun learning experience. My 19 month old loves his chickens. Never thought I'd see somebody hug and kiss a chicken, but he does all the time.
Tips from my experience so far (4 months in):
- First, you are in the right place. The people on BYC are full of knowledge and experience, and willing to share information. I've learned a lot on here.
- Don't keep them in your garage. We did this at first because we had chicks. They got big fast, and at 8 weeks old they were stinking up my garage. I had to air out the garage after moving them into the yard.
- Keep them out of your garden. They'll eat everything.
- Get them used to being held and picked up. We pick up our hens all the time. At least once a day typically - they are still learning when it's time to go into the coop in the evening and we often have to carry them. This will make clipping wings and regular care/observation much easier.
- Vary your chickens' diet. We provide a quality chick pellet, plenty of greens (the weeds and such that I mentioned recently in my post earlier today), and a handful or two of quality bird seed or meal worms. kitchen scraps can help add variety too, but be careful what you giver them. we offer vegetable scraps and stale bread among other things to our chickens from time to time as treats.
- Chickens will eat everything down to the dirt and then dust bathe and through dirt everywhere... I broke a few hay bales open and spread it all over the run. I happened to have them from decorating the front lawn in the fall. It helps to keep the ground from turning to mud, and the chickens enjoy scratching through it for seeds and pellets that we'll toss in a cascade into the run for them.
- Chicken poop will be runny every now and then. it's a normal thing. I freaked out about this.
- Be sure to offer a form of calcium. We use crushed oyster shell - super cheap and doubles and grit.
- Chickens need grit once they are eating things other then just chick pellets. they use the grit to grind their food. crushed granite and crushed oyster shell are what we use. Just a handful tossed into the run once in a while. A large bag (the size of a 50lb bag of concrete) is cheap and lasts forever. I think we paid $10-$15 for a bag of each granite and oyster shell.
- The coop needs air flow! I made a whole wall out of construction mesh on the north end of my coop and will be able to cover it in the winter if needed. We still have vented roof eves and a small section of the floor is open and covered with construction mesh to (cool air in at the bottom and hot air out at the top).
- BUILD YOUR COOP. Don't bother with a prefabricated store bought coop.
- Coops do not need to be huge, but need to have room for a roost, feeder, waterer, nesting boxes, and for the chickens to move around. I have 5 chickens and my coop measures 4' wide x 8' long x 4' tall and my nesting boxes stick out on one side. I could possibly go up to 6 or even 8 chickens with this coop. Insider tip: If you start with 3 you will end up with 5 or 6 in the future.
-Make the coop easy to clean. The middle 4' of the roof opens like a flap so we can get in to clean ours (it's only 4' tall so opening the roof allows us to actually stand on the coop floor and reach every section of the coop.
- Nesting boxes... you need them. they can be milk crates, wooden boxes, store bought nesting boxes, litter boxes, I don't care. A chicken needs to be able to fit in them though to lay eggs and you need to be able to clean them. I build roll-away nesting boxes that stick out through a side wall of the coop. I added hinged covers as well so I can collect eggs and clean the nesting boxes from outside the coop.
- Make sure your chickens have protection from the sun, rain/snow, and wind. Our coop is sheltered by an apple tree on the front side, our greenhouse on the back side, a huge maple shades that whole side of my yard from the southern sun in the summer, and there's a fence on the north side of the coop. We also raised our coop enough to allow the hens to go underneath it and enjoy the cool dirt on hot days.
