Hi,
My wife and I started raising backyard chickens over a year ago and have experienced an extremely high percent of deaths among our flock. Out of about 50 chicks/chickens I'm left with 14. I did not get them all at the same time, age, or place. And we haven't had a chicken live longer than 8 months. It's definitely not for a lack of trying or negligence. I've purchased many books, been very active on this site, talked with other chicken owners in my area, talked to the feed store owners, and watched many videos. My whole flock now is older than 5 months, but none are older than 8 months. We feed them a mix of layer crumble with scratch and daily give them fruit and vegetable scraps from in the house. I keep the coop decently clean. I could clean it everyday, but I currently only clean once every 3 days. This has been very hard on my wife and I as we view our chickens as pets and they all have names. Our flock does free range in our backyard throughout the day. My backyard features two Sissou trees, a Moringa tree, and a lemon tree. Our flock is filled with rare breed chickens from Greenfire Farms, breeders, and hatcheries. We just can't keep losing chickens because though we love them very much we are starting to consider getting rid of them to due them a favor. We are very active in our chickens lives. We hang out with them daily and talk, walk, and hold them. We just can't figure out what is causing the deaths. Most were Mareks vaccinated. Oh, I live in Phoenix, AZ. Please help!!!!
My wife and I started raising backyard chickens over a year ago and have experienced an extremely high percent of deaths among our flock. Out of about 50 chicks/chickens I'm left with 14. I did not get them all at the same time, age, or place. And we haven't had a chicken live longer than 8 months. It's definitely not for a lack of trying or negligence. I've purchased many books, been very active on this site, talked with other chicken owners in my area, talked to the feed store owners, and watched many videos. My whole flock now is older than 5 months, but none are older than 8 months. We feed them a mix of layer crumble with scratch and daily give them fruit and vegetable scraps from in the house. I keep the coop decently clean. I could clean it everyday, but I currently only clean once every 3 days. This has been very hard on my wife and I as we view our chickens as pets and they all have names. Our flock does free range in our backyard throughout the day. My backyard features two Sissou trees, a Moringa tree, and a lemon tree. Our flock is filled with rare breed chickens from Greenfire Farms, breeders, and hatcheries. We just can't keep losing chickens because though we love them very much we are starting to consider getting rid of them to due them a favor. We are very active in our chickens lives. We hang out with them daily and talk, walk, and hold them. We just can't figure out what is causing the deaths. Most were Mareks vaccinated. Oh, I live in Phoenix, AZ. Please help!!!!