Raising chickens in large quantities

[khaldrogo]

Hello everyone,

I am a new member, at present, my family has handed over a chicken coop with the size of 200 chickens, but I have no experience in raising chickens. I want to ask in such a large quantity, is it difficult to raise and manage? Do I need a lot of manpower? I am very worried.

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[DobieLover]

Hello everyone,

I am a new member, at present, my family has handed over a chicken coop with the size of 200 chickens, but I have no experience in raising chickens. I want to ask in such a large quantity, is it difficult to raise and manage? Do I need a lot of manpower? I am very worried.

Thanks in advance!!!

Welcome to BYC!
That is A LOT of chickens.
I recently downsized (some of them very much unintended) from 30 to 25 to help me manage them better.
In order to really take good care of them, it is important to do regular examinations of each bird to catch issues while they are still treatable or if it's an issue that is not treatable but the hen is still doing okay, to monitor for quality of life. Or cull if you don't intend to keep birds that don't produce for you.
It's a lot of work. It's normally fulfilling work and part of the enjoyment of caring for a flock but 200 birds gives me heart palpitations thinking about it. Sometimes life throws so many curve balls at you that you can barely keep up with them let alone do the regular checks required for your birds. Lower numbers makes it much more stress free and manageable.
You are right to be worried.
Have you considered just selling off groups of birds and keeping a manageable sized flock for yourself?

 

[Egg Snatcher]

Wow! As long as your ready to take care of them and have the right set up you'll do fine. Do you have any plans with then chickens? What's the hen to rooster?

 

[NatJ]

I am a new member, at present, my family has handed over a chicken coop with the size of 200 chickens, but I have no experience in raising chickens. I want to ask in such a large quantity, is it difficult to raise and manage? Do I need a lot of manpower? I am very worried.

You'll be carrying a lot of food and water to them-- something like 50 pounds of food and 25 gallons of water every single day. (Might be more, might be a bit less, depending on the kind of chickens and their ages and the weather. But it is going to be a large amount in any case.)

Cleaning is also a big job when you have that many.

With that many, it will be harder to see if any particular chicken has any problems, so you might have some die from problems you could have fixed if you noticed them in time.

If you are able, I suggest you get advice from the family member who handed over the chicken coop. For a coop that big, and that many chickens, there will be quite a few things that work really well if you use them right, but cause trouble if you do it wrong. For example, some feeders will clog up with one kind of feed but work perfectly with another kind. Some waterers leak and then run empty unless you do some simple thing (that isn't obvious until someone shows you.) Doors, lights, windows, fans, roosts, nests, bedding & manure management--I don't know what exact features that coop has, so I can't really tell you what to watch out for. I just know there are usually things that have to be done a certain way to work right.

Since you have no experience raising chickens, it might be easier to start with a smaller number of chickens first, rather than jumping right to 200. Maybe you could raise 25 or 50 chickens in that big chicken coop this year, and a larger amount next year after you see how it goes.

 

[MissE]

A lot of your work load will depend on what the birds are for. Are they all layers? Is this a breeding operation? Are they raised primarily for meat?

Layers would be easiest. Collect the eggs, feed and water, and check for illness every day. Make a plan for the birds that are no longer productive.

Breeding is a little more difficult. You need to decide which ones should be bred, have a hatching and brooding setup, in addition to the chores with layers.

Meat birds are a shorter commitment, but there will be some really busy processing days.

 

[Erba]

I would get the family to show you the ropes, they obviously set it up and want you to take over. They probably have suppliers for birds and feed, and probably a vet too. I would get all that from them, and maybe even take some workers over, they will also know the ropes. Your job is to manage all that and keep things running as the owner.