Topic of the Week - Keeping the flock safe from mishaps, injuries, etc.

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

Any thing leaning that they can knock down on top of themselves.

Double layers of fencing: placing a smaller mesh over a larger mesh to keep chicks on one side or an other of a fence. I have deer netting over cattle panel around my garden. It works great for keeping birds out. But on the occasion when a bird will sneak in through the gate, panic ensues when they try to escape through the CP, and get snagged up in the deer netting.

When I have chicks, I switch all waterers over to moat style waterers. After the chicks are 10 weeks or so old, I can go back to basins or shallow buckets. Always check bail positions, or remove them altogether. When feeding FF to a flock with young birds, I simply put the feed onto the ground or a piece of cardboard/plywood until the chicks are old enough that feed in a basin will not be a danger.

MHP brooding: Extra caution required to be sure chicks can't get tangled in the method you use to fabricate the MHP cave. I make a pillow case to enclose both the HP and wire frame, sealing it completely on the bottom, and taping it with electrical tape to ensure that the chicks don't get caught in a "fold". Even so, once I had a chick get caught in the tape. All ended well.

Any kind of heat lamp brooding, or use of a heat lamp in the coop. Brooding chicks in a Rubbermaid tote with a heat lamp is a recipe for disaster. So very easy for those totes to turn into an Easy-Bake. Almost lost my first batch of chicks. Temp fine for several days, followed by an unexplained heat spike.

Birds accidentally getting shut on the wrong side of a door. Aside from possibility of predator loss, birds can easily die if separated from water source, or shut into a "too hot" space in the summer.

Year round, I'm always picking up little tid bits from the ground and tucking them into my pocket. I bring compost/mulch home from a composting site at my town transfer station, so there might be little bits of this or that that get missed when I distribute it. The dog adds to the pocket bounty by her constant search and destroy missions. If it's plastic, and she can get it, she will shred it.

I too am always picking little bits up and sticking them in my pockets always sure I'm going to forget and later find all this in my washer, lol.

 

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

Oh yeah....close/lock the pop door and latch the run gate every night.
I forgot both last night, but all is well.
My setup is pretty secure and I don't have many pred probs<knockwood>,
but it always (not that often) makes my heart bump hard when I realize I forgot.

Same!

 

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

This summer, all the chickens wanted to roost on the edge on the inner coop. This ledge is about 8 feet off the ground. My largest chicken at the time either fell or got pushed off during the night. From where she fell she also likely hit the ramp to the coop on the way down. It was a hard enough fall she died quickly. A vet confirmed it was impact that killed her. So now during the summer I keep the open top of the inner coop covered with fencing do they can't get up there.

I recently just changed my roosts around because i had 2 limping chickens in 1 week. I realized the 2 roosting bars in the henhouse were set too close together and at night when they jump back and forth on the roosting bars, or when jumping down they were hitting the other roost. I have since changed the roost design around. The limping chickens are doing better with one chicken still hopping when she runs, but thats ok. We crated for 5 days and other than then hopping while running, shes a happy hen whose flock mates respect her. Chickens need plenty of room to jump down from roosts. I have been told, they need the same clearance jumping down in ft as the height to jump up.