What was your worst mistake as a chicken keeper?

[lauraschicks]

I know I have already stated my second biggest mistake (second only on the timeline not the severity of it). I want to correct myself. It is the third biggest mistake I've made. The first I believe that many or most of us have made, which is to fail in obtaining a university degree in chicken mathematics prior to getting your chickens . BUT...

My second second biggest or first second biggest, or..,mistake was in not understanding physics at the university level as well.

When I got my first set of chicks I bought 6 silkies from a local backyard flock. They were totally awesome so I went to TSC and bought 4 little pullets ( 2 layers and 2 bantams) to join them. Kept them inside under all of the rules that I was learning, proper heat etc, and they flourished. Could handle all of them . Friendly. All good things going well. Bought a 10x10 dog kennel and covered with HW cloth. Put a tarp over it for a roof. Built a raised 3 sided roost area, and put two dog kennels beneath it for their nesting area. They had a sweet little open air pen coop and got to free range and eat all the bugs they could find. Til a big storm came through...

...have you ever seen a wire caged balloon fly? I have and it ain't pretty! That cage flew over an acre away and busted through the neighbor's fence. I just knew all my babies were dead.

We all ran outside to start hunting for the carcasses we knew we'd find, but all that was there was 2 dog kennels flopped over on their sides with pine chip guts spewed all over and barely visible a small top-knot of light brown feathers.. My heart sank and I prayed they had gone quickly and didn't suffer.

To my surprise I heard some scared little sounds and ran over and found one of the kennels with several of the young pullets cuddling together inside. My brother came over with my little Silkie roo and another pullet in his hands. They had run up and begged to be saved. We soon had all of them except the one laying in the second kennel with a roost bar on her neck. My pretty little Silkie girl. I girded my loins and went over to gather her up. Lifted the bar off her neck and about passed out when she jumped up and ran out of the kennel with not a scratch on her.

The morals of my long story:
1) Hot air balloons and tarp covered dog kennels will fly away if you don't anchor them down.
2) The deep bedding method has a great way of cushioning some of life's blows.
3) It doesn't take much to save a life by just lifting their load for a moment in time.

 

[Artichoke Lover]

Only giving them the minimum run space and then keeping to many roosters. We had a lot of lost feathers and generally unhappy chickens because of this.

I fixed it by adding more hens and enlarging the run.
I also used the old run as a tractor to separate the extra roosters into because I can’t bring myself to cull any of the 3 adult roosters from my first batch of chicks.

 

[lauraschicks]

Getting the damn things in the first place now it made me buy ducks!, i guess next is frikin turkeys

And guineas, and geese, and pigeons, and quail...

 

[divinetm]

The worse mistake I made was getting a small prefab chicken coop for two chickens and then deciding to get Jersey Giants. The door to the hutch was so small they would have had to do the limbo to get in. I had to invest in a larger walk-in coop to accommodate their size. I now use the small one as a nursery for new pullets.

Also, years ago we used to buy pure nicotine in a bottle and paint it on the roosts. It was supposed to keep mites away. Pure toxins, oh my goodness. We thought we were helping our birds. Now I rub the perches with lemon essential oils.

 

[agold23]

1) No real need for more than 1 rooster unless it's for breeding & hatching.

While I am grateful for your story… it scares me I currently have 2 roosters in a flock of 6… 3 of the hens are mature and one is an 8 week old chick. Alpha rooster is a 1 year old golden partridge silkie named Rex who does a wonderful job taking care of everyone. Beta rooster is a 6ish month old rhode island red named Plum. Plum has been slow to mature, hes displaying absolutely no rooster like behaviours as of yet, even though his sister Nugget started laying about a week ago.

Rex and Plum get along fine as of now but that’s all because Rex doesn’t view Plum as a rooster. Rex tidbits and protects everyone, I’ve even seen him do his little mating spur dance to Plum a few times. The real kicker is that my flock has a respiratory infection (we don’t know what kind) so it makes it nearly impossible to rehome them at all, much less one rooster. I have seen flocks where two roosters get along but Ive seen even more where they haven’t. Given my flock size and circumstances it’s likely they will run into issues and we may have to cull one of the roosters (these birds are like my babies and it really hurts me to say that)

On the flip side, these were just a summer project for us and we are definitely not keeping them for the Canadian winters we endure, we were originally going to give them back to the lady we got them from but obviously we can’t do that now. Hopefully we find someone who can take out infected flock, with two roosters, so by winter it’s not my problem what they do with them

Thank you for sharing your story and showing that it absolutely can go 100% wrong with roosters! Definitely brings me back down to earth from my happy little coop fantasy.

 

[EleanorMAC]

1. Last year (Spring 2020) was the start of my chicken-keeping career. And I have learned so much about so many things since then! Wow! But for this post, I was another person who ended up with too many roosters. I was supposed to have 3 straight run and 7 guaranteed pullets. Thought I was taking a chance of 2 boys and 8 girls, but ended up with 5 boys and 5 girls.

2. This resulted in much too much cockerel attention for my girls! And a fair amount of conflict among the cockerels.

3. I didn't want a flock of 50 or so, and I was already as attached to the cockerels as the pullets. I'd hand raised them from chicks! So I started by getting 6 more girls - pullets about the same age as the ones I had. Then I purchased chicken "bibs" or "saddles" for my girls. Helped some for a while. But ultimately the whole process was too hard on my girls, especially the "popular" girl.

So I researched getting the boys neutered. Not an option, but a couple of avian vets were willing to give them a hormonal chip, to tone them down. Worked on all but one, who was by far the most aggressive toward the other members of the flock, male or female. Rehoming just wasn't an option, because he was a barnyard mix who was hard on the flock and didn't like people. So I looked into dealing with it myself, to hopefully spare him extra handling, transport, etc. I found a very helpful video on YouTube (Alexia Allen Respectful Chicken Harvest), which made a big difference for him and for me.

Then I set the other boys up in a bachelor pad (two buddy pairs with one large area and two separate smaller coops/runs within it), just on the other side of the fence from the girls. That was about 8 months ago. The girls are growing back their feathers. They enjoy each others' company and socialize with the boys through the fence. The roosters (now about 17 months old) get along with each other and don't fight. And I haven't had to continue to get them chipped - I think that helped them get through the teenage stage. They're just a bunch of entertaining characters now. And I have a peaceful flock!

I use Eglu coops, which come in different sizes and are easily cleaned and virtually predator-proof. Cost more than some coops, but made it very easy to divide up my flock. And that, along with poultry netting, has kept me from losing any chickens to predators, although their yards butt directly up against a forested area where there is quite a bit of wildlife.

4. What did I learn? Now, if I want to add to my flock, I get 4-5 month old pullets. Easily integrated into the hen flock. And I'm keeping my happy rooster flock stable. No more roosters and no more chicks.

 

[neusje]

I tried to introduce one newcomer..big! Mistake
They persecuted her no end.
I had to put her in a seperate section so they could see her but not eat her
Always introduce more than one newcomer, preferably two or three to the flock and with plenty of running away space.
Also have multiple feeding and water containers away from each other .

 

[Killyhawker]

Here we go…Long post, but might help(you will understand the pun in s second…)

1. What did you do?
   Misdiagnosed having mites in the flock as being aggressive mating from roosters and summer molting.
   
   
2. What were the consequences?
   Found a broody hen on the floor of the pen, unable to stand, not tending to the two chicks she’d hatched a week before and was fine the night before. Brought her to my house to check for injuries, thought there was food or fluff on her eye, when I touched it, it moved. Ended up checking her and found mites all over. Checked the flock—all had them—top rooster was the worst, with eggs on all neck/nape feathers.
3. Did you fix it? How?
   Working on it…Gave the broody hen two dish soap baths that day and one the next day, continue daily sprays of bird mite spray to kill eggs. Took her to vet—said mites were gone, but gave spray to treat eggs and any that may hatch. Not injured and not dehydrated. Malnourished and suggested separation for recovery(in my house in a low comfy padded box, personally feed every hour, rest, exercising legs for strength, short sunshine time—so she doesn’t overheat.)
   Cleaned out the coop and run from ALL bedding(burned), washed everything down, moved flock to cleaned and treated section of barn. Cleaned and treated with DE after DIY mixture of water/vege oil/dish soap sprayed everywhere on everything. Nest boxes removed, cleaned and treated. Treated the whole flock with spray and dusting.
4. What did you learn? Oooof…I learned everything—didn’t know what bugs to look for while cleaning and wasn’t cleaning well enough…don’t presume all roosters mating are the cause of feather loss…remove bedding instead of litter method (going to have to figure out something different for upcoming subzero winter )…add supplements to food and water…don’t presume broody hens are ok(get them out of the box and check them over)…check coop and yard for bugs, treat for bugs in free range area. LOOK AT PICTURES OF ILLNESSES AND SYMPTOMS. Had I not looked (on this forum) at what mites look like, and seen the pictures of mite egg infestation on feathers, I would have passed over my top rooster(who is an aggressively protective jerk doing his job). He was only one covered in eggs. He got a flea/tick/mite soap soak, sprayed and gets a nightly dusting.
   Ash is a good mama, she’s only 10 months old and went broody for a month. Hatched and raised 3 chicks in my backyard flock. I love my sweet girl (Yokohama red shoulder/Cochin frizzle mix)

 

[ecwdavis]

View attachment 2809406

We learn from our mistakes, right? Even pros and experts make mistakes.
I was wondering what your biggest mistakes were as chicken keepers.
Maybe newbies could find this thread and learn from it.

1. What did you do?
2. What were the consequences?
3. Did you fix it? How?
4. What did you learn?

Please remember, we all make mistakes. Please do not belittle or bully ANYONE for their mistakes.

I purchased 6 chicks - 2 Rohde Island Reds, 2 Australorps and 2 Black Sex Links.

I did not realize chicks could get viruses so easily and I did not have Corid water to hand, and, lost 3 chicks.

The chick my Australorp hatched 12 weeks ago - now is on medicated feed, and if anyone gets diarrhea Corid gets put in the water for 5 days.

So far, no more losses.

 

[BantammChick]

I'd say my biggest mistake I made my first year with chickens, back in like 2015 I got too many chickens for their coop- I had a smaller coop then, and 2 of my bantams got a little frostbite on their comb. They now have a bigger coop which they can all fit in.