Your management routine? Please share what you do and how often!

[bobbi-j]

You have to do what you feel is right for your flock. All the best to you!

 

[ChickenLegs13]

I raise my own birds, both quail & chickens and have no money invested in them so I'm more lax than most people on this board. I use no additives, supplements or medicines in their feed & water. Until the Affordable Health Care Act covers chickens, they get no healthcare other than an occasional worming or some Neosporin smeared on a bad injury.

I use large feeders & waterers that go several days between refills.

I'm in close daily contact with my birds since they're in my backyard. Any abnormal behavior is quickly noticed by me and I isolate the questionable bird until I decide what action to take. If a weak or sick bird dies off or gets the axe and I hatch 5 more to replace it.

Several times during the week I inspect the chickens at night on the roost with a flashlight. It takes about 5 minutes, just the general basic stuff like feeling their crops, keel bones, fat pads and looking on the ground under the roost to check their poop. 5 minutes of hands on goes a long way in identifing & preventing problems you wouldn't notice until it's too late.
At that time I also notice things like heavy poop buildup on their vent feathers which I cut off to prevent poop smeared eggs & maggot infestation around their vents. I also notice things like 1 hen by herself on a roosting bar while 25 hens are packed like sardines on the other roosting bars indicating that hen is a roost bully and has been attacking the other hens so she is removed from the flock. Or a top roost hen using a lower roost usually means she's sick or injured and some kind of action is needed.

My biggest management effort is processing eggs. I spend several hours each Saturday sorting & packaging eggs to go into my incubators, to my customers, and for my own personal use.

Chickens are the cheapest & lowest maintaince farm animal I ever raised. I spend more time reading about other people's chickens here on BackYard Chickens than I do raising my own chickens in real life!

 

[aart]

Thanks so much for the replies, noted (and very very much appreciated)! I still feel that since we have so many, I am going to need to introduce some kind of a stricter routine for myself in how I check them and what I do for them. Unfortunately our animals have to live a mile away from us (the beauty of living in an overcrowded country where you can't just buy a farmhouse with land, it would be cheaper to buy that kind of property in Hollywood I imagine - it is you in the house and animals by themselves in another place ), so I don't get to just look out the window and observe them, I have to make time for it, drive there and do things. Not complaining, just thinking how to do things better with our feathered family members.

That makes it harder to keep a good eye on things I'm sure.

 

[ChickenLegs13]

Biggest thing DuDu needs to worry about is having a Ft Knox pen to keep the varmints out in his absence.

 

[Dudu]

Again thanks so very much for the input. I've added some of the things to my check list - thank you!

Thankfully our place is situated so that it is protected by very tall walls from practically all sides, and in this country there aren't many wild predators - there is a sort of a weasel who has indeed caused harm once, and rats which were very fierce around Christmas time, but I think we have won the war (lots of poison and cementing everywhere). Roaming dogs have caused other people lots of trouble, that is for sure.

 

[earlybird10842]

Wow, @Dudu , I can really relate, as I had a recent death from sour crop from moldy food I didn't notice.
Me, I just check over each of the chickens once every two weeks or so--feel crops, check combs, make sure there's no lice, mites, swellings, ect. anywhere.
And I keep an eye on their activity. All the chicken sicknesses I've seen started with jumping up on the roost an hour early, getting down later in the morning, not rushing right to the food, and acting just a bit off.

 

[Mrs. K]

And I keep an eye on their activity. All the chicken sicknesses I've seen started with jumping up on the roost an hour early, getting down later in the morning, not rushing right to the food, and acting just a bit off.

Excellent point! If they are acting healthy, they generally are, and if they are lethargic, then they are sick