Category: Chickens

Chickens, Part Two

When you buy your chicks, you will have a choice. You can buy all females, all males, or straight run, which is a mix. Straight run should be an actual mix with some of each, but last year, I bought eighteen straight run chicks and ended up with eighteen males. Yes. So bummed. All but one of them ended up in the freezer because I didn’t want or need that many roosters.

Technically, these aren’t all chicks. The one on the right with its eye open is a poult, a baby turkey. You can tell by the little bump on its nose. I know I used this photo in the last post, but these little guys are so cute I thought I’d use it again.

As your chicks grow, they will be called by new names. The female chicks will become pullets, and the male chicks will become cockerels. Once they are adults, they are then hens and roosters. The pullets will begin laying at around five or six months. This is also the time that you will want to slaughter any roosters (or hens) you don’t want to keep. Once the birds get much older than that, the meat will be tough to eat.

Here’s the thing. Not to be unkind to the males, but once that testosterone kicks in, they spend much of their time fighting each other, and sometimes they will try to mount the hens at the same time, causing the hens some level of distress. You will want one rooster for every five to ten hens for fertilized eggs. More than that is too much.

Basic Care

Your birds need clean water, proper food, and safe shelter. If you don’t have a water source near the coop, or henhouse as I call it, you will need to carry water from the house. If you live in an area with cold winters, you will need an electric heater or, if that is not possible, two waterers so one can be thawing in your house while the birds are using the other.

There are many kinds of commercial feed. Ask at the feed store if you are unsure about which to purchase. I also give my birds cracked corn as a snack. I toss out half a scoop or so into their yard so they can scratch around for it. BE PREPARED FOR RATS. Yes. If you have chickens, you run the risk of attracting rats. They will come after the feed, but they will also carry off small chicks. That has happened to me twice.

The best rat traps that I have ever found are called Snap E Rat Traps. The first time I used them, I set out six traps and caught three rats the first night. After that, I caught one or two a night for two weeks. No joke. By the end of two weeks, I had caught twenty-six rats. One night, there were two rats in one trap! One thing that will help is if your henhouse is not directly on the ground so that the rats can’t dig tunnels underneath. My current henhouse is a small barn and is up on 4×4 lumber on top of gravel.

The henhouse must be predator proof. Raccoons, weasels, bears, stray dogs, and more will all happily break in for a tasty midnight snack if they can. Make sure the structure is sturdy enough to withstand a concerted attack.

These are muddy bear footprints on the door to the barn. The bear had gotten in a few nights earlier by knocking the door handle to the open position, so now I lock the door every night as I shut the birds in. Luckily, the barn is quite sturdy, and the bear hasn’t been able to gain access again.

What to expect

Depending on the breed, your hens will lay around five eggs a week while they are young. I lean toward large breeds that are cold hardy. The reason for a large breed is so that once the hens are done laying (after three to four years), they are large enough to bother slaughtering them for the stew pot. Many farmers cull the entire flock after eighteen months and start over. I keep the girls longer than that because, while they won’t lay as many eggs per week, the eggs will get larger as the hens get older. This is also when you might start to get double yolkers, eggs with two yolks.

I raise brown egg layers. Notice, though, the many variations of brown, from quite pale to a very dark brown. A hen will lay the same color all her life. The color of her eggs will never change.

Breed Choices

I have successfully raised Barred Rocks, Delawares, Sussexes, Rhode Island Reds, Australorps, Silver-laced Wyandottes, and, one of my favorites, Salmon Faverolles, a heritage breed from France. Faverolle hens have beards, muffs, feathers on their legs and feet, and five toes instead of the usual four. Very much fun. I make sure to choose docile breeds so that, in the event the birds need to stay inside because of bad weather, they won’t hurt each other.

The white hens are Delawares. The gray and white striped ones are Barred Rocks. The one on the right with the white feathers edged with black is a Silver-laced Wyandotte. The little brown hen is a Salmon Faverolle. The big black rooster is an Australorp.

There is more to tell about chickens, but my next post is too critical to wait. I’ll get back to chickens later.

Chickens, Part One

So you’ve always wanted to raise chickens. Check your municipality’s regulations, and go for it! Now for the down and dirty.

Obtaining the chicks

There are several ways to obtain chicks. You can order them through a hatchery such as www.mypetchicken.com, which I have used successfully a number of times. The chicks come in the mail, and the post office calls to let you know to come pick up your birds. Yes! Funny story: many years ago, when I received the call to pick up the birds, the call came while I was at work. I could hear the chicks peeping away in the background. I explained I couldn’t come right then, and the postal worker said, loudly, “Would you PLEASE come pick up your birds!” You can also buy chicks at local feed stores, and you can hatch your own with an incubator. The best way to obtain chicks, of course, is to have a rooster and several hens producing fertile eggs, and a Mama hen raises the chicks herself, but that can only happen once you’ve gotten started.

Caring for the newborns

Be prepared, though, to be caring for tiny, newborn babies. Tiny. Loud. Messy. You will want to have the chicks in a location that can stand to get dusty, like an unfinished basement. Here’s what I do.

First, I get a large container to put them in, such as a big cardboard box with a sheet of plastic under it or a large plastic tote. They grow quickly, so plan ahead for the room you’re going to need. The bottom of the container is covered with three or so inches of litter; I purchase a bale of pine shavings from a feed store. In the corner, I hang a heat lamp and adjust it as needed. If it gets too warm for the chicks because the lamp is too close, they will crowd to the corners, too cold because the lamp is not close enough, and they will be bunched together right under the lamp.

Then I place sheets of newspaper on top of the shavings and sprinkle chick feed over the newspaper. I don’t want the chicks eating the shavings. Once they know what their feed is, I will put in a chick-size feeder and take out the newspaper. I purchase non-medicated chick feed and have never had a problem, and I include a small amount of chick grit. The grit is for them to break down their food. Chickens are one of many birds that “eat” tiny pebbles that go to their crop, which is part of the their digestive system. The crop, or gizzard, is a muscular organ that uses the grit or pebbles to grind the food, like our teeth do for us.

As soon as they are in their little home, I put water in a chick-size waterer and take each chick in turn and gently dip its beak in the water so it gets the idea. The waterer goes in a corner, but be prepared. The chicks will make a mess, and the litter under the waterer WILL get wet and need to be changed regularly. If the chicks seem to be doing poorly, I will mix a little sugar into the water to give them a little boost to get them started.

Timing for the next step

The chicks will get their feathers in a very specific pattern, starting with the primary flight feathers. Once they are almost fully feathered, they can go into the barn or chicken coop, although you will need to monitor the night time temps since you don’t want them to get a chill. I keep the heat lamp on in the barn until the night time temps are over 60 degrees or so.

Once the babies aren’t babies anymore, they will need different care. More on that next time.

These are chicks I purchased in the spring of 2020. The one with the bump on its nose is actually not a chick but a turkey poult. You can see the shavings beneath them and the cardboard box that is the housing.