Chickens are how it all begins.
Intrepid homesteader-wanna-be: “Six chickens. We can get six chickens. That will give us 4-5 eggs a day. That should be enough, right?”
4 Months Later:
Spouse of intrepid homesteader: “There are 47 chickens in our backyard. And a goat. Is that a cow? Wait. Just. A. Minute!!! Where did that barn come from?”
Intrepid homesteader: Shrugs shoulders and pulls on boots to do chores. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Chickens are a great way to get started on the animal husbandry side of homesteading. They are small, easy to handle, safe around kids, don’t require extensive fencing, and have minimal housing requirements. They provide a protein packed food source. They help your garden, eat kitchen waste, clean up the pasture after the cattle and sheep move through. They can even reproduce themselves.
I haven’t found a serious down side to keeping chickens in the 25+ years we have had them.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION:
You do NOT need to have a rooster with your laying hens.
This is important if you are worried about the crowing bothering neighbors or spouses who aren't on board with your chicken venture.
Roosters are helpful because their presence may bring a sense of calm to your flock and provide some protection from small predators. But, they are not necessary.
Let me start with the basics:
There are 4 classifications of chickens.
I gave you a few examples of breeds in each class.
· Layers – lay about 24 dozen eggs a year for ~2 years. Depending upon the breed, you should be getting eggs by 12 - 16 weeks of age
o Ancona
o Leghorn
o Minorca
· Meat – grow plump fast, not putting energy into egg laying. Butchered at 6 - 8 commercially, home raised meat chickens can grow more slowly and have fewer skeletal issues as they pack on the pounds.
o Australorp
o Cornish
o Orpington
· Dual-Purpose – (not a classification) will lay eggs, but not as well as ‘layers, and will gain weight, but not as fast as meat breeds.
o New Hampshire
o Plymouth Rock
o Rhode Island Red
· Exotic/Exhibition – bred for beauty. Inefficient at converting feed to eggs or meat.
o Cochin
o Sebright
There are also chickens which are kept for breeding purposes by folks interested in re-establishing older and endangered breeds. An example of these breeds is the beautiful Dominique chicken, an American classic.
Let's start with housing requirements. Where are you going to put the birds?
Layers and meat chickens have different requirements. You will only be providing housing for meat chickens for a few months. A small portable chicken pen which you can move once or twice a day works great for these birds. These lightweight pens can be simply constructed out of PVC or aluminum pipe and covered with a small gauge wire/fencing. You don't want the chicken to get through the holes.
These pens can be built by you or purchased. If you buy one, there are many options available, including automatic waterers, wheels with collapsable axels, feeding stations, and more.
3 portable chicken pens. All are lightweight and movable. They are excellent for raising meat chickens -which need only temporary housing. There are adaptations on the 2 larger pens with accessories for laying hens, including laying boxes accessible from outside the pen.
Each have doors to access the chickens without lifting the entire pen. The first and third also have waterers and feed stations you can fill from outside. The center one has a water pan and a feeder inside which is accessed from a top door. The birds in the center pen will be moved to a larger pen later this week. Notice how clean and white the breasts of the birds are.
The important thing is to provide your meat chickens with a clean, dry floor at all times. You want to keep the breast of the chicken well feathered and dry. They can get blisters which damages the muscle, making it unusable for consumption. Moving the pen around your yard or pasture gives the birds fresh grass and bugs to nibble and keeps them clean.
Because you are moving the birds regularly, you can get away with less space than a permanent house would require. There is some cover to protect against rain and the sun. We move ours around our orchard. They help with insects and fertilize the soil for us.
Layers require a more permanent housing arrangement. It certainly doesn't need to be fancy - portable housing works during good weather if you can gather eggs regularly.
Housing for layers is: approximately 1.5 square feet (18 sq. inches or 46 sq. cm) per bird:
6 birds = 9 sq. feet = 138 sq. cm = a 3x3 foot building plus enclosed run.
That's a nice sized dog house with a large dog pen attached.
12 birds = 18 sq. feet = 552 sq. cm = a 4x5 foot building
That's a small storage shed with an attached pen.
24 birds = 36 sq feet = 1102 sq. cm. = 6x6 foot building.
Attach a pen and you will have eggs to sell.
Here is a gallery of chicken houses we have seen around our area. Look at the variety of designs.
The top three houses are commercially available at our local farm store. They all cost about $300 and, honestly, I don't think they will make it through more than 1 year of use. They are small, probably would hold 6 - 10 chickens. There are doors to access the nests and feed, water, clean up after them.
They are cute and won't offend the neighbors. If you wanted to, you could be sneaky and have one behind a hedge row and no one would know you had birds.
The three bottom pens are home-built and will hold more birds. The gray/sloping house and the red barn are not movable - the chicken yard will get wet and nasty in winter/rain.
You will need to keep the inside nice and dry for the birds.
The triangular shaped house is movable - I notice its location moves regularly when I drive by.
(I have no idea why the gray house is up on blocks. If you look closely, there are steps going to the door.)
Equipment: Be ready before the birds arrive.
Peeps
Peeps are cheap, cute, noisy, sorta-smelly, messy.
You need to be ready to care for them before you bring them home. You will need to:
keep them warm, usually some sort of tub, kiddie pool, cardboard ring, or brooder box and a heat lamp secured in place. Heat lamps can cause fires - be careful.
feed them with small waterer, small feeder. Peeps can drown, so you want a little watering system which they can access but not dive into. They also can't reach into full size feeder, but they poop all over open feeders. There are starter feeders and water attachments you can buy that screw onto mason jars.
keep them dry. Newspaper, wood chips, finely chopped straw all work well. It will need changed regularly, so stock up on some gloves if poop bugs you.
keep them safe from predators. This may mean rats, weasels, large birds in the barn. It also means safe from Fluffy, the house cat. We have used a lightly weighted window screen with good results.
We have a brooder box which Bob built for our peeps. They are in the barn (no smells in the house), enclosed (safe from barn cats), out of drafts, easy to care for.
We read an article about a homesteader who designed the brooder box and asked her husband to build it for her. Bob contacted the couple and they sent him the information to build it.
We have had it many years. The front, shorter panel slides up and out to make it easy to clean with a scoop shovel. These peeps are older and as the weather warmed, the heat lamp was moved OUT of the box and the top cover removed. At first, the cut-out square is placed over the open wire-window and the lamp hung in the box. We make sure the peeps are not huddled away from the lamp (too hot) or directly under it (too cold). They should be scattered around the box, at the feeder or water, hanging with friends in small groups, not piled on top of one another.
There are many videos on Youtube about building your own brooder.
Check them out and find a design suiting your situation.
The article is Build a Brooder for Chicks, Keets, & Poults by Gail Damerow. Backyard Poultry Magazine, Dec 2010/Jan2011 www.backyardpoultrymag.com
You can purchase peeps from a hatchery (they are usually delivered by mail) or from a farm or feed store.This provides you with the greatest variety to choose from. Also, choose a hatchery from your general part of the country. We use a NE Ohio or a NW Pennsylvania hatchery. The peeps will be less stressed, the birds are from our climate, and there is quicker shipping.
NOTE: Even if you plan to buy peeps at the store, order at least one poultry catalog before you shop. These catalogs are full of information, different types of equipment, health and wellness formulations for feed, and so much more.
You can also get chicks at the local farm/feed store. Usually in the Spring and early Fall the stores will have CHICK DAYS!!!! You can select your peeps yourself. Be aware - peep change their feather colors as they grow. Those pretty yellow feathers may end up brown, red, or black. Check out the information hanging on the tubs of peeps for accurate pictures of the full grown birds.
The employees will help you gather all the equipment you will need to get started.
If you are buying peeps to grow chickens, and not just because they are cute, consider waiting a week or so after CHICK DAYS!!!! start and see if you can pick up a bargain. Peeps which are starting to grow and lose their cuteness are often sold for $1.00 or so each.
You can buy:
Straight Run birds - a mix of roosters and hens. A good plan if you are buying Dual-Purpose birds and will butcher the roosters and keep the hens for layers. There is no guarantee you won't get all roosters or 10 hens and 1 rooster. It's a gamble.
Pullets - young hens. These chicks have been 'sexed' which means someone at the hatchery determined what gender they are. They usually cost a bit more than straight run birds. but its a good idea if you want to get layers.
Cockerel - young male. If you want meat birds, this is the way to go.
Here is your chicken checklist:
Why do want chickens? Meat? Eggs? They are pretty?
How are you going to house them? As peeps? As full grown birds?
Have you ordered a poultry hatchery catalog?
Do you have your brooder ready to go before CHICK DAYS!!!!?
Grab a bag of feed, a feeder and waterer. You also need some bedding. We avoid cedar chips. I don't think the strong cedar scent is good for the birds. We use a neutral chip.
If you raise peeps, you may choose to medicate their water for a few days to give them a boost. There are many types available and usually include vitamins and electrolytes, though some have antibiotics. They have names like Hydro-Hen, Hen-Helper, Power Hen, Poultry Protector.
There are many types of chicken feed available. It can be confusing to choose which is best for what age bird. You can decide to use organic or Non-GMO feed, too.
Chick Starter - this is the bag you grab first. It's a good idea to use one 50# bag of medicated chick starter, then switch to unmedicated. This to protect the peeps against coccidiosis. This feed reminds me of Grape Nuts cereal. You want to phase out Chick Starter after 6 weeks - the high protein content isn't good for their livers.
Chick Grower - 18 - 21% protein, this feed is what you will use until the chickens are full grown.
Chick Finisher - some use this to finish their meat birds.
Layer Feed - designed specifically for egg-producing hens, this mix will give you healthy hens. It comes in crumbles and pellets.
Scratch Grains - these are a treat for your laying hens. Throw handfuls on the ground and watch the girls have a blast scratching around.
Mash - a finely ground feed, some people mix it with warm water when they feed their birds.
We also supplement our laying hens' diet with free choice time on pasture grass. They are out of their house for about 10 hours a day in the summer to graze for bugs, seeds, even scratching through cow manure for corn and other grains. At one time, chickens were an important part of the pasture management plan. They helped spread the manure on the field as they broke up the poo-patties looking for grain. (grain is often passed straight through the cow and is wasted.) This also broke up the cycle of parasites found in the manure.
We found that scratch grains can be soaked and fermented for a more bio-available feed, too. We can feed less layer mix because they are given fermented scratch grains and free range on the pasture.
I fill a bucket about 1/2 full of scratch grains. Add a cup of my sourdough bread starter or some active yogurt whey, then cover the grains with water and give them a good stir. I stir them daily for about 4 days and when the grains are swollen and there are fermenting bubbles on top, the grains are ready to go.
We give our 25 layers about 2 cups of scratch grains along with their layer feed.
The soaked and fermented grains are more easily digested by the chickens.
Chickens are amazing animals - easy to care for, entertaining, beautiful, and necessary on the homestead. They are an integral part of our prepping, too
Order some catalogs, read some books, watch YouTube, and get started.
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An Interview With Sophia Reiboldt of Sophie’s Peeps and Quacks
Sophia is a young poultry producer who has been fascinated by chickens since she was a small child. In fact, she doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t enthralled by them.
Lions, Eagles, & Bears: When were you first interested in chickens?
Sophia Reiboldt: I have always been interested in chickens.
LEB: What types of chickens do you have on your farm?
SR: We have the usual farm mix. Easter Eggers (Laying blue or green eggs), Golden Laced Wyandottes, lots of bantams, even a Silkie named Stephano. He has blue ears and beak.
LEB: Do you have preference?
SR: Not really. The silkies are special but I just love chickens.
LEB: What part of the raising chickens do you do on your farm?
SR: We incubate fertilized eggs for chicks to sell or raise ourselves. Incubating is fun, but it is a lot of work, keeping the temperature and humidity just right, turning the eggs and all that. We candle them to make sure they are growing. You have to check on the eggs a lot.
I love the peeps – I take care of them in the brooding box. Keeping the poults alive, once they are old enough to be out of the brooder, if hard. Predators like to get them at that age.
We are ready to start a selective breeding program – we have a rooster with the most beautiful feathers.
The bantams usually hatch their own eggs and raise the peeps, but lately we have lost peeps and eggs to a rat snake in our barn.
Last year we butchered meat chickens for the first time. I ran the plucking machine.
LEB: How many chickens do you have?
SR: I don’t have any idea. At least 30 or so. Some of the chickens are penned, but most free-range on the farm. Some of them are like pets. (She has a Silkie sitting on her lap during the interview.)
LEB: You have laying hens – how many eggs do you get a day?
SR: It depends. Some of our chickens are older layers and they aren’t very productive. We find old nests, too. The chickens will grow broody but then they get bored and abandon the nests. We probably get 7 – 12 usable eggs a day. If we penned up all the chickens, we would get more.
LEB: What is your favorite thing about chickens?
SR: I am really curious about their behavior and spend a lot of time watching and studying them. They are so interesting.
LEB: What do you say is the most important part of their care?
SR: I think people forget that they need some kind of shelter for protection, even the free-range birds. They need to be able to get out of the bad weather and hide from predators. Weasels and raccoons are a problem around here. We live in the country and either one of those can kill off a whole flock in one night. We also have large birds, like hawks and eagles, that can get our birds. We lost a full-grown duck to one of them last week.
LEB: You mentioned ducks, what other poultry do you raise?
SR: We have the chickens, ducks, and guinea fowl. We had a turkey for a while, but he died of old age. The guineas are good for eating ticks – a problem around here.
LEB: Thank you for answering our questions. It’s good to talk with someone raising chickens from eggs to adults.
SR: You are welcome.
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Enjoy the rest of your summer.
I have a great article started about wound care on the homestead - what to do when you can't access medical care.
Polly
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