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I often have a few hens surrounding me while I garden, and my daughter’s favorite likes to be picked up for cuddles. “I’ve spent some of the most disgusting moments of my life in that chicken coop,” he told me recently. Behind every glossy photo of a fluffy hen in a spotless designer coop, there are gritty realities that usually involve poop. Anyone considering a small backyard flock needs to understand the good, the bad, and the smelly before committing.
Since their feet aren’t covered in feathers, chickens lose a lot of body heat through their feet. Chickens like to sleep perched on a narrow ledge or beam, and in winter, this electric, plug-in heated perch is the perfect way to keep chickens warm and comfortable. Even if temperatures are not below freezing, cold water on a chilly day isn’t healthy for chickens. It means they have to burn more energy to keep warm, which causes stress to their immune system. With the Tarter Farm Chicken House design, you’ll save money, time, and effort. It has a nice open plan interior, with plenty of space for your hens to roam around, and a nesting area where they can lay their eggs.
Guide to Chicken Care
Farmer Vincent Padgett Sr. bristled at the cost of coops when starting his flock. “I don’t have a problem with it; I sold a lot of chicken coops,” he said of his time working at Tractor Supply. But, he added, you could spend 10 bucks on the chickens and “then spend $300 on a chicken coop right after that just to give them a roof over their heads.” So he started with a wheeled chicken tractor . Then he adapted a shed he already had, and when he needed to build more coops, he found free wood from neighbors who had leftovers from pandemic house projects.
Just as exciting as raising chickens is getting to use all of those delicious eggs in the kitchen. Little chefs will love an apron with baby chicks, hens, or roosters on it. Some stores even offer an embroidery option to add a child’s name to the apron. The coop isn’t the only place chicken owners like to decorate.
Storey’s Guide To Raising Chickens
Garden flags make great additions to your chicken lovers property. They will look perfect by the chicken coop or even out in the garden. These are high quality polyester flags that are durable enough to last through wind, rain and snow, without fading.
And, unlike with cats and dogs, you can’t board your chickens or leave them with friends if you go out of town, so you’ll need to make sure someone is caring for them when you’re away, even just overnight. Damerow told me she likes to put eyes on her chickens at least twice a day. “Some people believe they have a setup that allows them to check on their chickens, feed and water, etc., no more than once a week,” she said. Aside from the threat of predators, rodents can eat all the feed, and the chickens can dump their waterer over.
Colorful Chicken Coop
“Most of the time salmonella does not affect the chicken. It’s going to affect your little children, though,” said Michelle Hawkins, a veterinarian and professor at University of California Davis’s School of Veterinary Medicine. She strongly discourages children under the age of 5 from handling chickens because kids that age put their hands in their mouths, eyes, and noses. Everyone handling the chickens should wash their hands diligently for at least 20 seconds afterward, and wearing gloves is a smart idea.
McMurray Hatchery’s Tom Watkins said that spending a little time every day with your birds will help clue you in to behavioral changes and will also make your chickens friendlier toward you. Damerow and veterinarian Michelle Hawkins both told me that chickens need to dust-bathe. If they have access to your yard, they’ll dig holes or find a dry spot of dirt or sand. If they’re confined to a coop or run, you might want to set up a clean, dry spot in a corner so they avoid dirty litter.
Belinda Jones of Morning Glory Homestead Farm has several different hand-built and adapted coops, including two sofa-sized military shipping crates her family got for free from a local base . Chickens aren’t fussy about where they live; it really just needs to be clean, spacious, dry, and predator-proof. The chicks themselves will be the cheapest thing you purchase; most cost under $10 a chick, and many are much less than that. Raising chickens can be hard work—but worth the effort for all of the fresh eggs and all of the fun of having these adorable, fluffy birds strutting around your yard.
You can even add thoughtful ‘home accents’ like flower boxes to the outside of the coop. Luckily, there are some great gifts that can make life easier, or just more fun, for chicken lovers and owners. These gifts for chicken keepers aren’t just more material clutter for your friend’s home, they are helpful, creative tools to make every day with chickens go more smoothly. Read on to discover some of our favorite practical gifts for the passionate chicken lover in your life.
It’s like a garage door opener for the coop that opens automatically with the sun. Supplemental Space Heater for the Chicken Coop – Winter is coming, Chickens. Keep the coops warmer by installing a little supplemental heating system inside the coop. To help you decide, click the link and read through the details. These Chicken Legs Knee High Socks are probably the silliest thing you could give someone. But they could be pretty useful when the weather gets colder and you’re looking for socks.
Either way you go, these are great gifts for chicken keepers, especially those in really cold regions. A Jim’s Amish chicken coop is designed for the individual or business who plans to have fresh eggs for many years to come. Doug and I each use metal feeders with our chickens because chickens peck their food to eat it, and metal is harder-wearing. The handle at the top lets you hang the feeder off the ground. It’s important to elevate your feeder away from roost bars and nest boxes so that mice and other vermin can’t find a way in. Plus, chickens are messy eaters, and elevating their feeder helps prevent dirt and litter from getting kicked in, too.
Egg production is based on how many hours of light hens get, and spring chicks won’t start laying eggs until the fall; just when you can get excited for eggs, the days get shorter, and their production drops. This is also gentler on a pullet’s body, letting the hen ease into egg laying while it keeps growing and gaining the energy to produce an egg a day. I truly hope you enjoyed reading through this gifts for chicken lovers guide as much as I enjoyed writing it. I included items that I would like to have as a backyard chicken owner as well as items I love and use already. Chicken parents put a ton of time into the planning, designing, and building of their chicken coops, and they love adding special touches to make them truly unique.
Predators are a significant health threat to chickens, so if you dream of free-ranging hens in your backyard, you need to consider curious dogs and carnivorous wildlife. “Everything under the sun likes chicken as much as we humans do,” author Gail Damerow said. Damerow told me that every opening, no matter how small, should be secured with steel hardware cloth fencing, and large enclosed runs should have chain-link fencing.
If you’re flexible about when you start your flock, you might also have an easier time getting popular breeds. There are, indeed, trendy chickens, and these sell out almost immediately for spring . This means that after preorders ship in the spring, there’s a good chance hatcheries will have a few extra of the most popular chicks. Watkins said it’s always worth calling if the breed you want is listed as sold out; you might get lucky at the last minute if you wait until the spring frenzy subsides .
That addition has kept the floor stable for nearly a year, but I can see it’s starting to sag, so we may need to add more support this summer. The coop has a roost bar in the run, which our hens use daily, but inside the coop box there were two roost bars at floor level that our chickens didn’t like. They prefer to be elevated when they sleep, so we removed those bars and added a long swinging roost bar, constructed much like this chicken swing but with a dowel instead of a branch. Getting chicks through the mail may seem risky at first, but hatcheries work closely with the USPS, which has specific instructions for shipping chicks and a century of experience handling them. The birds come in a cardboard box with holes, and rather than leaving them unattended at your door, the postal service typically keeps them at your local post office and calls you to pick them up immediately. Chicks are usually shipped out during their first day of life, so they can last a couple of days without food or water because they’re still living off the nutrients from the egg.
