Our Poultry Houses

Stage 1 Chicken Brooder

Do’s and Don’ts of Chickens

• Don’t get the small feeders. Not worth the hassle.  *COMMENT: When raising chicks the small feeders that have little holes for the chicks heads are a bad idea, including the mason jar ones.  They will fill up at the bottom with grit and look to you like the chicks have food.  But the chicks will still be starving because they don’t want the remaining grit.  Get one where they can scratch out the feed, this will allow them to get to the fresh feed and not just concentrate the grit.

Chicken Ladder, Ducks, and Hay

We got hay for the chickens and ducks for their bedding because they might enjoy the food Value there. But Were skeptical it would make any difference. It did the chickens and ducks are peaking at it and trying to eat it.

Our ducks wont use the chicken ladder we made, in order to get into their shelter.  So I made a ramp out of straw, and they do use that. Only problem is the straw tends to get knocked down, and  then the ducks can not get up the ramp.

Silly flightless birds.  My chickens will fly and perch on top of my 6ft fence, and my ducks wont even hop.  Go figure.

Stressed Chickens

About two months ago our neighbors dog had a fun time chasing the rooster and hens all around the back yard.  He was just a little pup and thought it all was a load of fun.  He got a mouthful of the roosters tail feathers a few times. Right after this our hens stopped laying any eggs.

This was also when the weather turned cold.  I have heard stress can cause a hen to stop laying eggs.  So either the cold or the dog stressed them and they stopped laying eggs.

We are having a warm spell right now and allot of the snow is thawing.  My hens started laying eggs again.  This is most likely because it has warmed up.  But could also be because they have gotten over the stress of the dog attack.

Chicken composting

We keep our chickens in our dog run, so technically it is a chicken Run. Lol…

We are composting in the chicken run.  Whenever w have extra food or leftovers that are not meat we “feed” it to our chickens, by placing it in our chicken run to compost.  So there is allot of organic verioty composting in there.  We also throw in the grass clippings.  We spread them out in their so they will dry out and compost well.  Because grass gets slimy and stinky if it is left in a pile.  We also throw in leaves to compost.

This soil was quite rich at the start of winter, so it became quite muddy in there.  We scattered hay over it and can now walk in there much better.  We also are using straw and hay as bedding for the chickens.

I expect all of this to be a lovely mess of compost we can use in our planter beds come spring.

Urban chickens – green pets or foul fowl?

My Comments on this article below

I could not believe the radio add I heard the other day. “Back yard bugs bugging you?” It goes on to say that if you buy some newfangled super chemical you won’t have to deal with bugs in your beautiful lawn. What?? I have a BEAUTIFUL green lawn because chickens are the highest nitrogen producing animal. My feathered patroll officers also eagerly find any weed in my lawn and eat it. How about bugs? What bugs? Any bug willing to poke his head up in my lawn becomes chicken feed. You want a beautiful green and bug free lawn. Own chickens! Give the environment a rest and stop dumping chemicals in the ground in order to achieve a fake beauty. Nature is beauty, harness the wonderful chicken and you receive many benefits.