Community Chickens project

good to hear your up and running again daddybare

this information is a godsend really as im kinda being thrown into a similar homestead situation(oklahoma).

although im in cali and been a city slicker my whole life, ill admit ive been concerned with how im going to deal with the bugs. Chickens is genius...sheer genius....

And i like me some eggs. im gunna print up all this info.

thanks

reply to post by Relentless Lurker


I do want to point out chickens are not just about eggs...
their also a great source of table meat that grows pretty darn quickly!!!
now that my pest problem is mostly under control...most of my flock of thirty will be cleaned and dressed then placed in the freezer for Sunday supper's...
since mine are basically free range if I keep to many very soon they will eat up everything in my little 6 acre spread then wander off in search of more food.... Part of keeping your flock healthy is to keep their numbers under check too.

I concur about the joys of keeping chickens. I also agree with a previous poster about the site Backyard Chickens. So much info there.

We currently have Buff Orpingtons and a Rhode Island Red (extraordinary layers). We have a coop and an accessible run that we keep within an inexpensive deer net fence. This way they have a little ranging available to them but we can keep them from wandering.

I could watch them for hours.

Just giving this thread a needed bump
second line... "Hey... whose got their hand in my pocket now?"

reply to post by DaddyBare


Did you see the thread about $50 laying hens?

Have you seen the prices in your area go up like that? It seemed unbelieveable to me.

reply to post by getreadyalready


Not here...

Banty Chickens for sale.
All Ages.
Hens and Roosters available.
$1.00 apiece

Cregslist ad here

reply to post by DaddyBare


Thought so. Thanks!

On another note, isn't it crazy that a hen costs less than an egg at Waffle House? Or a loaf of bread costs less than a piece of toast?

Just saying, that always bugs me!

reply to post by getreadyalready


what has gotten crazy is the price of Chicken Scratch...
with the corn crop pretty much a write off this summer that feed price is gonna go high high high... you watch

I have 5 free range ladies and there poopy is nothing but a blessing. I don't even see it usually. It's pretty rare. I NEVER SMELL it. I have an acre with neighbors close on one side, so we didn't want a huge flock.

I think people smell chicken houses and worry about smell, but with a free range flock they go poopy everywhere, they get around, but it's so spread out it's no worse than the natural bird poopy that you never notice.

My birds like to roose in the trees so the most poppy is under where they roost. The trees are happy.

You got to remember that those chicken houses are really nasty - they might have 1000 birds in a closed in space and they all have no choice but to poop where they can stand because that's all they might be able to do, 5 or more to a cage - for life. It's horrid and it smells horrid.

Free range chickens are NOTHING like that

I'm not affiliated with Purina and have no business interest myself in this - but Purina has a $3 coupon out for Layena and other flock foods here that might help folks out
.bricks.coupons.com... tc=

Mine free range but I do give them some food too in case they want it.

reply to post by hadriana


How do you keep the free-range ones safe from predators?

I have racoons, foxes, owls, hawks, and an occasional alligator in my yard!!

reply to post by getreadyalready


We have a fence up and they've got a lot of woods that they mainly stay in.

We had a problem with a fox. If they'd been in a coop though, instead of getting one he would have killed them all, I just know it. As it was he got our really old girl who had quit laying and was slowing down. I'll just say, he won't bother another chicken again ever and leave it at that.

We have a chocolate lab and he is awesome with watching the chickens. He also lets us know when anything gets close to the yard. We put out traps for the racoons and have relocated a couple. They usually go for catfood before anything else. They love canned catfood.

reply to post by getreadyalready


Remember when I first got my chicken it was for pest control... and yes I have coyotes and raccoons too... for a while I was down to 10 hens... ate a few and some just vanished... but... we'd had wild chickens join my flock and since this spring we're getting Turkeys coming in... right now I'd say there 12 or 13 out there...

I have set up a hen house... they all go inside at night and first thing in the morning we let em out...

By the way... you wouldn't want 20 or 30 eggs would ya... they lay em faster than we can eat em

We lock ours up too - if they are broody or want to go in the coop - they seem to know when predators are about! A lot of times they will all line up and go in the coop to be locked up, and that will be a night I hear the coyotes around.

Otherwise, they get up pretty high in the trees in the woods and go to sleep. I think that keeps a lot of bird predators from swooping in to get them.

I love to watch them - they are nature's antidepressant. They remind me of little kids playing airplane when they come running to see me. It's funny to watch the flock peeking order thing too - I suspect it gives me insight on certain people in my life too, lol.

reply to post by DaddyBare


Chicken industry is a huge in our area.(eastern U.S. Its always in demand...Chicken Is still relatively inexpensive.

reply to post by hadriana


Are the eggs confined to one area or layed all over? I don't know much about free-range chickens. My parents chickens were always in a small fenced area with a coop.

Perfect, this is exactly what I was looking for DaddyBare!

I will be back with more questions later.

First, I thought in order to raise hens for eggs alone, you would not want to have any roosters. They just lay eggs anyway which are infertile so you don't have to worry about keeping them from developing into chicks before you can eat them as eggs. Is this true?

Is it also possible to eat eggs laid by hens which have been fertilized? Do you have to spot the embryos with a candle and save them to make more chicks? If you refrigerate the eggs right away will that prevent them from developing?

DaddyBare did you say you lost 2/3rds of your initial flock to predators?

And finally, how did you train the dogs to leave the chickens alone? I though that would be impossible.

reply to post by Darce


Let me start by saying I put 30 chicks out in the yard... not adult hens... without fencing... so some just wandered off... we ate more than a few... and some were taken by hawks and the like... but that was before they became adults...

We didn't start out with a roster... but they sure found my ladies and now we have 3... yes we do candle.. odd word since you use a light bulb to do that... and yes if you refrigerate it does keep the eggs from developing...

but ya know we never do find all the eggs... just the other day I went to use my little cement mixer and sure enough there was a nest... with 9 or 10 eggs of dubious age...

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by hadriana

 

Are the eggs confined to one area or layed all over? I don't know much about free-range chickens. My parents chickens were always in a small fenced area with a coop.

Mine always lay in the coop. We did have trouble with a few new layers putting them in a nest they had built elsewhere, but once we find the nest and take all the eggs out and put her sitting butt in the coop, that pretty much has always solved the problem. They lay where they feel safe, and they lay where it is habit, so give them a safe coop.

When and if you suspect you have one laying elsewhere (drop in normal eggs in the coop) you just watch them - it's easy to spot where they are going. Once they lay, they always have to tell the world it seems, lol. Just look where the squawking chicken is coming from every day.

When you find the nest, take the eggs and put her in the coop if she's sitting. Drop the eggs in water - the fresh ones will sink. Bad ones float.

ETA I only have hens, so I don't need to candle.

My dog wanted to get after the chickens when we first brought 2 home. I swatted that butt and put him on a leash . At first we had ours in a fenced coop. He was scolded if he went near it. I just kept telling him he had to watch the chickens, not hurt them. I've got a smart dog, I know he knows at least SOME English. We'd hold and pet the chickens getting closer to him until he learned to be calm. We let him watch us taking care of them and looking after them. It didn't take but a couple of weeks at most - we've got a smart dog.

Now he sits and watches them and herds them back if they try to get close down front where the road is. (He knows road is a no no.)

People underestimate how smart dogs can be. You take a dog and you keep it with you 24/7 and talk to it and treat it like family, and that dog gets really smart. My dog hardly leaves my side, and he watches out for those chickens really good. If not for him, we'd not seen that fool fox sneaking up here - from the road, no less! That fox was going around all the fencing, and trying to come up like it was a visitor from the road to the driveway! My dog went ballistic! My chickens come right up to him now like he's a good friend.

reply to post by hadriana


we got our dog after we got the hens...
first time that pup took after the hens... they took after him... now he whines and whimpers when a hen gets too close