Chicken and the egg.

We started out with chickens nearly 12 years ago.

I adopted an unfortunate little chick brought into my ER for possible neurologic problems. Upon inquiry the avian vet determined is was actually a case of user error. 

The couple who owned the chick were young and sweet but quite clueless when it comes to chickens. They had been feeding it worms and breadcrumbs. 

The lack of a varied diet had left the poor bird with significant nutritional deficits and it no longer could lift its head or walk. 

I took it home and informed my husband that we were raising chickens. 

He's always been a good sport so off we went on the adventure of chickens. 

 

We had free rangers, several versions of a coop, raccoon deaths, far too many birds, meat birds, and decorative birds. You name it, we tried it. 

 

It wasn't until about 10 years in that we finally found a good balance in chicken ownership. One that kept the birds safe, the manure load reasonable, and the maintenance brief. 

Our current set up is a spare 8 birds. We found with more than that we were producing more eggs than we needed. 

This sounds all well and good, but selling eggs was never profitable and quite a pain in the ass. We reassessed our purpose in chickens. Eggs for us, a few eggs to share. So 8 was a good number. 

Next is the manure load. With 8 birds the amount of manure they produce is easily spread throughout our garden. Also it requires minimal maintenance to keep the flies, smell and mud at bay. 

We use a deep litter method, layering straw every few months or as smell and mud warrant. In the rainy season we spread a bale of straw once a month, during the dryer parts of the year only every few months. This keeps the eggs clean, no muddy chicken feet, the coop clean, and the chicken yard pleasant. 

 

Feed and rats. We started with free feeding our birds in large feeders, which invariably increased our rat population. Not so cool. The rats ate up a lot of our feed and then multiplied like crazy. We switched over to feeding the birds only as much as they could eat in a day, outside, to discourage rats setting up camp in the coop. By nightfall the chickens had eaten up all the feed and the rats were left with little to nothing. Rats will never completely go away in our area, but we are not encouraging them which is nice. 

All food scraps from our kitchen go to our chickens. If we eat out we bring home leftovers. Camps, family events, everything. Even neighbors bring by food scraps and garden spoils to trade for eggs or just free up their yard waste bin. All plant scraps not given to the rabbits goes in with the chickens and they either eat them or it contributes to the brown material for composting. 

Compost. Each year we dig out the coop and chicken yard and load up the garden beds. This adds straw and poop, a perfect combination of nitrogen leaching and nitrogen loading. The straw smothers weeds and adds a lovely moisture grabbing element to the soil. We no longer bother with worms bin as the straw and poop attack red wigglers on its own. We mound up the beds to a couple of feet high. They heat and decompose all winter and are ready in the spring for planting. When turning the mounds once or twice a season they are full of red wigglers doing their job. 

 

With our previous free range chickens the garden areas were destroyed and chicken poop got everywhere. Raccoons eventually realized there was food available and came in eat the birds. After the last raccoon attack we took to locking up the birds at night, a hassle but not unreasonable. Also we set a timer on a pond we have in the back yard. One of the biggest attractants to raccoons in urban areas is the sound of running water at night. They come to use the water for food and play and then realize you have chickens. One thing leads to another and you get raccoons coming at all times of the day and night looking for a snack. By simply turning off the pond during the dark hours the raccoons have stopped coming to visit.

Having a barky dog helps too. 

 

Eggs. Eggs are collected daily to discourage egg eating. We find that eggs left for too long are at risk of being broken, then the ladies catch on that pecking and eating them is a good idea. 

Routine. Our daily routine with the chickens is to bring down the food scraps from the kitchen. Open up the pop hole to let the ladies out. They get a heaping scoop of feed (about 5 cups) tossed in a garbage can lid in the chicken yard. There is a tarp cover over the feed area to keep it dry. While the chickens are eating I collect the eggs and check the water level. In the evening I close up the pop hole as the ladies have already gone inside. In all it takes about 5 minutes daily, 10 minutes weekly when I refill the water. And once a year a good couple of hours shoveling straw from the coop into the garden beds.

Watering. Watering is a serious pain in the ass with standard chicken waterers. They forever spill or come apart. We had toyed with the notion of using drinking nipples along a board piped in from a central waterer, but found that two 5 gallon buckets with screw in nipples work very well for us. One of the containers is insulated which keeps it from freezing for all but a few weeks in our mild Pacific Northwest climate. 

With just the 8 birds we find that the waterers need to be filled every few weeks. When it does freeze we use a heated pad and a galvanized bucket to keep the ladies in fresh water. This is a bit of a pain, but its only a few weeks a year. 

 

Coop. We have an open air coop which is clean and pleasant. There are three solid sides and an open meshed side. It is large and can accommodate 4 times the chickens so the poop and pecking are kept to a reasonable amount. The birds have space to get away from each other even if they are locked up while we are out of town. 

There is an outdoor caged in bird run that gets the girls outdoors. Its is protected from dogs and keeps the chickens from the garden.