Chicken catcher

I had a need for a chicken catcher the other day. No, not a dog, though Spotz is a fine chicken catcher/killer (he has to live in a pen because of that bad habit). No, I mean a stick.

Around here I've never seen a chicken catcher for sale in the feed/farm stores. I don't know why, because we have plenty of chickens on this island. But then, I've never asked the sales people, so perhaps they store them in a box someplace out of sight. Regardless, I ended up having to fashion one myself. 

I'm rounding up my renegade loose chickens. It's time for the girls to be penned again. When I let the hens out to forage, there's always a couple that don't return to the pen at night, though they usually go back in the next day it two.  Eventually they make a habit out of it and never go back. So every December, I round up the rebels and throw them back in the pen. For the months of January and February, the hens don't run loose. That's so they habituate on laying their eggs in the nest boxes. After everybody is laying again and is use to the rules, they are once again allowed out to forage for bugs, lizards, mice, worms, etc. 

So I've been enticing the wayward girls into a catch box. The box needed to be bigger than what is comfortable for me to just reach in a grab them. Thus the need for the chicken catcher. I can use it to snag them by the leg.

My quick fashioned catcher. It's only 2 foot long, but just the size I need. 

A chicken catcher is simply a piece of sturdy wire that has been bent into a shape that can snag a foot.  The handle is normally 3 to 4 foot long, but my homemade one is shorter because the birds are already caught in a trap box. Snagging a chicken takes a bit of patience, practice, and skill. The hens quickly learn that they need to avoid the wire, but they are not slick enough to totally understand how to do that effectively. So after a dozen tries, I've usually successfully snagged the chicken.

This shape works fine for easy to catch birds.
 It needs a little modification for the more difficult chickens. 

Snagged a hen!  

New Pullets

In the past two days I've added 3 young hens to the laying flock. Not that the new ones are laying yet, but they should start this spring. One friend gave me 2, another friend gave me one. All 3 pullets are wild type.....just mix breed chickens that run feral around here. And though their eggs are small, the hens are very hardy, easy keepers, and make excellent moms. 

I keep chickens for their manure. So it doesn't matter that the eggs are on the small side. I look at the eggs as a bonus. 

Homemade Fermented Chicken Feed

This year I'm trying to fine tune my livestock feed. My major focus is on time and energy, meaning that I would like the feed preparation time to be much less, and come up with methods that don't require the use of lots of expensive energy (electricity, propane, gasoline, firewood). 

Time is the thing that I'm always short of now. I'd like to become more time efficient....but....I don't want to do it by spending more money. The easiest way to cut down in time is to throw cash at the problem or task. Such as : cook with propane instead of wood, use a tractor or backhoe to get big jobs done instead of hand tools. Yes, I could do that, but I prefer the idea of doing things with small tools. Crazy....yes. Satisfying....Yes! 

So I've been toying around with ideas and doing some experimenting. I recently discovered that I could use fermented banana trunk as as pig feed. So I wondered if I could cut down the prep time for the taro that I use for the chickens by fermenting it. 

Why ferment taro? 

...first of all, the chickens readily eat fermented foods. In fact they eat spoiled garbage with relish. Fresh pumpkins are ignored, but let them rot a bit and the hens greedily gobble them down. That's so nasty watching it that I have to walk away, otherwise I'd gag. Boy am I glad I'm not a chicken! 

...fermented feed can be stored for weeks without refrigeration. 

...fermenting taro significantly reduces the oxalate crystals, thus eliminating the need to cook the taro.

My original method.....

...chop up the taro and cook it

...send the cooked taro through the blender to mix with chicken mash 

Next method.....

...send chopped up taro through the garbage disposal 

...cook the ground up taro

...mix it with the slop & glop

Current method.....

...send the chopped up taro through the garbage disposal

...store the ground up taro in sealed air-free 5 gallon buckets

...ferment for 1 to 2 weeks (can be stored for at least a month, maybe more)

...mix uncooked fermented ground taro with the slop & glop

This newest method is working. What's nice is that I can work a taro patch, harvesting the trimmings for feed. Then I'll grind it all up and store it in buckets, giving me anywhere from 1 to 4 weeks worth of fermented taro to add to the chicken feed. So I'm not harvesting and cooking taro every day. Whew, what a relief! 

Above, fermented taro ready to mix with the normal slop & glop. 

So I've got a good working solution for taro. What about other crops? I looked to pipinola next. 

Pipinola can be fed raw or cooked, though they get more out of the cooked stuff. Thus I've been cooking it. But I started wondering if I was really gaining enough nutrition and digestibility benefits to pay for the effort and time of cooking and grinding it. Although I found no statistics for pipinola specifically, I found information on other fermented foods for livestock. Fermenting definitely had its benefits over foods being fed raw. So I gave fermenting pipinola a try. 

Just as with the taro, I coarsely chopped the pipinola and sent it through the garbage disposal. The resulting pulp sans the excess liquid was sealed in an airtight 5 gallon bucket. I let it ferment for a week and gave it a peek. Looked and smell just fine. Then I let the chickens and pigs give it a taste test. Yup, they ate it. Ah-ha, two thumbs up! I found a way to process and store the abundant pipinolas so that I wouldn't lose them to rot. The fermented pulp should last for at least a full month in the buckets without refrigeration, maybe longer. I presently have 3 week old fermented pipinola and it still looks and smells fine, and both the chickens and pigs willingly chow it down. 

Above, fermented pipinola pulp ready for feeding. 

So far, I like this method. It is saving me time, I can process a month's worth at a one time if I need to, I'm not tossing excesses into the compost bins,  I'm not burning up a lot of firewood, and I'm not using the refrigerator. That's all fine with me. 

Teeny Weeny Egg

Got quite the laugh this morning when I collected the eggs. There amid the usual assortment was this itsy-bitsy round thing. Wow, an egg. It's the smallest one I've gotten to date. What a hoot! 

I cracked it open just because I had to know what was inside. Just all egg white. 

Oddball eggs happen from time to time. I've not only seen these little eggs, but also such large jumbos that I feel sorry for the hen. I've also seen odd shapes, weird colors, and even soft eggs without the usual calcium shell. The hens aren't sick......it just happens sometimes. 

Hens Not Laying -- Some Reasons

"P" just asked me why her chickens aren't laying eggs. This is the time of year that they should be producing lots of eggs, here in Hawaii. Without looking at her flock, I gave her a list of possible causes. Here's what we discussed (based upon my own observations).....

...too young. This turned out to be  "P's" problem. Her hens might look big and ready, but they are only five months old. Most of her hens are breeds that don't lay until 6-9 months old. 

..too old. Hens slow down after 2 years of age. I have some 8 year olds that are still laying, but it's only a few per week and they stop early in the laying season. If they lay for 2-3 months, that's pretty good for their age. I also have two banties that are most likely 10 to 12 years old and still laying a few eggs. Amazing little birds. 

...broody. When a hen gets broody and sits on eggs, she stops laying more eggs. 

...not enough food. Letting the hens run out of food can lead to less eggs. If they are out of food for a couple days, they usually quit laying altogether for the season. Less food = less eggs. 

...inadequate diet. What they are being fed is important. If they are penned and fed a diet lacking in nutrients, their egg laying will be severely affected. Poor diets often means no eggs. 

...significant change in diet. A seen change room commercial pellets to all pasture, or changing from crumbles to seed based can significantly change egg laying habits. 

...no enough water. Egg laying takes water. When hens run out of water or don't get enough each day, egg production decreases or ceases. 

...adverse weather. Too hot or too cold. No rain protection in areas of high rainfall. 

...lack of available nest space. Most hens will keep laying eggs even if no nest boxes are provided. But some will shutdown if they can't have a private spot for egg laying. It depends upon the individual hen. 

...molting. Hens stop laying eggs from when they get ready to molt up to the time that they've grown fresh feathers. 

...illness. Sick hens stop laying. 

...parasites. Both internal and external parasites can affect egg laying. 

...physical injury. It's not uncommon for an injured bird to stop laying. 

...emotional stress. Drama in the flock (new birds), fighting, commotion outside the pen (construction, dogs, helicopters overhead, etc) 

...being the low man in a crowded pen without hiding places. The low status bird may not lay. 

...wintertime. Daily light is shorter during the winter. Egg laying is tied to the length of day. If lights are provided during short days, hens will continue to lay. But if no additional light is provided, hens will follow Mother Nature's guidelines and stop laying. 

I haven't made all these "mistakes", but admit I've done a few while I was learning about chickens and egg production. 

Chicken Pen Litter

(No photos....no time)

Got an email yesterday asking about how I manage my chicken pen litter. It seems that "F" is having a major problem with moisture in her chicken coop and wanted to know how I dealt with the problem. 

First of all, I don't need to have an enclosed coop. The weather never gets freezing here, so my hens are outdoors year around. But they are penned for much of the day, so I have to do something about managing their poop. In an enclosed coop, moisture can be a significant problem. 

Initially I tried plain dirt. Without a rainproof roof on the pen, the dirt quickly turned into foul smelling, slimy mud. Not a good solution. Even adding a tarp roof didn't solve the smelly mud problem either. I guess chickens poop out too much moisture for the pen floor to dry out in my moist climate. 

Next I tried concrete with the intention of shoveling it out weekly. Bad idea. Far worse than dirt, though it was more scoopable. So I put a tarp roof up. Better but still a mucky mess that required lots of work. I added a light layer of grass clippings. It kept the birds cleaner but it was still lots of work for me. I needed a better idea. 

After attending a natural farming workshop, I came home with the idea of deep litter. So I built a new pen on dirt and a rain proof roof. After mowing many trashcanfuls of clippings, I managed to create a six inch deep litter. To my surprise, by the next morning the litter was only 3" deep. They had eaten a lot and packed the remainder down. Under their roosts was solid muck. And many spots were scratched away, exposing bare earth. Geez. Now what?

I suspected that the problem was that it wasn't deep enough, plus the fact that the clippings were quite green and wet. So I spent the next several hours mowing old standing grass and weeds until I had 8 trashcans of mostly brown and dry clippings. Into the pen they went. 

Next day....success. But over time I learned that I needed to do weekly maintenance. Ignoring the litter just resulted in wet, clumped, packed down gloppy mucky mess. Again, things don't dry out very well in my location, so the pen litter needed a bit of help. 

I now maintain my pen litter by adding at least one trashcan of grass clippings daily. I actually aim for 2 if I have the time. If the litter looks a bit too moist or it starts to cake under the roosts, then I add a trashcan of brown drier clippings. I look to keep the litter 6"-8" deep, but of course the hens dig holes here and there down to bare dirt. But during the course of a few days, they fill in the holes themselves and start new ones. They are constantly turning the litter in their favorite digging spots. 

Whenever the pen litter gets deeper than 8" or so, I can harvest the litter for fertilizer. It's a great addition to compost pile, and when used sparingly, it can be tilled right into the garden before planting a crop that is a heavy feeder. I haven't calculated the exact ratio, but it seems to me that for every 4 trashcans of grass clippings put into the pen, I can take out about one can of litter for garden use. What happens to the other 3? Some gets eaten, the rest dries out and thus reduces in volume. 

Deep litter is the way to go in my situation. It feeds the hens, gives them an interesting environment to dig, hunt, and dust bathe in. It gives me fertilizer. 

More Reasons For the Egg Slowdown

"S" asked if there were other reasons why chickens would stop laying eggs. Sure there are! In my own case I believe it's a combination of older birds, them mostly not being commercial egg production breeds, and shortening daylight hours. If I constantly rotated young birds into the flock, bought only heavy egg layers, and provided extra light, then I'd most likely see lots of eggs almost year around. By maintaining two separate flocks and managing their molting period so that only one flock molted at a time, then I'd have a steady supply of eggs. Yes, it could be done. But frankly, it's not the kind of work that I'm currently interested in doing. 

Reasons why hens slow down or stop laying...

...shortening daylight hours and no supplemental light being provided. 

...old birds. After their second laying cycle, some breeds significantly lay less eggs are tend to stop early each year. 

...wrong breed. The commercial heavy egg layers are best for production through the year. Other breeds, mixbreeds, and in my case the ferals, lay less and stop early. 

...poor diet. Not enough protein or calcium will reduce egg laying. An unbalanced diet will also affect egg laying -- too much if one thing or not enough of another. 

...too much scratch being fed. 

...not enough clean water. 

...a break in food or water availability. Letting the hens run out of each could shut them down. 

...a change in diet. Change the food type, or even the brand, can affect some hens. They like consistency. 

...change in environment. New waterers. New feeders or bowls. New roosts or change of location. Remodeled coop. New pen location. New roof or the roof being removed. 

...new chickens being added to the flock. Or the significant removal of a number of hens from the flock. Flock dynamics change, thus affecting the pecking order. 

...illness. Sick birds often don't show signs, other than eating less and stop laying. 

...parasites. 

...something new outside of the pen. New dog. New neighbors. Heavy equipment being used. Helicopters flying overhead. Drone flying over the pen. Stockade fence removed. Brush and trees removed. 

..predator. A nighttime visitor you're not aware of? A dog visiting the pen when you're not home. Rats. Snakes. Owls or hawks checking the pen daily. Skunks. Raccoons. Possums. 

...the weather. Severe storms, floods, extreme cold, extreme heat can all affect egg laying. 

...moldy feed. 

...they've gone broody. 

Perhaps you just bought the hens, and they stopped laying. Yes, they were laying great for the seller, but changing homes is a real shock for the hens. It is not uncommon for them to stop egg laying. 

Not all flocks are so sensitive to changes, but if they already under stress or if they are extremely settled in a routine, then changes could result in egg laying issues. 

Daily Egg Production Down

My daily egg production is way down. That's to be expected for this time of year and the age of my hens. From mid January to mid June I was getting 3 dozen eggs a day. But around June 25th I noticed a significant drop off in egg production. By July 4th I was getting only a half dozen of eggs daily. 

Today I gathered 9 eggs, more than I've been getting each day this past week. Yesterday I gathered only 5. 

Why the slowdown, you ask? My hens are mostly older birds. I've got a few young ones, which are most likely my egglayers right now. All the senior birds have stopped. That's just the way it is with old chickens. I do have some young girls that are 3-4 months old but it will be a few more months before they are old enough to start laying. 

What causes the slowdown? I suspect it's the short day length. The birds' diet and routine hasn't changed. The only change I can see is that the length of daylight is getting shorter. 

If I were primarily interested in egg production, I would buy two dozen new layer chicks every January. I would expect them to start laying just about now, taking up the slack. But eggs aren't my number concern. Instead, they're a bonus. So I happily take what I get and don't worry about it. 

Why do I keep these non-productive hens? Manure. It's my number one reason for keeping chickens. The pen litter goes into the compost, producing fertilizer for the gardens. Chickens can turn a lot of garbage, waste, and grass clippings into something very useful. 

How Many Chickens?

Question : How many chickens can fit into a nest box?

Answer : obviously 3

Today when I went to collect eggs, I found three of the girls crowded into one nest box. The funny thing is that they are using a box that most of the hens have been shunning these past few weeks. But today it's the hottest piece of real estate around. Reaching under these hens I pulled out 14 eggs!

Right next door is the nest box that had been the hot item for the past several weeks. Today it held zero eggs. Not even one. Go figure. 

Don't ask me why. I can understand the concept of a community nest. But why the medical chairs every couple weeks? If they were actually brooding fertile eggs, then they'd never hatch because the hens switch nests before the incubation period is up. 

While hens are smart in their own way, at times they aren't too clever. 

Dirty Chickens

"B" contacted me to comment that my chickens were "dirty". Yup, I agree. If you've ever had chickens in a pen, you'll know that they don't use toilet paper and little commodes, they don't wash their feet, they like to dig up the dirt and kick it around. They poo while sleeping, which means that there will be quite a bit of manure beneath their roosting spots in the morning. And if any of them slept in a nestbox, that box will need fresh bedding. It happens because they don't wear diapers, nor are they potty trained. When it rains, they will walk through mud puddles, tromping mud into the nestboxes. Oh my, chickens surely lack manners and social grace. 

My hens spend most of their day is a large roofed pen (10' by 30'). This keeps them safe from dogs, hawks, and mongooses. It means that I can find the eggs in the nest boxes rather than under bushes helter-skelter around the farm. The pen protects them from bad weather. It allows me to harvest manure for the compost bins. The hens run free to scavenge bugs and lizards in the late afternoon for a few hours when it is relatively safe. I'm usually working in the area and can keep an eye out for predators. If they ran loose all day instead of being penned, then their poo would be on the ground someplace around the farm instead of under a perch, in a nestbox, or on the pen litter. Plus the hens would be in danger of being killed by predators. They'd still be poo-ing, but it wouldn't be as noticeable.....except for on the bottom of one's shoes. Yup, I'd be sure to step in it. By the way, I have feral turkeys and pheasants that visit the farm daily, leaving poo piles behind. I have to keep a diligent eye out to avoid piles. 

Yes, chickens can be "dirty". Animals poo and that's a fact of life. It's not something that upsets or worries me. Unlike some commercial farms, my birds are healthy, have no parasites, nor harbor dangerous pathogens that I am aware of. I don't fear working around my flock. I don't mind them being chickens and dirty-ing up the place. Besides, their manure is valuable. 

If one considers poo to be toxic waste, then farming livestock surely isn't for you. 

Refurbish Chicken Pen

No matter how well built a chicken pen is made, there comes a time that it will need a bit of maintenance. Now....my chicken pen isn't what I would call "well built". It's cobbled together re-using materials from other projects. So after a bit over a year, it's time to do some fixing. 

First of all, the roof tarps are showing wear. Time to put on new tarps. Simple. 

Next, the nest boxes. The unit I've been using was given to me by a friend and it's been well used. One day I came out to find the bottom had fallen out of the lower level of nest boxes. But since the hens only were using the upper boxes, I didn't give it much attention. But now the top boxes are getting wobbly. Time to replace it. 

This is what's left of the old nest box unit, behind one of their perches. No bottom floor. Only two useable boxes.......

Not having enough old plywood on hand, I actually sprung for a brand new sheet. How about that! Using that new sheet plus the used pieces I had in the boneyard, the hens ended up with two new nest box units....three holers to boot. 

They're plenty big, bigger than usually recommended. That's because my hens tend to cluster all in the same nest box. I've seen 3 to 5 jammed up in a tiny box, with one or two hanging their butts out. Not a good situation for eggs. So this time the boxes are a bit roomier. We'll see how they work out. 

The top of the boxes have a lip running around them ....

That's because I've had hens lay eggs on the top of the unit. The eggs roll off and break, of course. So with the lip they shouldn't roll over the edge. I'm using clean dried grass clippings in the nest boxes as needed, as well as on top of the boxes. 

Will the hens sleep in the boxes and on top? I expect that some will. They did when the boxes were regulation size, so I expect they will continue their habits. Most will sleep on the perches, while some will sleep in or atop the nest boxes. 

Speaking of perches, it as time to replace the old ones. They get dirty over time. So the girls were treated to new poles to roost upon. They now have about 70' of roosting space. Currently the flock is 60 hens, so they should have enough space. 

A Daily Egg

At this time of year, the only chickens that I have laying eggs is usually the young pullets just starting out their egg laying careers. The older hens have stopped for the year, taking a break to grow fresh feathers, put weight back on, and rebuild their body's mineral reserves. 

This is normal for my region because I don't provide artificial light to extend the "daylight period" for my birds. I let the girls live naturally. 

The main reason for going the natural route is that I'm not aiming for top egg production. My goal is nutrient enhanced mulching material for the gardens. That pen litter is more valuable to me than the eggs. I consider the eggs a free bonus. 

So here I sit, getting one egg a day. This one-egg-a-day thing has been going on for a full month now. The young pullet is really pumping out the eggs. Good girl! She hasn't missed a day yet. 

So what if I wanted eggs year around in order to go back to selling lots of eggs again? I would need to add fresh chicks every year in January in order to have layers when the older hens stopped. To tell you the truth, I'm thinking about it. Selling eggs would bring some income in. If I do it, then I'd build another pen .....one for young birds that lay, and one for old birds past laying. Reason? To funnel the higher nutrition to the layers and the lesser nutrient dense foods to the manure producing flock. So now I have to consider if it's worth the expense to build another pen. Yes, I could have all the birds mixed up together, but then I'll be hard pressed to come up with that much high quality feed without buying it all....which negates the idea of making some income selling eggs. Feed cost an arm and a leg here. 

So for right now, I have one egg layer and about 50 older hens taking a break. Of this 50, I'm guessing that only half were laying last year. Thus I have a lot of old hens. Time to make some decisions. 

Rats & Chickens

Rats! Rats and chickens, not my favorite duo. First of all, Hawaii has two species of rats, so I've been told by Vector Control. The roof rat and the Norway rat. The one that frequently visits my homestead is the roof rat. I've been asked a number of questions about my encounters with these rats, so I'll answer as best I can.

(Above image from www.onetwotree.com)

Do chickens attract rats? Not really, as I've been told at the ag classes that I've taken. The rats were already there before the chickens arrived. But being opportunists, the rats see a good thing and hang around more often than not. Chickens equal free food, fresh water, warm housing. They are definitely attracted by the feed. Most feeders are open buffets for rats. They will enter the coop at night, helping themselves to a free meal with no competition from the chickens. Roosters may sometimes complain about the rats, but most birds don't say a word. 

Unsecured feed bins are also a rat smorgasbord. They get into feedbags, corn cribs, wooden feed bins, and even gnaw holes in plastic trashcans. They will also check out the trash bags, wild bird feeders, and compost piles. A solid metal trashcan will thwart rats. 

Will a rat kill a chicken? From my own experience and what I've been told, rats didn't normally attack a full grown chicken, but occasionally they may bite them, drawing blood. The danger here is that the bird now has an open wound, which gets the attention of the other chickens who promptly peck at it. This sort of pecking can lead to cannibilism. Most chicken owners have come out in the morning and found a partially consumed bird in the pen. Not uncommon chicken behavior at all. Chickens are like having little dinosaurs, little meat eating raptors. 

Rats have been known to kill and consume chicks and young birds. If the feed runs out in the feeders at night, then partially eaten young chickens might be found in the coop in the morning. A sign of rats. 

Besides the problem of killing chicks and eating your expensive feed, rats can be a real problem. They will hang around and explore the area, including my barn, tool sheds, car engine, house. They can nibble wiring, foul the area with feces and urine (thus potentially spread parasites and diseases, including leptospirosis), and set up housekeeping in the walls and ceiling of the home. They contaminate stored food and water. All in all, not a suitable house guest. Some unpleasant personal experiences we've had with rats ....

.... Rat condo in our livingroom ceiling. Egads. They got into the fiberglass insulation, peeing and pooping all over it, stinking up the house We ended up having to remove the ceiling, trash all the insulation, treat the rafters, and redesign the ceiling. Expensive. Messy. Stinky. Yuk. 

.... Rat vacation home inside the car engine compartment. Hubby noticed an odd rattle in the engine so took it to the repair shop. Mechanic found scores of macnuts plus loads of rat droppings under the manifold cover. An amusing story, but an expensive lesson to learn.

.... Our invisible fence system stopped working. On investigation we discovered that a rat had gnawed through the wire at the base of the control unit. It had to be replaced. 

.... Rats on our roof, finding tiny niches to get into the house. No fun sitting in the livingroom one evening reading our books only to look up and see a rat walking across the ceiling beam. Yikes! Another time we woke up in the middle of the night to mad scrambling out in the hallway. One of the cats had trapped a rat but didn't know how to kill it. Our house dog was standing behind the cat, barking encouragement. Get 'em! Get 'em! The rat meantime was screaming bloody murder. Hubby felt sorry for the rat, caught it, and set it loose down in the front pasture. He said the poor thing deserved to recover from that ordeal. I wonder if it ever returned? Anyway, because of our 365 day a year rat issues (we live next door to a nut orchard), we have to be diligent in keeping the chlorine level adjusted in our water catchment tank. We collect that rainwater off the roof, which happens to be a favored venue for the rats. 

What else goes wrong when rats and chickens mix? Egg theft. I don't think that I've experienced this problem, but then, the rats that visit my farm are rather small in size. I don't think they could carry off an egg if they were lucky enough to find one. I make a point of removing all eggs just before dark when the girls are already on their roosts for the night. But other people have proof that rats are stealing eggs because they've caught them doing it with their security cameras. Gotcha! They have seen rats stealing eggs right from under a brooding hen. Pretty bold, and pretty slick for a rat. 

Mistakes With New Chicks

Spring is chick time. So many people's thoughts move towards getting some baby chicks, with visions of future eggs and meat. As a result, I've been getting emails both asking for advice and relating various chick stories. Most of the stories are delightful, but a few talk of problems and tragedies. Out of these sad tales, I've grouped together some of the problems people have had and will relate how I've dealt with the very same issues. Most of the folks I've met have run up against similar situations. 

1) Buying from unknown sources.  Decades ago I lucked out buying my first batches of chicks from a reputable hatchery. I had great success. But after that local hatchery shutdown, I bought chicks from a variety of sources : local flea market, notice on a feed store bulletin board, ad in the newspaper. Problem after problem. Questionable breeds. Sick chicks. Nothing but roosters. I eventually wised up and started ordering from a reputable mail order hatchery. Success returned. 

2) Buying the wrong breed. My first purchase was all rooster day-old chicks. Why? They were cheap. Only 10 cents each. Since I was intending to raise them for meat, I didn't see the sense of paying the high price for straight run or females. Where I went wrong is that I purchased all leghorns with a few other breeds mixed in that I didn't know, nor cared, what. What I didn't know, because I didn't do my homework, was that those chicks weren't meat chicks. It made a big, big difference. I ended up with skinny fryers instead of the plump roasters I envisioned. I invested the same amount of labor, equipment, and feed for skinny little fryers instead of plumper birds.

     Decades later, I hadn't wised up much. Again, I failed doing my homework. I bought 200 straight run (mixed sexes just as they come right out of the incubators) chicks, intending on having egg layers. I figured I'd eat the roosters and sell the extras, so I purchased duel purpose breeds. I learned the hard way that duel purpose breeds don't excell in either, meat nor eggs. They're adequate, but don't give me the best bang for the buck. I would have been happier then if I had bought better egg laying breeds for the hens and better meat breeds for eating....not duel purpose types. Oh, duel purpose breeds have their place, but it depends just how much one has their heart set on meat or egg production. What is it you want in the end? I've had various duel purpose breeds, and actually still have some, so I'm not saying that they should be avoided. No. It's just that I need to consider my goals. Sometimes a high powered egg producer is the best answer. Sometimes it's that fast growing meaty breed. And of course, other situations do indeed call for a particular duel purpose breed....or even a less specialized heritage breed. 

3) Ignoring the gender. I didn't make this mistake, but I've watch others do it. One neighbor brought home 6 straight run chicks, expecting to get 3 hens and 3 roosters. Mother Nature doesn't always adhere to the statistics with small numbers, thus my neighbor was upset when he ended up with 5 roosters and 1 hen. Yes, it happens. That 50-50 ratio is an average with a large number in the pool. All bets are off when the numbers are small. So if I were only going to buy a small number, and it wanted eggs, I'd buy just female chicks. 

     One other thing, my neighbor couldn't bring himself to kill those roosters. It's something to think about if only straight run chicks are ordered.....what to do with those roosters. 

4) Not having having the chick pen set up before the chicks arrive. Big mistake. It could be a mad scramble to cobble together a pen. I person I know did actually get some chicks without a thing set up in advance. He ended up using boxes, towels, hot water bottles...and lost many of the chicks. 

5) Not having educated oneself before the chicks arrive. Oh, this happens too often nowadays. Information is so readily available...."google it". Judging from the emails I get, people don't take the time to research and learn about chicks. They wait until they've failed. One of my rare times I'll give advice: learn about one's projects in advance. I learned the hard way that it's best to read, observe, learn before diving in. Not that I need to know everything before I start, but I try to be somewhat educated when I take my first steps.....especially when livestock is involved. No big deal if I kill a bunch of plants, but animals are a different story. 

6) Making the brooder too small or too large. My first brooder pen was way too large. Chicks got lost, stuck in corners, got chilled. I thought I was thinking ahead by making the pen large enough to house all the chicks when they had grown to 8 weeks of age. But those little day old chicks couldn't handle it. The first day I was too dumb to see that. The second day I blocked off most of the pen, making it smaller. 

     Making the brooder too small can be just as bad. I've seen situations where the chicks had no space to get away from the heat. They ended up piling atop one another in the corners, suffocating the poor ones in the bottom of the pile. 

7) Using a waterer that allows chicks to get wet. A serious problem. I brought a commercial waterer and didn't realize at first that there could be a problem. But after finding a few wet, chilled chicks huddled under the lamp plus two dead ones in the water trough, I saw the major error in the design. Day old chicks will jump right into the water if at all possible. So if I can't find a waterer that restricts the baby chick's access to the water, I make my own mesh guards to slide over the water trough. 

8) Using poorly designed feeders. Feeders need to make feed access easy for the chicks but at the same time protect the feed so that the chicks don't foul it. If at all possible, chicks will poop all over their food. Once there's a layer of poop, they no longer can find their food underneath. Besides wasting feed, this results in starved chicks that can easily die because their bodies run out of "fuel". 

     Along this same line, having not enough feeder space for all the chicks can result in some chicks not getting enough food. The weaker ones fade away and die simply because they don't have room to get to the feed often enough. 

      One more comment......running out of feed. Chicks are constant eating machines. I never let them run out. Whenever I've not topped off the feeders in the evening (assuring plenty of feed for an early breakfast) I've often seen problems with an unthrifty chick or two. Any marginal chicks can't seem to deal well with a delayed breakfast. So I'm careful to make sure feeders stay full when the chicks are under 4 weeks of age. 

9) Wrong type of feed. In nature, chicks go after tiny sized food particles. Therefore I start chicks off with ground feed, be it commercial crumbles or homemade ground foods. I've been successful using crumbles in the commercial feeders then supplementing that with dishes of cooked brown rice with finely chopped assorted foods mixed in. Since I plan to feed them "mom's famous slop & glop" when they are adults, I train them to eat it as they grow up. 

     What sort of wrong feed have I seen being used? Whole grains. Bird seed. Dogfood. Coarse kitchen scraps. New chicks will eat this stuff, or try to, but they may not do well on it. Without well developed gizzards and grit, they will have difficulty digesting them. Other foods I've seen being offered are simply lacking in good nutrition -- white rice, bread, stale cake, table leftovers. These are fine additions but not meant for the basic feed. If the babies were out with their mothers in the wild, they'd be eating all sorts of high nutrition food bits -- bugs, worms, seeds, the tender tips of plants, plus soil and small stones. 

10) Inappropriate bedding. When I used a brooder set up, I used clean sand as the bedding. Because my heat source was from below, the sand stayed dry. The chicks will consume the bedding, so sand was fine. But I've heard of cases where people used kitty litter, shredded paper, or sawdust and had chicks dying. I wonder if the bedding was part of the problem. Straw, hay, dry grass clippings all make acceptable bedding. 

11) Failing to teach chicks to drink and eat. Yes, chicks can be that stupid! But just give it some thought.....chicks learn to eat and drink by being taught by their mothers. If you've ever watched a hen with chicks, she will make a special sound to call her chicks for food and drink. She will then demonstrate what is the food or water, then step back to allow them to give it a go. She will frequently step forward, peck some food or take a drink herself, then step back again. She is teaching them. 

     Newly arrived day old chicks need a little instruction. The first thing I do is take each chick one at a time and dip their beaks in the water (I add sugar to the water for the first day). I repeat until the chick gets it, drinking on their own. To encourage the slow learners, I will sprinkle a little sand in the water trough, just enough to make some specks that they will peck at. It helps. Once every chick has learned about the water, I then introduce them to the crumbles. I will use my finger or a chopstick/twig to peck at the feed. This causes some of the chicks to follow my lead. Once a few chicks are pecking, the rest will learn from them. I once had a batch of chicks that seemed incredibly stupid. I ended up using newspaper for the flooring and scattering crumbles around it. As the chicks pecked at the printed lettering, they eventually got the crumbles and learned to eat. 

     I always teach the chicks to drink water first. I do this as soon as they arrive and I get them home. The first day I use sugar water, but am careful to keep them out of the troughs. Otherwise they get real sticky and covered in the bedding. I once had "breaded chick nuggets" when they walked through their sugar water then kicked around in the crumbles. Obviously I had the wrong kind of waterers and feeders. It took me hours to hand wash and re-fluff those chicks! Lesson learned the hard way. 

      One thing I learned from observation....don't start the chicks out with cold water. Every time I used cold water, that batch of chicks had problems with pasty butt. Since pasty butt is associated with the chicks becoming chilled, I suppose their tanking up on cold water was enough to chill them. When I switched to using warmed water for their introduction to drinking, the chicks did better. Perhaps it was just a coincidence, but I wasn't willing to risk the health and survival of my chicks by conducting controlled experiments using cold vs warm/air temperature drinking water. 

12) Failing to predator proof the pen. I've been surprised and dismayed to see how clever predators are when it comes to getting to the chicks. I've had rats gnaw right through that lightweight, cheap chicken wire. I've had a mongoose reach through the wire and grab chicks going to the feeders. I've had dogs unhook latches and open doors. And finally, I've had little kids open any door without a lock on it. If a predator can at all get in, they will.  

13) I shall end this on lucky 13.... Failing to train children (and adults) around chicks. I've heard of plenty of stories where a chick died while being held. People will tell me that it died of fright. "Really?", I reply. I'm totally skeptical and don't believe it for one second. I've handled tens of thousands of chicks and none have ever died in my hand. I've discussed this with folks who ran hatcheries and they say the same thing. Chicks don't die of fright because they are being held. They die from being held too tightly, from being squeezed, from being dropped. But they don't die of fright. Now I'll agree that a parakeet might die because a stranger grabs and holds it, but not a chick. Nope. Children.....and adults.....need to be instructed how to hold a chick gently and not impair it's breathing. If they can't be taught, then they shouldn't be handed a chick. 

Surprise in the Chicken Pen

One thing I can say about having animals is that they always can surprise you. A hen did just that today. I visited the chicken pen first thing this morning and found a mama bird protecting her single chick. Heck, where did THAT come from? I pick the eggs from the nest boxes every day, usually 2-3 times a day. Sometimes I find one on the ground and I take that one too. 

But this wiley hen somehow snuck an egg past me. The only thing I can figure is that she had a nest secreted away in the floor litter somewhere and must have been sitting on it whenever I came in. Honestly, I never once saw the egg. 

Poor mama was going nuts trying to fend off the other 40-50 chickens in order to keep her chick safe. So I picked her and her chick up and moved them to an empty pen where they can be alone. 

Goes to show you, every day can hold a surprise. 

Chickens -- Calcium

I've been asked to comment in what I use as a source of calcium for my chickens. How could a self sufficient/reliant farm supply this need? 

First, I don't believe that 100% of every resource has to come from the exact acreage of a self sufficient farm. As long as the farm can source the item locally  without undue expense, I believe that is enough. Local sourced, rather than shipped in from outside the region, sits fine with me.

Calcium. Most folks in the USA use ground oyster shells or ground limestone. They simply buy it at the feed store. I could do the same, but why should I? Locally I have a free source of calcium.....coral sand. 

On top of it, the sand is slightly salty from the ocean water. So it becomes a source of salt and trace ocean minerals too. 

I put the sand, right from the beach, into a small bucket which is fastened to the fence so that the birds don't knock it over. I purposely use a small mouthed container so that the hens don't climb in and kick the sand all about. The girls don't eat lots of sand, but over the course of time, they gradually eat away at it. 

My hens also eat small bones in their cooked slop & glop, mice when they can catch them, small birds (a type of dove) when they catch one, plus plenty of green leafy stuff like kale, spinach, and such. So all things considered and since their eggs have strong shells, I think they get enough calcium. 

Chickens -- Suddenly No Eggs

I recently got an email from Duffy about a problem that he's suddenly seeing with his chickens. He moved them from a small coop beside his house into a large open sheep pasture about 800' back. The problem? No eggs.

Duffy did make a roofed over open walled structure to house the feed & water dishes, 6 nest boxes, and some roosts. The chickens have been eating and drinking there, but not using the roosts. And most importantly, not laying eggs in the boxes. So what is going on, I was asked? 

Based upon my own long list of mistakes, I could come up with a number of possible explanations. And keep in mind that there could be more than one thing going on at the same time, in fact, several.

...the sudden change in living quarters. Hens lay better with familiar surroundings. Changes often are greeted with a slowdown of eggs. Once when I moved my hens to a new pen that was only a couple of feet away from the old pen, some hens stopped daily laying. I had other hens never missed a day, but a few that took up to a month or more before laying again. And I learned that the time of year has a bearing. One fall I acquired a bunch of new hens. They promptly stopped laying until the next laying cycle started in January. 

...change in diet. If the hens are use to a particular feed, then any sudden changes can result in no eggs. It's a very common problem that's happened to many new hen keepers. Hens like routine, including diet. 

...new equipment. When I switched from watering bowls to water nipples, several of the hens reacted as though I installed a dangerous monster into their livingquarters. No eggs for a couple of days. 

...red colored new equipment. This didn't happen to me, but another hen keeper decided to get new feed bowls and waterers. He had done it before using black equipment with no problem. But the time he bought all new red equipment, the hens were skeptical and stopped laying for a couple of days. 

...new additions. Adding new flock members can disrupt the whole flock and routines.

...something significantly changed outside. The time I put up a Costco shed adjacent to the chicken pen resulted in low egg production for a week. 

...change in daily routine. Duffy told me that he now feeds the chickens, where before his girlfriend did it. Also, he now feeds them about 8 a.m. whereas his girlfriend put out food at 6. A change in routine like this could very well be contributing to no egg production. 

...change in lifestyle has disturbed my own hens. Duffy has changed his chickens from confinement to free range. That's a major mental leap for a chicken. When my own birds went from all day confinement in a coop/pen situation to afternoon freedom to forage, the egg laying pattern changed. 

If I had to guess, I'd say that the two most likely reason for suddenly no eggs in Duffy's situation are :

1) Hidden nests. His hens have not used the new nest boxes even once. Thus they appear not to be aware of them. My hunch is that they are laying their eggs in hidden nests out around the pasture somewhere. 

2) Egg predators. Egg eaters are common in Mother Nature. Even here in Hawaii we have egg stealing critters -- mongooses, rats, people, and even the hens themselves. Yes, chickens will eat eggs, a bad habit no hen keeper likes to see. 

Chicken Legs

Chicken legs.... I never paid much attention to them until I started my flock here on the farm. It was pointed out to me the other day that they do indeed come in a variety of colors.

The above young feral hen has bright yellow colored legs. Most of the domestic egg laying breeds commonly have bright yellow too. Until I actually owned chickens other than Rhode Island reds and leghorns, I thought all chickens had yellow legs like these. 

Now I have chickens with all sorts of colored legs. The feral hen, above, has green legs. Now that's cool! 

This young cockerel has dark black legs. 

And this little banty has unpigmented legs. They're pinkish white. 

This elderly hen has always had speckled legs and feet. Right now she isn't laying eggs, so her feet are grey spots on dark yellow. When she's been laying for a while her legs go grey spotted on pinkish white. 

This hen is in full egg production. Before she started laying eggs she had dark yellow legs, almost orange. Now they have paled out considerably. This is a common occurances and a way I can tell if she is still laying plenty of eggs. 

Chickens Dining With Pigs

A common question I field from homestead wannabes-- can chickens and pigs coexist? As with most of my answers about homesteading questions, "it depends". 

Most of the people I've chatted with that have both pigs and free range chickens, they say that they have had no problems. But then keep in mind, the pigs are well fed and never go starving. In my own current experience, I've also had no casualties with pigs and chickens being together. 

In fact, my chickens quickly picked up on the fact that I feed pigs "good stuff" and regularly try to crash the party. 

And while the pigs won't let the chickens chase them away from the food nor allow the chickens to eat directly out of their feed bucket, they take no mind of the chickens eating the bits on the ground.....or for that matter, on the pigs themselves! Pigs are sloppy eaters when it comes to wet food. So it's nice to see the chickens clean up the food that otherwise would go to waste and cause an odor. 

But I learned that its not always a safe situation. Hungry pigs will sometimes hunt, catch, and eat live chickens. Yes, live. Back in NJ I knew of a pig that stalked hens, and when successful, ate them live. And once the pigs learn to eat chickens, they won't stop. At least that's what I've been told by the chicken-eating-pig's owner. Thus I'm careful to keep my pigs well fed. I'm on pigs #5 and #6. So far they have all coexisted with the free range birds. 

By the way, I've also been told of incidents where hungry pigs caught snakes, cats, puppies, and small dogs. So the common denominator is hunger. I plan to keep my own pigs happy with full bellies!