Chicken Update…
Well it’s been over 2 weeks since the great chicken massacre of 2010 and so far we are doing great! Thus far we have only lost 5 chickens and things have been much calmer in the hoop house.
Here are a few lessons we have learned:
- Never put straw in a greenhouse chicken coop! The straw creates a vapor barrier that does not allow the poop to mix with the soil and wood chips. When the hoop house heats up during the day the straw/feces begins to compost and to release ammonia into the environment. Besides smelling really bad, the ammonia is harmful to the chickens and can stress them. Every time I now go into the coop, I am shocked at how “nice” it smells in there. When the carbon to feces mix is off, you can tell as soon as you walk in the door. Simply adding a layer of wood shavings and it soon smells like a pine forest (full of chickens). Also, if you notice any “capping” (a solid layer of poop) you can simply rake the area to spread the poop around.
- Make changes in a very slow and deliberate manner. Chickens do not like change! If you build anything inside the coop, know that it will take time to dismantle it. We made the mistake of building an area out of straw bales that they could sleep in and when we removed it all at once they freaked out! This lead to panic and a “dog pile” in the corner. If you do build a shelter in the coop dismantle it slowly so as not to panic the chicks.
- Don’t make changes close to nightfall. Chickens get very nervous if disrupted or disturbed near dusk. It is very easy to panic them by making changes late in the afternoon and evening. I now try to do all my work in the coop in the morning so they can get use to the changes and calm down before nightfall. I also make every effort to stay out of the hoop house after dark. Any light after dark gets them moving and that leads to dead chickens in the morning.
I’m sure to the seasoned chicken farmer these are, “no-duh” revelations but for a newbie, this is all new stuff.
Thanks for all you support and we will keep you posted on our progress.
Our happy chickens
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My daughter lives in Colorado Springs and sent me this link. Here are some things I remember Grandma telling me and that I learned with my own chickens in 4-H in the 1950′s:
Do not keep one hen and three roosters. They will “love” her to death, literally. Watch if you have lots of chickens that all the roosters aren’t crazy about the same hen.
If you break an egg, clean every bit of it out of the pen. Also don’t give them eggshells to peck at for part of their grit unless you have boiled the eggs and ground the shells. They may then start pecking at their own eggs and eating the insides.
An old white porcelain door knob works great to place in a nest to make the hens think it is the perfect place to lay. Having one egg in a nest seems to encourage other hens to use that nest.
If you have a hen who decides she is going to “sit” (i.e. stop laying and try to hatch what she has) you can make her change her mind by putting her in a small cage with a chicken wire floor, like a rabbit hutch. You can tell she is doing this if she is always sitting on that nest when you collect the eggs. She will only have to stay in the hutch a few days before she decides to stop sitting and resume laying.
A good way to catch an escaped chicken is to open up a coat hanger and make a narrow hook in one end. Just slide it across the ground and snag one foot. Only do this if you really must catch the chicken and she refuses to cooperate, because she may fight hard enough to hurt herself. This is for when one is outside the pen and may be lost to raccoons or foxes at night.
My 9th grade science fair project was to dissect two chickens; one thin that laid eggs and one really fat that didn’t. The fat one had reproductive organs that were so clogged with fat, it was clear why she didn’t lay. Don’t feed your chickens so much that they get really fat. Corn will fatten them pretty quickly.
Wish I could have chickens here in Chicago. It is nice to stand in the middle of a little flock and scatter grain. Good luck to all. “Here chick, chick, chick!”