They shit. A lot.
Like... a lot a lot
this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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Backyard Chickens (and Other Birds)
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[Were you a mod of backyard chickens on Reddit? Message me if you're interested in modding here.]
This is a community for people who keep chickens in their back yard. This includes pets, layers, and meaties at levels that are sub-industrial. Family farms and homesteads are included.
EDIT
The Fediverse is small. There probably aren't enough people here to make up a community for every type of bird that someone might keep so for now, everyone is welcome. Bring us your ducks and geese, turkeys and quail, Guineas and Peacocks, emus and parrots. The community will be focused on chickens but until there are enough of each bird community for their own community they will find care and comfort here.
/EDIT
There may be discussions of animal processing. This is part of chicken keeping. If you don't like it leave and block the community.
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All Lemmy.ca rules apply here.
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Everyone (see rules 4 and 98) is welcome.
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If you've seen a question 100 times answer it the 101st time or ignore it. Even better, write a complete, detailed answer and suggest that the mod(s) pin it to the community.
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There will be ZERO tolerance for shaming, brigading, harassment, or other nonsense of those who keep and process chickens. You will be permanently banned the first time.
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No, it's not a calcium deficiency. Wrinkled eggs are the result of insufficient or insufficiently viscous albumen. Tiny eggs and missing shells are misfires. They happen.
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[Did you actually think there were 98 rules?]
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I always describe small farming as food in, shit out, and racing from one crisis to another.
Welcome.
Good to know. It's pretty good as manure?
Not only is it pretty good as manure, it is manure
I knew after I'd finished writing it. It is what it is. But it's good for garden. Hopefully plants like it.
We are only getting 4 to start with. See how we go.
Another benefit of raising chickens besides tick control - super great garden fertilizer.
Truth. I'm getting my compost bins hot hot HOT
I grew up on a small chicken farm. Mostly we just gathered eggs for ourselves and traded them for other food.
The biggest tip i always offer is, if you have an open top coop and you clip wings to stop them from flying out, only clip one wing. If you clip both they can still fly out.
Interesting. I hadn't thought about flight. Not sure how I'll deal with them
Another note on clipping wings. When they would get out I would pick them up and toss them over the top of the fence. They don't fly well but they fly well enough to make a decent landing...unless they have a clipped wing in which case they fly like bowling balls.
That does make sense. Thanks
Think about predators - everything: rats, cats, dogs, hawks, mink, snakes, raccoons, foxes, bears, alligators, human thieves etc - depending on where you are. They taste like chicken. Can you predatorize the coop or will you accept a certain rate of loss (be aware that once they know the chickens are there, they’ll be back). And what are you going to do with injured, not dead chickens?
Our run has hardware netting on all sides including the top and under the dirt, and we let them out in the garden to live their best lives when we’re at home. So far this has kept predation down although we have had some curious cats.
Also if you have kids think about whether your chickens are livestock or pets. Ours are pets that lay eggs.
Yeah we have possums that we are slowly whittling down. Only other predators are swamp cats and stoats. The coop should be fully protected but I suppose we won't know until we get them in.
We have dogs and they know the cows. Will be a bit difficult at the start but they will get used to them. They will know soon enough hopefully. I think dog will get used to them soon enough.
Chooks are herd animals. Never seperate out one bird for an extended amount of time, they need company. Listen to them talk to each other and you will learn the sounds for food, and sky predators, and ground predators, and etc, and be able to copy those sounds and communicate with them.
They are also creatures of habit and routine. Start out how you intend to go on, do the same thing each day, and they will be easier to control if they know what is going to happen at the same time each day.
That's is great advice. Hopefully get them into a routine fairly soon. I'm not sure about it the noises I can try my best
#1 thing to know: they have feathers, no really, they do! i swear!!
joking aside, they are awesome to have. how much experience do you have with chickens already?
Zero. I have never owned chickens before. My partner had them as a kid so I will be relying on her. We have a co-op and will hopefully let them roam free range
Congratulations! Chickens are awesome and more people should keep them.
I have answered this question a few times in the past over at the place with the subs. Bellow is a pretty long wall of text, of what I can remember, in a somewhat prioritized order.
- Chicken math! Always build for twice the bird you're planning on getting.
- Find a reliable source of bird health info before it's needed. Vetting something you've googled, while in a bit of a panic, and your bird is suffering, sucks.
- Have a plan for treating an injured bird. Most vets won't treat a chicken, so treating may include culling. Figure out how you will be doing that, and have your method of choice ready. Personally we will hold the chicken with the non-dominant arm and whack it in the back of the head with a piece of steel pipe, before applying a designated, and very sharp, ax to the neck.
- You may be planning on feeding your birds kitchen scrap. At least we were. But scraps will seldom be enough feed, and it will never be the right composition of nutrients. So shop around for feed. There may be a difference in quality, quantity and price. Quality is hard to evaluate, but euros/kg is easy and so is the desired quantity. Shopping around meant that we shaved 6% of the feed cost, 15km off of the round trip, and got the feed in 15kg bags, which fit our 15kg feeder, compared to the 20kg bags we used to buy which didn't fit and then had to be stored open.
- By now you should have the coop ready, but how about feed storage? It needs to be stored dry and preferably close to where it's needed.
- Do you have a source of bedding material? If not, then the same thing applies as for feed vis-a-vis both acquisition and storage.
- In my hemisphere winter is coming presently, and thus darkness. Darkness means fewer eggs. We counter this by having battery powered christmas lights (white LEDs that doesn't blink, they're not party birds) strung around inside the coop.
- Speaking of winter, it appears that chickens can't drink solid water - if that's a possibility where you're at, then plan ahead. We have dug a hole in the run, where we put a long burning grave candle with an old pot on top. That way the water doesn't freeze over and also doesn't heat up to unsanitary temperatures.