Things They Don't Tell You About Raising Chickens

 

     It's been over a year now since we brought home our balls of fluff.  From the start we knew we wanted a multipurpose chicken that we could raise for eggs and meat, and had settled on Plymouth Barred Rocks after a lot of research, and this past spring we added some Delawares as well.  The Mr. designed a chicken coop, which I've nicknamed the "Pastured Poultry Palace," designed to separate the birds into meat and laying flocks, and cut down the workload on us of having to go to two separate buildings.  Yet during the last year we came across quite a few things that no one really ever told us before raising chickens.  So to hopefully eliminate some surprises for you along your journey, I thought I'd better relay some of our not-so-wonderful adventures: 

Decide early on if the chickens are your pets or your food.  Realistically, they cannot be both.

Roosters to roasters.
(You can thank one of my old bosses for that pun.) 

     I cannot recall how many times I was asked what the names of our chickens were, as though all animals have names... but ours don't.  It was something we decided immediately, and by not naming them, it helped us along in the mindset we had to follow to get us through the inevitable fate of farm animals raised for food.  (It certainly helped me for sure!)  At some point our animals would become dinner.  That by no means, means you should mistreat the animals because they are your food instead of your pets.  Every morning, I still went up and said hi to them as I got them their food, and changed out their water.  I'd throw earthworms I found to them or leftover grapes, and enjoyed watching them chase each other around for the "treats."  When times are economically tough, I always make sure to purchase the animal's food first before our own to ensure that they always have enough to eat.  (Don't worry, we won't go hungry either.  We just might not be eating the food we want, but instead the food we have.)  They, while they were with us, enjoyed great lives.  And, when the time came to make dinner out of some of them, the process was quick.  I cannot stress enough that whether your chicken is a pet or food/food source is something that you need to understand from the beginning, and remember that mindset as you raise them, because if you're treating your chicken like a pet, it will be really hard when you need to cook one for the table.

Our Delawares out in their pasture run.  We've found our chickens prefer green over grain.

They want it all, and they want it NOW.  

The Plymouth Barred Rock rooster is
always the most vocal with his
demands.  He also lets his hens know
when someone is on their way with
food to the coop.  The Delawares
have caught on to his announcements
now, and come running too.

     The chickens have always been ones to want to be fed.  It's not that we underfeed our birds.  It's just they believe that whatever we have in the bucket is going to be bigger and better than whatever they have in front of them.  The hens scramble to the feed bucket each morning, half climbing over top of each other on their mad dash for whatever "treats" are in it.  (Apparently, the grass is always greener on the other side.)  I have gotten pecked by the hens until I drop the bucket and released all the food, especially if I am blocking them from getting into the bucket since they only get half of its contents.  I've also gotten pecked by a rooster so badly that it drew blood because I wasn't feeding his grain holder fast enough.  (My mother actually got spurred by a rooster when doing feeding for us while we were on vacation as well.)  The moral of the message is... when you feed them, do it fast and no one gets hurt.  

  

Roosters (and hens) can be ornery.  

Our three Plymouth Barred
Rock roosters in calmer times.

     Everyone mentions a mean rooster or a hen a little too aggressive in establishing the pecking order, but we were certainly not prepared for the blood bath that I stumbled across when closing up the coop on March 28.  It looked like something out of a television crime drama, with actual spray patterns of the blood inside the run.  You could see where one cornered the other.  Where the larger of the two started aggressively ripping feathers out from the underside of the medium rooster's wing.  And then, their blood stained trail to the  coop.

     We shined a light into the inside of the coop, the largest two roosters were coated in blood, feathers still hanging from their mouths, and their faces pecked and obviously still bleeding, as well as were various parts of their bodies.  The third rooster, the smallest one, was snuggled up on the roost against the wall that led to the ladies' side, specks of blood on him from the spray of the fight, but no sign of physical harm, or that he was aggressive towards the others.  He had always been the quiet one, while the two larger ones were always battling for dominance.  There was nothing we could do for the two larger, battle scarred roosters, and for the first times in our lives butchered chickens.  We started at 7 p.m., and only stumbled into bed around midnight.  The next morning our lone rooster, crowed much louder and prouder than I had ever heard him crow before, to welcome the sun and greeted the four ladies on the other side of the fence.  I have a feeling our meat birds will become meat birds a little quicker from here on out...

There's a routine established with chickens.

Walking down their tunnel run.  The
scraps they don't pick at get cleaned out.

     Maybe it's not intentional on the part of the birds, but the chickens established a routine for us, and not the other way around.  The first thing I do in the mornings at the coop is dump their scraps into their "tunnel runs" to the "pasture run," or directly into the "pasture run" if I'm feeling extra adventurous.  Then, I open the tunnels or chutes, and head towards the coop.  This preoccupies the chickens so the rest of the chores I can do only with the "assistance" of the farm cats, and not both birds and cats.  Then I change out the water inside the coop or run, refill any grain holders that need filling, and check for eggs.  (We also check for eggs in the late-afternoon/evening too, as some prefer morning to lay, and others the afternoon.)  By getting the birds essentially "out of the way" chores go a lot quicker at the coop.

     As an important note: They will let you know if you are late.  Every morning, I try to be out there between 8:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.  By 9:45, I am officially late, and the rooster will be crowing about more than just the sun.  If I'm there at 8:00 a.m., the hens are dust bathing, and looking at with the "um, we're still getting our morning baths" look, and you know you are in trouble for interrupting them.

No matter how you design your coop (or if you purchase a pre-built coop), they'll be something about it you'll wish you could change.  

     We did research for months on how we wanted a chicken coop constructed before the hammer hit the first nail, yet looking back, there are certainly things we'd do differently now...

• Sure edges on poop trays and doors to the coop hold shavings and poop in, but they also hold it in, making it a pain when you go to clean the coop.  
• The chicken "pasture run" was originally constructed without an access hatch, but we quickly learned it needed one to allow us to feed them in the run and for any emergencies.  
• The pvc grain holders made life easier to fit everything inside the coop, but the elbows don't allow feed to fall down very well, so we resorted back to regular feeders as their primary feeders in the coop, and use the pvc pipes as a secondary feeder. 
• Our Plymouth Barred Rock hens prefer curtains on their nesting boxes as long as they are pulled way back.  Regardless, our hens prefer to face the wall when nesting and only turn around if they hear noise in the coop.  
• You will never be able to make their favorite nesting box large enough, and they will try to lay eggs on top of each other in the box.  Two of our hens favor the left box, and the other two favor the right.  If someone is in the box when they want to be you can hear the ruckus caused by the complaining hen in the house (a few hundred feet away, with all windows closed)! 

... just to name a few.  

What have you learned about your chickens that no one prepared you for?