how many of you on here keep a few chickens

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April 12, 2012 at 2:07 pm #43726
mink
Participant
i was wondering how many people on here keep a few chickens on their farms? what are your thoughts on them?
April 12, 2012 at 4:15 pm #73417
grey
Participant
Chickens are most economical if you can let them free-range in an area that is protected from predators and have them safely cooped at night with an automatic coop door. Feeding chickens attracts rodents. We love our little mixed flock but since they must be confined (we live in the middle of the woods with lots of hawks, eagles, raccoons and coyotes), they cost a pretty penny to feed in a healthy manner. We had a boom in the rodent population and got three more barn cats to compensate.
When we get more mesh perimeter fence put up around the central farm “compound”, we might start letting the hens out into the closer paddocks and pastures during the day. But for now it is too easy for a coyote to dart out of the woods and make off with a chicken before anyone sees it coming.
If you have a good supply of leavings/scraps, you might be able to feed chickens more economically. We don’t generate much kitchen waste so we have to purchase all of their feedstuffs. Since we have these guys primarily for eggs, I see no reason to feed them the cheap stuff. We feed them the spendy, high-quality stuff so the nutrition is transferred to the eggs. I could feed them more cheaply but it would result in lower-quality eggs. If I wanted eggs that are nutritionally bland, I’d buy commercial eggs and it would be much less hassle.
The chickens themselves are wonderful critters. So full of character and personality. We got chickens to enjoy watching them as much as we did for the eggs. The plan is to put the chickens in tractors on the “latrine” portions of the pastures but we aren’t there yet.
April 12, 2012 at 4:26 pm #73426
Andy Carson
Moderator
I have about 40 laying hens right now, and I still have people waiting for eggs despite the fact that they are laying like crazy right now. They are by far the easiest farm animal I have ever taken care of. I am not even sure what’s the second easiest, as anything else is a long way back… I might be able to talk my wife into a few more, but somewhere around this number is where you seem to go from “a person with some chickens” to “that house is overrun with chickens”. I had origionally thought I would grow and sell some for meat, but the eggs are so much more lucrative, and easier to find customers. Right now, I have a broody hen that is usually in some state of raising chicks (MUCH easier than a incubator, by the way) and only sell the male offspring of these for meat. Another bonus of having chickens is that they eat a lot of the bugs, including the fly larve that breed in the manure of large animals (IE, horse droppings, cowpies) and in the process spread the manure for you. They also stratch around in the compost pile a lot and provide a suprizing amount of surface mixing (although you still have to do the heavy lifting with a shovel). I really don’t know a downside. Maybe if you have bad predator problems… I have had good luck with an automatic chickien door that closes at night, a 4 wire electric perimeter fence, a big dog that barks at predators (although doesn’t attack them 🙁 ), and periodic trapping to get the few predators that have figured out that my dogs bark is worse than his bite. I mitigate the cost of feed by buying directly from a nearby farmer and storing the grain in 55 gallon drums. He gives me a better price than the elevator would pay partly because I pick it up from him and partly because the grain isn’t very clean. The chickens can pick through it just fine.
April 12, 2012 at 5:31 pm #73434
Anonymous
Inactive
we have 60 hens right now and like countrymouse said we could sell more eggs, I also love stew hens and we are working on making chicken sausage out of the spent hens for sale at the farmers market. I do raise some young roosters up for broilers but the stew hens make a lot more money through their life and we eat them in the end anyway, and they taste better. I agree that chickens are one of the best farm animals. I dare to say that rabbits are a close second though, the meat is great, and they dress out faster than chickens. There were only a few years where I havent had chickens and I hated it. I was traveling a lot at one point and we had a little bantam hen who would ride in the care, she even laid eggs in my bike basket on the porch…
jared
April 12, 2012 at 9:09 pm #73419
jen judkins
Participant
We have about 50 hens and a dozen muscovy ducks. I will agree with everything said in this thread so far. We DO have some predators, but I still allow my hens to free range. My long term outlook is that the hens that are smartest and fly best will survive and be best suited to our farm. Most of our new birds are born on the farm and are a mixed breed. I also run a few guinea hens with our chickens and have to say the predators do not like the sound they make…and we have lost fewer birds since having them. The biggest benefit (besides fresh eggs and meat) is their voracious appetite for bugs. With all the other livestock we have, this is a huge help. The only downside to free range chickens is keeping them out of my garden. I put up a lot of bird netting in the spring.
April 12, 2012 at 10:40 pm #73429
sickle hocks
Participant
I just picked up 8 pullets and a young rooster in March. They have the run of the place right now. They are a lot of fun to have around. There are a lot of hawks and coyotes around, but there seems to be a bit of a bubble right around my cabin that is safe-ish, lots of activity and scent, and the dog wandering around.
I think I am going to spend some money on electric mesh (as much for predator protection as anything) for a portable sheep / chicken paddock where they can free range on rotation. I will have a portable shelter but I will not spend money trying to predator proof it, and hope the fence is effective, and hope my llamma helps out. (I’ve seen her keep one coyote off the sheep so far). Or maybe it will be a moveable feast…
The eggs sell themselves, and have me thinking I should get four times as many birds. Sell tasty stewing chickens to the well-informed when their time is up. I am growing some hulless grains this year so I should be able to provide for a lot of their feed. Our egg laying drops off a lot in the winter with the short photoperiod at this lattitude…so keeping a bunch of hens overwinter may cut into the bottom line but I wonder if there isn’t potential…? I have barred rocks and am really hoping that at least one of them will get broody, if not this summer then next.
ps. anyone know of any automatic doors set up to run off a little solar panel / battery?
April 13, 2012 at 1:01 am #73421
dominiquer60
Moderator
I have worked with flocks of 1 to 3700. I had to sell my small flock last year, but hope to start another next spring. Dominiques are my breed of choice, but I like most heavy breeds that lay well and make tasty stew hens. More later.
April 13, 2012 at 1:02 am #73433
nihiljohn
Participant
Sickle Hocks. Murry McMurry. http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com. We keep around 35 hens. They run free range and are locked up at night in the house that was built by my great grandfather. I stood and talked to a young amish man at the Topeka Draft Horse Sale this spring. We were waiting on the sale truck to get down to a batch of chicken equipment. He runs 400 + hens and is looking to expand to 1000. He sells all his eggs locally to stores and restaurant and pitches them as “hens fed on non-GMO grain” He gets $3.50 + a dzn. It seems to becoming the way to go.
April 13, 2012 at 4:01 am #73430
Kevin Cunningham
Participant
We currently run about 50 laying hens in a mobile coop that I hope to someday pull with the oxen. It is fairly small and they will probably be able to haul it by the end of the summer. We use poultry net from Premier one. We also run close to 2000 broilers durring the season. Our first two rounds just went out in the chicken tractors. I am sold on using the poultry to improve burned out pasture. The half of the farm that has had birds on it for two years is drastically different than the half we are now getting to run chickens on. And all to other animals run straight for that chicken grass when their pen moves over already chickened ground. As far as predators go, we haven’t had much issue with then but I recommend electric fencing, livestock guardians, and human presence to deter predators.
April 13, 2012 at 4:24 am #73418
grey
Participant
Kevin, could you elaborate on your chicken/grazing livestock rotation? The time frames involved for each type on the pasture would be great.
April 13, 2012 at 3:24 pm #73431
Kevin Cunningham
Participant
We’ll right now we are trying to improve our pasture as we slowly increase the numbers of ruminants that we can carry. When we bought the farm it had been hayed every year without input for at least ten years. No real grazing and export of all the grass every year. We have a sandy soil with low organic matter. So what we have been doing is running the chicken tractors over blocks of the farm at about 1 acre a year, as well as mob grazing with our motely crew of steer, sheep, and goats. This might be the first year that we won’t have to mow prior to chicken tractors to keep the grass low enough for the birds.
So this year we just finished grazing down our main “hay field” and we may still have to hay this field this year because we may not quite have enough animals yet. Next is the mobile egg unit, consisting of our 50 layers plus a few ducks. And one acre of the 10 acre field we get the chicken treatment. We may come back and regraze after grazing the other half of the farm or it might go to hay we shall see. The one acre that got chickened though will get summer irrigation to utilize the chicken manure and grow a lush summer pasture for the dry months of our summer when our land will get bone dry. Hopefully it will cut down on the summer months when I have fed hay. Last year we got the ability to irrigate and that should at least keep part of the farm green when the rest will be brown and dry. The benefit of the dry period is that it prevents disease build up.
In three years of work it is noticeable the difference in the grass. Right now one half of the farm is low grass that shows nutrient deficiencies and the other half is lush green and ready to make some meat, milk, and draft. I am learning as I go but I can see the difference that birds make on the soil and the animals can also see it because they prefer the chicken grass every time. My philosophy is that I might have to import some fertility to get the farm up to a standard that I want and need for the animals. So if I am going to bring in an off farm material it should be chicken feed and then I get the added benefits of eggs and meat that I can sell to offset the cost of bringing in the “fertilizer.”
So far so good and and we love seeing the farm come alive with the presence of animals in the fields. Especially the chickens.
April 13, 2012 at 3:55 pm #73427
mitchmaine
Participant
hi kevin, we have been doing the same with our birds except without the plan. we use chicken tractors on skids, but find that we don’t move them as often as they should because its harder to move them. so we are building one up on an old hay rack. even though they stay sometimes too long on a patch. totally denuded clay ground springs back with a rain to lush grass. its a miracle. we have towed them up through the gardens, and put them in pennys flower garden in spring and they uncover everything and do the weeding. they are alot of fun and quite a blessing if we actually sat down and hatched up a plan for them. reading this thread is full of good ideas. thanks all.
April 14, 2012 at 4:09 am #73432
Kevin Cunningham
Participant
Here are a couple of pictures of our chicken tractors and the Poop Coop as it is affectionately known. We have a system inside to collect a deep bedding pack for compost making. That is why the door is so high up. Right now two or three people can move it but soon I want my steers to pull it forward for our pasture moves. I am pretty happy with the design and someday I will make a larger one on a full size running gear so we can expand the birds but we always try to start small and grow from there.
April 14, 2012 at 12:50 pm #73424
Michel Boulay
Participant
Hi, keeping 8 laying hens for our own use. so 8 eggs a day means we give some to friends and family. We started some 20 years ago with 4 layers and a couple of Emden geese that I inherited from my brother who was moving and didn’t have room for. The coop was 4×8 about four feet high I could take the roof off to clean, had a heat lamp for winter, little sliding door to pick-up the eggs went pretty well but not practicle in the long run. At that time only predator was my neighbor’s dog which got my four hens they were free ranging. My neighbor came over and wanted to pay for the hens I said no but keep your dog home. Anyways at the time a farmer neighbor and dog catcher told me if it happens again a 22 calibre doesn’t make any noise and get rid of the dog nobody will notice, wow was suprised of his answer but I guest sometimes you need drastic measures. Don’t worry I didn’t need to go that way don’t think I would. So we got more hens and this time a racoon was my predator climb over the chicken wire fence and did a good job of killing them. So after that done with hens. The geese hatched three eggs so we had five for a while, the neighbor’s dog got 2 and the others went in the freezer. Who needs a predator when one’s got a neighbor’s dog close bummer.
So a year an a half ago my wife said I found a hatcher close by and he has Plymouth barred rocks which I love the color and would like to have. We bought them chick and they were not sexed that’s our first experience going that way. Well when we went to pick them up we got a bakers dozen (13) and we had read that it could be 50/50 hens and roosters guest what we got 7 roosters and 6 hens. Now imagine when they were old enough the hens couldn’t jump off there perch that a rooster was already on them so that was time to get rid of them. There was one lucky rooster and the others ended up in the freezer. By that time we had lost one rooster for no apparent reason. In the next year we lost a hen and there to for no apparent reason?? So one rooster for 5 hens which were not laying very well we could have one egg one day and 4 the other so very eratic laying not satisfied with that so got rid of them last fall and bought ready to lay last october and these out performed the barred rocks. They are road island red mix and are laying consistantly one egg a day. We didn’t do anything different with them, is it the breed maybe is it one rooster with 5 hens that the barred rock were not performing as they should? Anyway everything is going well. No predators up to now. I’ve let them free range and they love it. The coop is insulated with a window on the south so in winter we could have minus 15°C outside with a beautiful sunny day and it would plus 6°C inside the coop so we didn’t put any heat lamp in there. When we didn’t have sun out it could be minus 5 inside the coop.:o Now she wants to get meat kings, turkeys and more emden geese:eek: The geese make good watch dogs, that was fun to have around for that. So that’s my little experience with poultry.

May 10, 2012 at 2:28 pm #73425
mink
Participant
i decided to get some chicks a month ago. its amazing how fast they grow . i figured not knowing anything about them id lose some , i got 20 and never lose a single one. i chose the golden comets.
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