Chickens & Chicken Rearing 🐔 - Eggcelent

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Just make sure you don't have too many -- family of mine had a few dozen birds and that was insane to take care of without extra help. They went down to about 6 being left, after selling them off. :0
 
I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I’ll take my threadban now. IMG_2076.webp
 
Boybortion dijo:
I’m excited. I’m building them the best coop ever. Proper insulation and venting for moisture. They’re going to have the best chicken life’s.
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Be careful with insulation, their coat does a very good job retaining bodyheat even in very northern climates, Its generally not needed unless you live in an extremely cold region. Dont wanna overheat the lil' guys.
 
What breed? Small girls, or big gorls?
I love my chimkens, and I've made so much money from selling yard eggs. I've got, like, 5 dozen in my fridge still. We ran out of egg cartons, and we just started putting them in the vegetable drawer.
 
Autistic Gunspergings dijo:
Be careful with insulation, their coat does a very good job retaining bodyheat even in very northern climates, Its generally not needed unless you live in an extremely cold region. Dont wanna overheat the lil' guys.
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Going to have sensors inside the coop and use home assistant to open and close a vent to make sure the temp/humidity stays optimal. Also still going together go out each day to check on them and have a back up thermometer and hygrometer just to be safe.

We can get down to -40 Celsius for a few weeks a year and want to make sure they’ll be safe and secure.
 
anliteralidiot dijo:
What breed? Small girls, or big gorls?
I love my chimkens, and I've made so much money from selling yard eggs. I've got, like, 5 dozen in my fridge still. We ran out of egg cartons, and we just started putting them in the vegetable drawer.
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Hoping to find a local breeder to get brahma. Any colour is fine by me, but I want to get chicks with smaller combs and covered feet to be more comfortable in the winter.
 
btw you should look into extending the coop walls slightly into the ground or putting some cinder blocks/large rocks underneath it. Foxes and other predators can and will dig under certain walls if they're too shallow. Looks very cool otherwise.
 
As Tim Pool says, chickens are based. They're great for food and insect pest protection, and once you get your run and coop setup right, they're relatively low maintenance.

Here's more than a few helpful tips and tricks I've learned over the years... Make sure you get a proper brooder setup until they're old enough to be outside.
Keep up on their coop maintenance and cleaning.
Chicken wire is absolutely useless against predators like raccoons and skunks, use hardware cloth no more than an inch wide and bury it or run it out along the ground for the best protection.
Get a solar powered timed coop door so they will be safely enclosed in the coop at night.
Change their coop bedding (I use pine shavings) at least once every few weeks. More in winter time as they'll stay in the coop and shit in it more often.
Make sure you have at least 2 nesting boxes available, I recommend half as many as the amount of chickens you have. They'll all use the same one or two anyway, and will actually sit on top of each other to lay their eggs while there's a perfectly good nesring box right next to it.
sigh-six-nest-boxes-yet-3-in-one-box-v0-tk0wshmez5db1.webp
(Not my pic, stolen from the internet)
Make sure their coop is sturdy and secure. Chickens don't give a shit about name brand or high dollar coops, but they have to be a good shelter from the elements.
Make sure you have high roosting bars that the chickens can easily access. They're naturally wanting to roost higher as a means of predator evasion. I recommend at least 1" round or square boards as roost perches.
Sometimes chickens are fucking dumb. Get a couple fake ceramic eggs or golf balls to put in their nesting boxes to help teach them where to lay. It also helps to prevent them from eating their own eggs, if they try to peck and eat the ceramic ones, they'll learn quick that it doesn't work. Likewise, don't feed them their old egg shells as a calcium supplement unless they're all broken up into indistinguishable pieces, or else they might learn bad habits.
Chick starter feed with medication is what I recommend until they're feathered out, after that layer crumbles or pellets, with oyster shell or eggshells as calcium supplementation.
Obviously, fresh clean water and feed. Don't let their feed get wet or it'll mold quickly.
Give them plenty of treats, scratch grains or mealworms is what i use. If you feed them those by hand you'll train them to come to you and they can be extremely friendly.

I can't think of anything else right now, but feel free to PM me or reply. I'm no expert, but I have had [REDACTED] number of chickens for [REDACTED] years, and haven't had any major issues.
 
Boybortion dijo:
Hoping to find a local breeder to get brahma. Any colour is fine by me, but I want to get chicks with smaller combs and covered feet to be more comfortable in the winter.
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Oh fuck yeah, I've got a couple of brahmas and they both started laying in January. They're really chill, too, and they get along with my littler hens.
 
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