Raising Chickens For Eggs

Just the sound of it makes you envision chickens roaming around under blue skies on a partly cloudy 72 degree day. Little dots in fields of clover, living happily ever after! This is terrific, if you have fields where your chickens can play. If not, you may want to take a look at this.

Number 1 chickens are prey. If you have dogs, this may not be a great idea.
Number 2 chickens are prey. If you have cats, this might not be a good idea.
Number 3 chickens are prey. If you have raccoons, foxes, skunks, coyotes, weasels, opossums, owls,hawks, eagles or any other varmints that may come into your yard.

I have not seen a dog yet that didn't like to chase chickens. It's the thrill of the hunt. All that fluttering and cackling going on. It's not so much that they want to eat the chicken, they just want to chase and catch it. Most of the time not meaning to hurt the chicken, but it ends up that they do. All the while, proudly displaying satisfaction of a job well done! Wow! Look, what I caught!

Cats have even been known to catch chickens. Though most are spoiled rotten, some are dumped out into neighborhoods and are forced to live off the land. To a big, hungry cat a chicken looks like a meal. Not to mention cats will also eat your eggs! If they are hungry they will find a nest and break the eggs then have lunch.

There is nothing worse than watching an owl or hawk swoop into your chickens and pluck one out. You are left helpless, watching as your helpless chicken is carried off. I know that's an ugly picture, but it does happen if your chickens don't have a place to hide.

There's reason they call it hen "Scratch"
As you see by this picture chickens do scratch. Notice that there is not a blade of grass or anything left in the pen. When the ground gets wet from rain they will scratch to find food, worms, bugs and whatever. They will seek out nice moist soil for there excavating. Such as lawns and flower beds. Yeah! If you don't want weeds in your flower beds chickens can fix that. Of course, you won't have any flowers left either. Chickens will eat most anything and beautiful flowers are no exceptions.

If you only have a couple of chickens the damage will take longer, but they will eventually dig up your yard. It's not because you don't feed them, it's just their nature. It is what instinct tells them to do.

Another problem with letting run around wild, is that they will sneak off and make a nest somewhere and you won't find the eggs. Even without a rooster they will make a nest and sit on, waiting for the eggs to hatch. Of course they won't, but the hen doesn't realize that.

Reading this you may think chickens would be more trouble than it's worth. It's not. Armed with a little knowledge and knowing what to expect you can enjoy your chickens and fresh eggs for years to come.

So, do you think there's a difference?

The egg on the left is fresh. The egg on the right was bought two days ago from the local grocery store. If you see can that much difference in color and shape, just imagine the taste. Really, fresh eggs are that much better.

I keep my chickens in a chicken pen. It's like their own little yard, which is under some shade trees. Chickens need some kind of shade. Like any other animal they can easily die from the heat.

You may think bigger is better when you build your coop, but that's not always the case. If your coop is too big they will not be able to keep warm.

I will let them out of the pen to scratch around and have some fun when I have time to watch them. They are kinda like kids, you just have to keep an eye on them. I let them in my garden when I don't have anything growing to harvest. They make pretty good cultivators. It's the organic version of "weed and feed".

And, yes when chicken poop is in the dry crumbly stage it is very high in nitrogen, which makes good fertilizer if used properly. It can be added to amend the soil or put in your compost bin.

I hope this lens helps, if you are considering raising chickens for eggs. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask it in the comment box. I will help you if I can.

Chickens are birds and though they don't fly well, they can fly well enough to get out of their pen if it doesn't have wire on top. Mine chicken pen does not have wire, on top, because it is under the trees.

To stop your chickens from flying out you will have to "clip their wings." Now nobody panic! This will not hurt the chickens in any way. It is no different than you getting a hair cut. You will have to catch the chicken and extend it's wing out straight. It will be scared so just reassure it you are not going to hurt it. Now, you can feel where the meat ad bone is, and what is just feathers. You just want to trim the feathers. You need to stay at least an 11/2 to 2 inches from the meat. If you get to close it will cause the feather to bleed. If you are worried then trim a little at at time. All your doing when you trim the feathers is throwing the chicken off balance, when it tries to fly.

If you do this a couple of times, as the feathers will grow back out, the chicken will most likely get complacent to being in the pen. A couple of mine still want get out, but most are content.

Just remember this will take away the ability for the chicken to fly away from predators as well. So, be sure they are safe.

Yeah! Yeah! I know. But I really do love chickens and want the best for them.

If you have any questions just leave them in the comment box. I will be glad to help, if I can.

I just wanted to include a tip for gathering eggs. Most of the time gathering the eggs is pretty easy. Just reach in and pick them up and put them a basket. Now then, at some point your hens might want to "set" the eggs. This means her biological clock is telling her to hatch some chicks. (Whether there is a rooster or not.) She will be protective of her eggs and might make threatening sounds to discourage you. She might even peck at you and be unwilling to get off the nest. This is normal. She just wants to be a momma.

Always make her get up, even if you have to lift her off the nest. Never just slide your hand under the chicken to retrieve the eggs. You might get more than you bargained for. Snakes like eggs too! I have found more than one under a nice warm chicken, and yes the chicken will be sitting there on the snake, that ate the eggs she was trying hatch.

This is just a word to the wise. You may not have snakes where you are from, but many people do. I live way out in the country and never go in the chicken house without a thorough look. Where I live we have "chicken snakes". I don't know the technical name for them, we have always called them chicken snakes. They are not poisonous, but can be big and scary. (To me anyway.) Last year when my chicks were big enough to go out in the pen, three snakes thought it was an all you could eat buffet. The chicks were big enough that the snakes couldn't swallow them, but they killed a few chicks and tried to eat them anyway.

Again, I did not write this to discourage you from getting chickens. I just want you to be prepared for any aspect of chicken raising. I am the kind of person who likes to know the bad with the good. I would rather be prepared, than to find things out the hard way.

If you are having problems with your eggs being cracked or broken there can be a couple of different reasons for that.

Number one, if your eggshells are really thin and break easily then your chickens probably need more calcium in their diet. This is easy to fix. You should be able to buy oyster shells or a similar supplement to feed them at the place where you buy feed. This will increase shell strength and prevent the chickens from cracking them when they get in the nest lay.

Reason number two is not so easily solved. Sometimes chickens will break and eat their own eggs. I know that sounds cannibalistic, but it's true. Sometimes it's a lack of protein that causes them to eat them, and sometimes it just turns into bad habit.

If your chickens are eating their own eggs, try giving them a feed higher in protein than what you are giving them now. Most laying pellets are 16% protein so you have to try something like mixing chick starter in with their feed.( I think chick starter is somewhere around 22% protein, I will have to check. It will say on the bag.)

After a week or two if they stop eating their eggs you will know to supplement their diet occasionally with the higher protein food. Once or twice a week may be all it takes.

If the feed doesn't solve the problem then you have an "Egg Eater!" That is what Granny would call it. I know my grandmother would wait until she caught the one eating them, and then we would be eating it.

You can try and gather the eggs several times a day, (if possible) to discourage the chicken by taking away the source of the problem. After a couple weeks try leaving them in there and see what happens.

Or, if you can catch the chicken in the act, then you can isolate that one from the others.

Once they start this habit is hard to put a stop to it.

I hope this answered your questions.