Chicken Care

As great as it is to be able to teach your children about how amazing a few poultry can be, getting a backyard chicken or two without knowing anything about keeping chickens is not a good idea. Chickens aren't hard to care for, but they do have some special requirements and you need to be able to meet those requirements to help your new pets live long and healthy lives.

Anyone who plans to keep chickens should be prepared to have fresh water available year round, including during freezing weather, should provide supplemental feed if chickens aren't getting enough food from rummaging around in the yard on their own and should have a safe and secure coop for them to sleep at night. If you plan to start with eggs or chicks, be prepared to spend a lot of time helping your fluff balls grow up to be big, strong, happy hens.

So, you've decided to start your chicken keeping adventures with a chick or two? Great choice. Raising peeps with love and care can mean the difference between a chicken that hops up in your lap for a cuddle (and to try to nab a bite of your ice cream cone) and a chicken that takes off down the driveway before you can get her into the chicken yard and never looks back. I've had both kinds and you can believe me when I say that the first kind of chicken is much more enjoyable!

Of course, if you don't order breeds that are guaranteed to be all hens because of their markings or color, there is a chance that you'll end up with a rooster or two in the bunch. I once got an order of pullets (girl chicks) with five cockerels (boy chicks) in the bunch. I was only about 10 at the time and I remember crying over the future of my little guys. I didn't eat them, but I'm sure someone did after they "went to live on a farm." We couldn't keep five roosters around, though, and you probably won't be able to keep roosters as backyard chickens, either.

Once you get your little rooster free bunch home, it is time to get them settled in. Here is what you'll need to get them off to a good start:
- A brooder set up. I have a 20 gallon aquarium with a brooder hood, but you can use a plain old Tupperware container with a hole in the top covered by wire mesh and a brooder lamp, too.
- Bedding for the brooder. You want to be sure the chicks don't end up with bowed legs because they can't get a grip on the floor and you want it to be easy to clean. Pine shavings, shredded newspaper and corncob bedding are all types I have used.
- A thermometer. According to Storey, you want to start the brooder at 95 degrees Fahrenheit and then reduce the temperature by 5 degrees a week until the brooder is as cool as the room or barn.
- Waterer. Make sure you get a chick waterer instead of using an old cat or dog bowl. You don't want your chickies to drown.
- Feeder and starter feed. Even if you plan to have your backyard chickens be pretty much free range hens and don't plan to give them a lot of chicken feed when they are older, you should be sure they get the right nutrition to start. (Make sure you get STARTER feed. The other kinds of feed can kill your little chicks because they don't have the right amounts of vitamins and minerals for your tiny peeps.)

Now that you have the right set up, you are ready to start successfully caring for chicks. Don't relax too much, though. Your chicks are going to grow fast and when they do, they are going to need a nice chicken coop to live in.

If you're building a chicken house, you can try to just wing it, but making a house that meets your chickens' needs is a lot easier when you're following chicken coop plans that were designed by someone who knows poultry. I decided to go with the DIY method and spent a long time looking at free plans and Youtube videos. I browsed online magazine archives. None of the free chicken coop plans I saw were quite what I was looking for. Although someone who doesn't need a list of materials, lengths to cut wood and building diagrams probably could make use of some of them to make a coop, I am not that someone.

I finally decided that I might need some help. My neighbor made his son a very nice coop and, hopefully, will build me the simple chicken ark of my dreams. If this option somehow doesn't work out, I'm going to quit messing around with being a poultry architect and just go with buying DIY chicken coop plans that come with a few nice options, like tech support if I get stuck while I'm swinging my hammer and plans for larger chicken houses in case I decide to upgrade to an entire flock in the future.