7 Tips Instead Of Quitting Backyard Chickens Try This
It’s easy to jump into keeping backyard chickens headfirst and quickly become overwhelmed. Taking care of backyard chickens can be a rewarding and peaceful experience but without the proper preparation, information, and care techniques small problems can become catastrophes. If you’re thinking of quitting backyard chickens because you’re having a hard time maintaining a healthy and happy flock, try these 7 tips.
Automate as much of your chicken care routine as possible. Daily maintenance of your chicken area can be challenging. Try introducing automation wherever possible in your chicken routine to streamline your routine. Free feeders, programmable feeders, large livestock dishes, automated chicken doors, and low maintenance watering systems are all ways to make keeping backyard chickens easier.
Give your flock as much space as possible. Many backyard chicken problems like disease and aggression can be attributed to overcrowding. Smaller overcrowded chicken areas require more intense maintenance and put stress on your flock and you. Provide your flock with more space by adapting structures like a green house kit, dog housing, or cattle panels to give your flock more space. Keep in mind structures not intended as chicken housing will be need to adapted and modified in order to be safe and predator proof for your flock. Create additional roosts from objects like a thrifted chair, a bale of straw, and large natural branch perches and roosts to give your flock ways to get up off the ground. More space and places to perch and roost reduces your flock’s stress levels and makes them easier to work with every day.
Try feeding your flock a higher protein blend of chicken feed. Many backyard flocks are receiving insufficient protein for their breed. Try adding a high-protein chicken feed to your care routine like a feather-fixer style formula or all-flock and see if the overall health of your flock improves. Fermenting your chicken feed even in small 24 hour style batches doubles the volume, increases the B vitamin content and digestibility of the feed, and allows it to stretch further. The downside is that fermented feed creates livestock dishes. Be sure to remove and clean used livestock dishes before nightfall to avoid attracting predators to your chicken area. The age of your flock, your chosen chicken breed, and the purpose of your flock among other factors will all impact their nutritional needs.
Stack predator prevention methods to keep your flock safer. An efficient predator can decimate an entire flock in moments. It takes one afternoon and a bored neighbor’s dog to lose an entire flock. After a loss of that magnitude, it’s understandable that you would consider leaving backyard chickens behind. If you’re ready to try again, stack predator prevention methods to keep your flock as safe as possible. Don’t rely on just one form of protection. Livestock fencing, mindful landscaping, redundant locks, periodic inspections of your chicken area, motion lights, animal and kid safe predator deterrent pest sprays and pest balls, hardware cloth, thoughtfully placed rocks and gravel, yard fascinators, predator decoys, a consistent nighttime routine, emergency recall training with your flock, backyard cameras, and a livestock guardian animal are all ways to provide protection to your backyard flock.
Purchase at least one beginner chicken care guidebook or magazine or check one out from the library. Your local library has information about keeping backyard chickens available for free. Rather than relying entirely on word of mouth or online resources, get at least one printed source of information about backyard chickens. Your local farm box where you likely purchased your chickens has a surprisingly good book section. Hatcheries offer free information about chickens on their websites. Having at least one printed source of information about backyard chickens can help prevent a myriad of easy to make tragic beginner mistakes and help set you and your flock up for success.
Reduce the size of your flock by responsibly rehoming or humanely processing part of your flock. Do not attempt home butchering without the proper research and equipment first. Doing so will not only result in unusable meat, but the needless suffering of you and the chicken. Social media sites and pet rehoming rescue sites offer ways to find people who have room on their homestead and in their hearts for additional chickens. Do not abandon your chickens in the suburbs or in the woods. Your chickens are domesticated livestock, and they will not survive abandonment. Your unwanted chickens may be the flock someone is searching for. Take time to find them and keep the number of chickens that is right for your space and circumstances.
You may have chosen the wrong chicken breed. Most absolute chicken beginners don’t know chicken breeds are very similar to dog breeds. Over time, humans have changed and modified modern day chicken breeds to suit a variety of purposes like being egg layers, show chickens, meat chickens, and companionship animals. Different breeds also need certain climates to thrive and be healthy. Check to see if the chickens you chose are suited for the weather extremes of your climate meaning the hottest and coldest days you experience in your region. You may have built the wrong kind of flock without even realizing it. Research the breed or breeds of chicken you chose and be sure they’re aligned with your flock’s purpose on your homestead. Over time you can phase out the incorrect breeds and build out your flock with the breeds more suited to your environment and purpose.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this post about alternatives and tips to avoid quitting backyard chickens. If you would like to find out even more about backyard chickens and homesteading check out Chuck’s other social media linked below.
Chuck and the Chicks 