Tips To Successfully Raising Chickens That Every Beginner Should Know

  • A homestead is only as successful as the health of animals that you want to raise. This means that there are several things you need to know before trying to raise any animal including chickens. These tips for beginners will help you get started so that your chickens will grow and thrive and so will your homestead. You may amazed at how much you need to know!

    Tips Every Beginner Needs To Know About Raising Chickens Include:

    WHAT KIND OF CHICKENS DO YOU NEED?
    There are chickens that are bred with the purpose of becoming dinner and chickens that are bred to be excellent egg layers.

    MEAT CHICKENS
    Meat chickens are basically chickens that get nice and fat within a short amount of time. What you need to know about how to raise meat chickens is the fact you will typically only have them for about six months at the most before it is time to butcher them.

    There are two main types of meat chickens; broilers and roasters. Broilers are around the 4 – 5 pound mark, while roasters are 8 – 9 pounds. They gain a lot of weight quickly and their little legs cannot support them. Fast growing,  need butchering by 8 weeks, are going to have the most problems with the legs.  Slow growing, 12 week butcher, are a little easier.

    Some of the best breeds are:

    Cornish hens
    Red Broiler chicks
    New Hampshire chickens

    EGG LAYERS
    There are some breeds that will produce 360 eggs a year on average and some breeds  only produce about 300 eggs a year.

    Some of the most popular egg laying birds are:

    Rhode Island Red
    Leghorn
    Buff Orpington

    DUAL PURPOSE CHICKENS
    There are some breeds that can be used as egg layers or butchered for meat around that six month mark when they are nice and plump.  You never know when you may get a rooster or two.

    You will be able to identify which of your chicks are going to be roosters by six months. If you buy dual purpose, you can butcher the roosters for meat and keep the hens for eggs.

    Some common dual purpose breeds are: 

    Rhode Island Reds
    Barred Rock
    Buff Orpington

    HOW MANY CHICKENS DO YOU NEED?

    If you are raising chickens solely for eggs, a small flock of chickens, up to five, is plenty. Most of the breeds mentioned in the egg layer category, will lay eggs every day. You can expect anywhere from 30 -35 eggs a week.

    If you are raising broilers, raising ten at a time is pretty easy. They are small chickens and they will be ready to butcher within a couple of months.  Ten broiler chickens is only going to be enough for a couple of meals for a family of four. If you are raising the larger variety, ten roasters is enough for ten weeks.

    HOW MUCH SPACE DO YOU NEED?

    Your backyard is plenty of space. Many people will use something called a chicken tractor.  It is a fenced area that you move around the yard. It protects the chickens from predators and confines them to a specific area.

    For a flock of five chickens, you would need about 100 feet of roaming space.  You want to allow for about 15 feet of space per chicken. The trick is to make sure you are not confining them to a small area where they don’t have the room to move.

    CHOOSING THE RIGHT COOP?

    The plastic variety is pretty easy to keep clean.

    You need your girls to have room to move around. If the quarters are too cramped, you risk disease and fighting. Allow at least three square feet of space for each chicken. You also need perches in the coop for the girls to sleep at night.

    Another element of your coop is the nesting boxes. If you only have five laying hens, you only need a few boxes. They will typically not all lay at the same time. You may have four nesting boxes, but they will likely choose their favorite and they will all take turns laying in the same box. The box should be about 8×8 inches.

    FEEDING YOUR CHICKENS
    Chickens need a healthy diet that includes lots of protein. This encourages egg production and will help put the pounds on your meat birds. You can buy poultry pellets. The pellets are packed with protein and other necessary nutrition to keep the chickens healthy.

    You can supplement the chickens’ diet with scratch, which is ground corn. If the chickens have limited space, scratch is going to be very important for your egg layers. They need the exercise of scratching at the ground to stimulate egg production.

    The chickens should be able to eat all day. You want them to go to bed with a full belly. As they sleep and their food digests, the egg is being made.

    Chickens will appreciate treats like mealworms and yogurt.

    BREEDING CHICKENS
    Dual purpose breeds are better for breeding chickens then meat birds or laying birds.

    Your hens will need a quiet place to build up their clutch. If you have several hens that are laying and you have a rooster in your flock, you can help the mother-to-be build up her clutch faster by putting those eggs under her. Depending on the size of the chicken, she will probably want 8 to 15 eggs in her clutch. She will not get off the eggs for 21 days, except for a quick drink and bit of food.

    Once the chickens hatch, you need to keep the babies separated from the rest of the flock. Chickens  will peck at them and kill the babies.  If you end up with a mother who hatches the chickens then loses interest  you will need to take over.

    Many people will choose to use incubators to hatch the eggs.

     

    TIPS FOR EGG LAYING

    Teach  chickens where you want the eggs to be laid in the nesting boxes by using plastic Easter eggs. They are followers. They will notice the eggs in the boxes and figure out that is where they should be depositing their eggs as well.
    Keep nesting boxes clean. The hens will not want to settle into a box that is full of poop.
    If the chickens don’t seem to be laying and they are at least eight months old, they may not be getting enough protein.
    Chickens need a certain amount of daylight in order to lay. If it is December and your hens stopped laying, it is probably because they do not have adequate light. A red heat lamp in the coop is the answer.
    GENERAL INFORMATION

    Additional tips that can help you solve common problems:

    Chickens are eating their own eggs.  Try to thwart the egg eater by collecting  eggs several times a day.
    Eggshells are soft or non-existent.  Your girls are lacking nutrition. Feeding them some oyster shells a couple times a week will  strengthen the shells.
    The chickens are fighting. Hens will argue and have little spats here and there. Many people are firm believers in keeping a rooster in the flock to limit these fights.
    Chickens that seem to be losing a lot of feathers on their backsides can be alarming.  Chickens will molt for the first time around a year and a half of age.  Usually, the chickens will molt once a year in the fall. Some breeds will not lay eggs during the molt or slow down significantly. Their bodies are putting the energy into the molt.
    Mites and lice on chickens is a dreaded problem. There is a powder you can sprinkle in the coop to help.

    As you can see there are several things you need to know to raise chickens. First, you need to decide if you want chickens for meat or the eggs. Then you need to make sure they have enough space and feel comfortable with where they are laying their eggs. You also need to make sure they get plenty of protein and other nutrients so they will be able to lay a good amount of eggs. If you are going to breed the chickens, you might have to hatch them with the help of an incubator. Finally, you need to know that be aware of common problems such as molting, fighting between chickens or even chickens that eat their own eggs. Once you use these tips you will be well on your way to raising healthy and happy chickens on your homestead.

    To learn more tips for beginners about raising chickens, you can visit:

    Survival Mastery

     



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