Caring For Your Baby Chicks

• Baby Chick Shopping List
• Setting Up The Brooder
• Baby Chicks First Day Home
• Daily Baby Chick Care
• General Baby Chick Health Notes

The Chicken Coop

Deciding how you are going to permanently house your chickens is probably the most stressful and overwhelming part of the process.  So lets try and make this as easy as possible.

To Buy or Build.  That IS The Question.
Determining What Size Coop Will You Need   

Determining What Size Coop You Will Need

When shopping or planning for your chicken coop, you will need to decide what size coop you will need to have.  Remember, the coop is the enclosed area that your chickens will sleep, where their egg boxes will be, where they will perch  and where they will be kept inside if the weather is too cold or if it is raining.  The size of the coop does NOT include the size of the run attached to the it.

To determine what size coop you will need choose one of the following statements that is true to your situation:

• My chickens will have access to an outside run year-round.
•  3 SQ/FT per bird INSIDE of the coop

• My chickens will have access to an outside run but not year-round (think snow).
• 5-10 SQ/FT per bird INSIDE of the coop 

• My chickens will not have access to an outside run.
• Minimum of 10 SQ/FT per bird INSIDE of the coop

General Size Guidelines

Small Coop:

2-5 chickens 

Medium Coop:

6-10 chickens 

Large Coop:

10 or more chickens 

Eco-Friendly Bug, Pest, and Weed Control

While most people are considering the perks of owning chickens, they often think only of the fresh eggs and meat that they will provide. While these are very valid reasons to keep chickens and are often the most appealing,  we would like to point out that chickens also offer excellent eco-friendly pest control without the use of chemicals.  Thats right! Toss that nasty bottle of lawn, bug, weed, whatever kind of spray you've been using and make way for chickens.  The next time you are near a chicken, watch carefully and you will see how they scratch the ground with their feet in order to unearth every possible bug they can find buried or hidden in the ground beneath them.  Chickens love bugs and they aren't picky about them either.  Chickens will eat bugs in all three of their stages; adult, larvae, and egg including grasshoppers, slugs, scorpions, flies, termites, June bugs, ants...the list goes on and on.  In addition to bugs, chickens will also eat seeds like nobody's business.  So when your getting your gardens ready this spring or fall,  make sure your chickens are by your side because they truly make the most wonderful garden companions.  They will eat your weed seeds and your bugs and will prepare your gardens for the next growing season.  But the benefits of a chicken in your lawn doesn't end there.  Allowing your chickens to eat a diet of leafy greens and bugs will provide fertilizer that people pay big money for.   In exchange for allowing them to free-range your chickens will repay you with richer eggs with darker yolks and their meat will taste the way chicken meat should taste. It really can't get any better than that.

Why Should I Raise Chickens?

We aren't here to convince you to own chickens, but we will give you a few reasons why you should.  Here are the top ten reasons why we love out chickens.

• Fresh Eggs
• Eco-Friendly Bug, Pest and Weed Control 
• Inexpensive To Maintain
• Children Love Chickens
• Free Fertilizer and Lawn Care 
• Entertaining Companions
• Easy To Care For
• Educational
• Chickens Love Kitchen Scraps
• Promotes Sustainable Living and Self Sufficiency  

Farm Fresh Eggs vs. Store Bought Eggs

TOP EGG: COMMERCIAL STORE-BOUGHT "ORGANIC" EGG
BOTTOM EGG: FREE-RANGE EGG

When you look at the picture above, it is easy to see the difference between the two egg yolks.  The egg yolk on the top is significantly lighter than the egg yolk on the bottom.  But do you know what caused the color variation between the two yolks?  Diet.  A true free-range hen has an unrestricted diet that is high in leafy greens, alfalfa and bugs which turn the yolk of their eggs a dark amber/orange color.  The commercial store-bought egg comes from a hen that is offered a more restricted diet, usually consisting of a grain (corn) and protein mixture, resulting in a light orange/pale yellow color.  The visual differences between the two are obvious, but how do they differ nutritionally?

According to a study conducted in 2007 by Mother Earth News Magazine, hens who are allowed to pasture and free range produce eggs nutritionally superior to hens who are raised in commercial settings.  Comparing USDA nutritional information from commercial eggs and nutritional information from eggs raised on pasture,  here are their incredible findings!


Farm fresh eggs contain.....

• 1/3 less cholesterol
• 1/4 less saturated fat 
• 2/3 more vitamin A
• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
• 3 times more Vitamin E
• 7 times more beta carotene 
• 4-6 times more vitamin D

.......than commercial eggs. 

Backyard Chickens lay healthier eggs

Books To Check Out

Homemade Electrolyte Recipe For Chickens

This is one hot chicken!

When temperatures cause heat stress conditions for you chickens, maintaining electrolyte balances and water intakes are important factors that can affect your chickens survivability in high temperatures.  On days when it is hot, you may have noticed your chickens breathing with their mouths open, also known as panting.  This is because as the outside temperature rises, your chickens will pant in order to decrease their body temperature. This is referred to as evaporative heat loss and is one of the most important mechanisms that your chickens uses for survival.  Although panting is beneficial because it helps decrease your chickens body temperature,  it will in turn cause your chicken to lose more water from it's body than it would in more comfortable temperatures.  Your chicken will now try to compensate for this loss by drinking more water than normal,  throwing off the body's natural electrolyte balance.  This is why it is so important for chickens you to help your chickens replace lost electrolytes so they can retain water properly and stay hydrated!  Your local feed store has a wide variety of electrolyte/vitamin mixes, made by companies such as Sav-A-Chick and Durvet. These are ready to add in your chickens water and are very convenient.  If you are not able to make it to the feed store or feel more comfortable making a mixture from scratch,  I have included a recipe below that was adapted from the "Practical Wildlife Care" handbook written by Les Stocker.  Whichever route you choose to take, replacing lost electrolytes in your chickens body is something that you will want to take seriously in extreme heat because it may be a matter of life or death.  

Chicken Electrolyte Recipe:

1 1/4 tsp sodium chloride (common salt, use unrefined sea salt if possible)
1 teaspoon sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)
1/2 teaspoon potassium chloride (salt substitutes contain mostly potassium chloride)
2 Tbs honey or molasses

Mix solution thoroughly with 1/2 gallon of water.  Solution must be discarded after 24 hours.

Here are a few mixes you are able to purchase at your local feed store or online:

DIY water mister photos

Hi all. Just wanted to share with you a few pictures of my water mister setup. I can break this down into a step by step for those interested in the how to. All of these parts used can be found at your local home improvement stores and mainly consist of drip irrigation parts. Total cost = less than 4$! The nozzle I use has an adjustment on it so I can get the finest spray of water possible without having to buy a $1500 setup.

Confusion about using misters on chickens

Hi all. With the recent bouts of extreme temperatures, the concept of using a mister to keep your chickens cool has been a hot topic.

**Just so you don't think this is coming from someone who has chickens, has a blog and a Facebook page and knows nothing about "evaporative cooling", I own and operate a heating and air conditioning company and have also graduated with a degree in thermodynamics.

CHICKENS DON'T LIKE TO BE WET. This is obvious by reading everyone's comments about how their chickens have reacted to their misters.

The most simplest form and example of evaporative cooling is perspiration, or the sweat secreted by our bodies. The constant evaporation occurring on the skin helps to cool the bodies temperature down. The amount of heat transfer depends on how quickly the evaporation occurs but on a typical 95 deg day is about 890 BTU per pound of water. The rate of evaporation depends on the temperature and humidity of the air (wet bulb temperature), which is why on those super hot, humid days our bodies are soaking wet because that perspiration does not evaporate fast enough.

What is a real mister? Well a real mister is not one you purchase for 7$ from an amazon link or big box store. Also those are not true evaporative coolers, and are not designed to be used in such a manner. Those are intended to be used on delicate plantings that benefit from light droplets of water. A mister or evaporative cooler, in the professional world, consists of a pure water supply, properly sized tubing, a compressor, filters and multiple appropriate sized nozzles. They are designed to cool the air without the targeted area or subjects ever getting wet. If you would rather invest in this type, get ready to spend some money because the entry level systems begin at around $1500.00-2000.00.

My bottom line to this discussion is use common sense. Do not try to force something on anything that clearly doesn't like it. If it is hot out, make sure to provide your birds with cold fresh water, plenty of shade, a fan and leave them alone. If you say your chickens dig your mister setup, please show me pictures of them in action. I love to be proven wrong. Peace out. ~ Kevin

Photo credits: Advancedmistingsystems.com