Eggs Aside - Five more reasons to keep chickens

Today I have a guest post from a new blog-friend, Sarah from Say! Little Hen.  Sarah is based in QLD and keeps chickens, grows a garden, knits wonderful creations and shares her baking recipes.  I was delighted to find out about Sarah's blog when she emailed me to offer a guest post, so you should pop over and see her blog to find out more, when you finish reading this post about reasons to keep chickens - aside from eggs of course!

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We all know that chickens lay eggs, and this is of course the main reason people keep them. I never enjoyed eating eggs until we had our own fresh, home-grown ones. The difference is incredible, and having some chooks to tend is really a joyful experience.

There are, however, many reasons to keep chickens - egg laying aside. Today I'd like to share my top five reasons to keep chickens. I hope one (or all!) of these inspire you to start your own flock.

1. Chickens provide a relaxing form of entertainment

There's really nothing more peaceful than letting the chickens out for a wander around the yard of an afternoon. You can potter around the yard yourself, or just immerse yourself into watching them go about their business. With their complex social structure, they really are interesting little animals to observe.

2. Chickens provide a reliable source of manure
If you're interested in keeping chickens, I'm just going to assume that you've also got a small interest in gardening. Even if it's just a few perennial shrubs or trees in your yard, your chickens will provide you with a reliable supply of fertiliser. Put hay down under their night perch, as this makes it easy to collect the manure. Your plants will be mulched and fertilised all at once!

3. The third reason for keeping chickens also has to do with gardening - chickens are wonderful at it

There's a reason you don't want them breaking into your veggie patch - chickens are expert excavators, and unlike us, they dig over the soil in the most beneficial way, and without grumbling about it. When a patch is finished and ready to be sown-over, letting your chickens in for a week or two (depending on the size of the area) is a really good thing to do. They'll gobble up the remaining plants, and any bugs that are on them too; they'll turn over the soil, aerating it and helping mulch and plant matter break down more quickly, and they'll fertilise as they go. The chickens will also enjoy good heath from this improved diet.

4. Chickens reduce household waste

I remember the thrill of getting out a container and putting our vegetable scraps into it the night before we picked up our first trio of layers. It was really exciting!

Now keeping a scrap bucket on the bench has become part of the norm. Every vegetable and fruit scrap goes into it, from the potato and carrot peelings to the wrinkled forgotten apple at the bottom of the fruit bowl. The chickens also gladly consume unwanted leftovers from the fridge (I always seem to have more left over rice than I need), mixed up into a bubble-and-squeak type of mash for breakfast. They enjoy leftover stew, curry, rice, potato, pasta, gravy - you name and they'll eat it. When I make vegetable stock, I strain it through a sieve and the cooked down veggies go straight into the scrap bucket. The chickens go a little crazy for soft cooked vegetables!

5. Chickens make wonderful pets

They really do. If you have a child that is an animal lover, chickens are one of the easiest care and most budget-friendly pets you can buy. They are not fragile like guinea pigs or budgies, and unlike rabbits it's legal to keep chickens anywhere in Australia. They are easy to care for, needing only clean water and proper feeding.

Although chickens don't have to be allowed to free range, they'll certainly appreciate it and it's an easy task for your child to let them out to forage after school.

They don't need walking or vet checkups like dogs, and aren't going to harass the local wildlife like a cat. If you buy the right breed, they'll be just a cuddly as a dog and certainly very interactive. I've known pet chickens that have been patient enough to endure their nails being painted.

Further Reading from Say Little Hen:

Chicken Breeds Suitable for Suburbia | A Buyer's Guide

The Benefits of Gardening with Chickens

Why do chickens stop laying eggs in winter?

Chickens naturally stop laying eggs in winter.  Actually when you think about it, the fact that they lay an egg a day for so much of the year is completely unnatural.  Birds in the wild will only lay a few eggs until they have a clutch to hatch, but we have bred chickens to just keep laying every day, no wonder they need a break!

Part of the reason we keep so many chickens (usually around twenty hens), as I wrote about back here, is that we get just enough eggs through winter to have one or two each a day.  In spring we will get up to twenty eggs a day and in winter it will be two or three eggs (so we have to eat some bacon with breakfast!).  You can use some tricks to encourage chickens to lay through winter, however we prefer to give the hens a break.

There are a few reasons for the decrease in egg production.  For the most part it is triggered by the day length, apparently when day length is less than 14 hours egg production will decrease.  See this article for more details.  For this reason, lights in the hen house can be used to simulate longer days.  We are near the equator, so our day length only varies from 10 and a bit hours at winter solstice to just under 14 hours at summer solstice (its a wonder our hens lay at all!), so we don't experience the complete lack of eggs that may occur with very short days further from the equator.  Here's some more information from another blogger who uses lights.

We also try to keep young hens in our flock by hatching more chicks each year and culling older hens.  We find that pullets who just started to lay in spring will lay better through the subsequent winter compared to older birds.  Its a good idea to have a rotation plan before you get chickens.

In autumn chickens go through a moult where they lose all their feathers.  They typically don't lay during this period as their body is regenerating and growing new feathers.  Each individual chicken will moult at different times with different severity, so we usually get a few eggs during this time as each hen takes a break.

Its important to feed chickens plenty of high energy feed during the colder months, from when they are moulting until spring, as they will be using lots of energy to regrow feathers and to keep warm in the cooler months.  If I was more organised I would make sure they had lots of meal worms.

If its not winter, and your hens are not laying, it could be due to a few other issues, see this post for more information.

Are you hens laying at the moment?  Do you use any strategies to have eggs in winter?

Raising baby chicks

This is an article of mine that was published in Grass Roots magazine this time last year.  I got too busy to sent articles for a while, but I just started again, so look out for my contributions!

Over spring and summer we incubate chicken eggs and raise chicks. We fatten the roosters to eat and keep the hens to replace our older layers. Raising chicks is great fun, a lot of hard work, but worth the effort if you want a sustainable flock. Whether you incubate eggs or buy baby chicks, all chicks need is three things: a safe, warm place to live; water and food.

The brooder box
When chicks first hatch, they don’t have any proper feathers (just fine fluff), so they need to be kept warm, around the same temperature as the incubator (38degC) at first and then gradually cooling as they get bigger. We keep our chicks in a large wooden box. You don’t have to use a wooden box, any kind of strong, draught-proof box will do. I have seen plastic, cardboard and metal boxes used as well.

We heat the box using a heat lamp and thermostat designed for reptiles. We have both a 60 W and a 25 W ceramic bulb, which we vary depending on the outside temperature (sometimes the larger bulb is too hot, or the smaller bulb not hot enough). The top of the box has a metal mesh frame, to stop the chicks flying out and to stop the dogs helping themselves. You can also use incandescent lightbulbs (if you still have any!) and a thermometer to monitor the temperature in the box. The chicks will tell you if they are too cold, they all huddle under the lamp, and if they are too hot they will be in the opposite corner of the box panting.

our brooder box

We also cover the box with blankets at night to keep out draughts. The box usually starts inside the house, because the temperature is more stable, and we move it outside as the chicks start to smell and make too much noise. After they are a week old or so, they are much stronger and able to handle slight temperature fluctuations.

We line the bottom of the box with newspaper and then a layer of wood shavings. This is supposed to be easier on their little feet. We had a batch of chickens with crooked feet early on and I think it was from only having newspaper on the floor of their box. They do tend to eat some wood shavings at first, but it must not matter, as long as they find their chick food as well.

Water
Inside the box we provide the chicks with a small “waterer”, which you can buy from a produce/stock feed store. This is better than a dish of water because the chicks can’t fall in and get wet (and cold) or drown. They seem to find the water by instinct and there’s no need to add anything to the water, although I've read that people add apple cider vinegar or honey to give the chicks an energy boost, especially if they've arrived via post.

chicks eating hardboiled eggs

Feeding chicks
There are a few options for feeding the chicks. You can just buy a commercial chick starter crumble, which is formulated for chicks, and usually contains a coccidiostat (an antibiotic to prevent the chicks getting sick from coccidiosis). This is more relevant for large-scale production of chicks and probably unnecessary if you’re only raising a few chicks. A good alternative, if you can find it, is an organic chick crumble which contains all the same protein and minerals as the commercial crumble, without the medication.

Now you may want to take things even further and make the chick feed yourself. We have experimented with a few options and found that we can use hammer-milled grain (that we also feed to our adult chickens) supplemented with extra protein and minerals. The extra protein can be in the form of meal worms, compost worms, meat meal mix (available from our local produce store) and hardboiled eggs. It sounds weird to feed eggs to chickens, but the egg was the chick’s first food as it developed, and as long as its crushed they won’t associate a raw egg with food in the future. This is the easiest and cheapest supplement if you already have some laying hens. For the minerals we buy a commercial organic mineral mix and a seaweed meal.

You can also start feeding the chicks leafy greens and grass, they might not eat much at first, but it gives them something different to peck at in their box. When the chicks are a few weeks old, we also start putting them outside in a small birdcage for a few hours to that they can experience being on the grass, then its not such a shock for them when they move into a chicken tractor.

I’m not sure if this really necessary, but we usually “teach” the chicks to eat their food by tapping a finger in the food dish. This results in lots of chicks running over to your hand to see what you’re doing and a few will then try eating the food. After that, they are usually pretty quick to work out where the food is.

Moving chicks into a chicken tractor
The transition from the chicks living in the brooder box to moving into chicken tractors can be difficult to time, as it depends on your outside overnight temperatures. Ideally we hatch the chicks in spring or summer, so that they can move out after only 6 weeks, before they have all their feathers, because it is usually plenty warm enough by then. Otherwise they have to stay in their brooder box longer and once they reach that noisy messy stage I can't wait for them to move out!

Even though it is warm enough, we find that when we put chicks out in the tractor for the first few nights they need to 'tucked in' at dusk because they are so used to living in a box and not having open sides, its quite scary for them. This means draping tarps, old sheets, towels and blankets over the tractor so that they feel like they're still in a solid box. Otherwise they spend the night trying to stick their little heads out of the mesh and sometimes they manage to squeeze out. We only have to do this for about a week until they get used to it. This also helps to keep the dew off their grass and keep out any draughts, while they acclimatise to not having the heat lamp above them at night.

chicks in a chicken tractor

After the chicks move out of the brooder and into a chicken tractor they eat grass, grow the rest of their feathers and very quickly get bigger and bossier. Its hard to remember that they were once tiny fluff-balls, and all the hard work pays off when you count up how many new layers you will have next spring (and how many roast roosters you will have in the freezer in a few months).

What do you think? Any tips for raising chicks?

Find out more about chicken tractors in my eBook Design and Use a Chicken Tractor

Outfoxing the fox

Lately we've had a fox hanging around.  I'm sure we never had a problem with foxes before we got the guinea fowl.  We used to forget to close the chicken tractors sometimes, and the worst that would happen was being woken at dawn by a large rooster crowing outside our bedroom window.  The thing with chickens is that they go into their tractor and sleep there whether you close the door or not, which does not attract foxy attention if you're lucky.

The guinea fowl would refuse to go in and opt to sleep in the grass instead, and the fox caught on to the easy meal.  I think we lost about six guineas in total over several nights and the fox obviously added our place to its nightly rounds.  We had a few accidents where chicken tractors were left open overnight.  We also saw the fox in the day as well, in the early winter morning (I assume there is only one regular fox, but there could be several).

Anyway, we knew the fox was around and had thought that the chickens were safe in their chicken tractors, as we had become very disciplined about remembering to shut them at night, until one night Taz got Pete up and he found that a fox had actually dug under the chicken tractor.  It had taken one chicken and killed another.  If Taz hadn't alerted Pete we would probably have lost the whole lot of them.  The fox had dug a hole about 10cm deep, it would have struggled to get the fat old hen out of the hole.  We were really shocked because this tractor was INSIDE our dog fenced house yard.  It keeps Taz IN but clearly does not keep foxes out.

The next night Pete put planks of wood around the tractors to prevent more digging and everything was fine until a few days later when we moved the chicken tractors and didn't move the planks.  What do they say about complacency?  We lost another two chickens.  So after that we were on a mission to outfox the fox.

We had two options: 1) kill the fox 2) stop the fox taking chickens.

Kill the fox?
Option 1 is more difficult than it sounds.... and not because the fox was cute.  Let's get the cute fox image out of the way now.  Here's a cute fox video.  Everyone say oooooh, and then remember that this cute clever agile little animal will KILL ALL YOUR CHICKENS.  It will jump and dig and squeeze into small spaces and it will KILL ALL YOUR CHICKENS.

Foxes are not native to Australia, they are a pest and a problem for our self-sufficient lifestyle, so I would have been very happy to kill our fox if I had the opportunity.  However, I could not figure out how I would get a chance to shoot it, other than stay up all night and wait.  I did try putting "Country Fried Chicken" in our animal trap, as per the video below, which seemed very encouraging, but all we caught (and released) was an angry goana :( so we were stuck with option 2 - deter the fox.

Foxlights
We took three approaches to deterring the fox, and so far the combination is working.  First we got foxlights on the recommendation of a friend who swears by them for protecting his sheep.  This is a battery operated LED light that flashes white and blue at random.  We got two of them.  They are well-constructed, water-proof, robust and seem to confuse the fox as long as we move them around.  Pete made a stand from a piece of C-Section and a cut-off star picket.  I made a video of our place at night so you can see the random flashing.  They have a light sensor and come on automatically as soon as its dark enough.  Its taken a while to get used to the random flashing outside!

We have had one fox attack about six weeks after we got the foxlights, but we hadn't been moving them. Now we move them a few metres every night.  The foxlights are around $90 each, which is not cheap, but neither is replacing chickens, so far I think they have been worth the investment (although I can't be sure as we changed a couple of other things after that attack).

Chicken Tractor Modifications

When we had the fox attack after we got the foxlights, we decided to also modify the chicken tractors a little to make digging under more difficult.  We (Pete) welded a frame and more mesh onto the floor of the tractors.  We previously had an open floor, and I wanted to keep as much open as possible so that the chickens can scratch, so we just added mesh around the back where the tractors sit higher off the ground due to the wheels.  With 500mm of extra mesh around the base it would be a bigger task to dig under in one night, so we just have to check for digging each day.  

I actually forgot to take a photo of the finished work, just the chickens inspecting their tractor turned on its side!  Just imagine extra mesh welded around the inside edge at the back and sides.  A few people commented on this photo on facebook that they put mesh on the outside around the bottom to stop digging, that would work too, but it would have made our tractors too wide and impractical.  Something else to consider when designing a chicken tractor!

Guard Dog on Duty

Poor Taz thinks of herself as a lap dog these days and had started sleeping curled up at the end of our bed (now that is cute).  So it was a bit of a shock to her when we decided she would have to sleep outside on the veranda.  She does get Pete up every time she hears a chicken get attacked, but that is one chicken too late, we need her to notice the fox in our yard.  I have read that dogs just get used to foxes, but I don't know about Taz, she gets pretty mad if she sees the fox in daylight and she's very protective of the chickens.  I told her she's doing a very important job and she can have lots of eggs for breakfast.

Poor Taz thinks she belongs inside at night

Do you have a fox problem?  What have you done about it?

Find out more about chicken tractors in my eBook Design and Use a Chicken Tractor

Why you should consider using chicken tractors

If you haven't seen it already, I've written an article for FarmStyle with six reasons why you should consider chicken tractors.  This includes:

• No more cleaning coops
• Better eggs
• Protection from predators
• Less likely to attract rodents (and snakes!)
• Simpler and cheaper to build
• Take it with you when you move

Find out more on this link.  FarmStyle has a range of useful farm articles and a forum for small farm discussions.

By the way, my chicken tractor ebook is now available if you want to know more about designing and using chicken tractors.  More information over at the chicken tractor blog.  Or you can get it directly from my shop on Etsy (.pdf format), or Amazon Kindle or just send me an email eight.acres.liz {at} gmail.com.

What's the eBook about?
Chickens in a confined coop can end up living in an unpleasant dust-bowl, but allowing chickens to free-range can result in chickens getting into gardens and expose them to predators.

 A movable cage or “chicken tractor” is the best of both options – the chickens are safe, have access to clean grass, fresh air and bugs. Feed costs are reduced, chickens are happier, and egg production increases. 

 But how do you build a chicken tractor? What aspects should be considered in designing and using a chicken tractor effectively? In this eBook I aim to explain how to make a chicken tractor work for you in your environment to meet your goals for keeping chickens. 

I also list what I have learnt over 10 years of keeping chickens in tractors of various designs and sizes, from hatching chicks, through to butchering roosters.

Reviews of the Design and Use a Chicken Tractor

Chris from Gully Grove

Going Grey and Slightly Green

Chicken posts in 2015

Every year I like to do a round up of all the posts I've done of various topics, so that everyone can catch up on what they've missed.  Here's all my chicken posts.... and a couple of memes I've whipped up to help advertise my chicken tractor ebook.

Please ask all your chicken tractor questions here....  And tell your chicken tractor success stories too!

Keeping bantam chickens
Trimming chicken wing feathers
Feeding chickens
Popular chicken posts on Eight Acres
Treating chicken mites and lice
Hatching chicks!

You can find earlier chicken posts here.  And of course a tidied up and revised version of everything in my chicken tractor ebook.

Thanks for following my blog.  I love to read your comments and share and fun and challenges of chickens (and everything else on the farm).  See you next year!

Keeping bantam chickens

I recently came into the possession of some bantams and they are ridiculously cute.  They also have a job to do.... I'm hoping they will hatch some eggs.  I thought I better find out a bit more about them first though!  Here's what I've learnt about bantams....

Bantams are chickens that are bred to be smaller than full sized chickens ("large fowl").  There are different breeds of bantams, some are just small versions of the big chickens (like Plymouth Rock, which is both a large and bantam breed) or "true bantams" which do not have an equivalent large breed, such as the pekin.  The different breeds are different sizes, but all are small (see here for more information on bantam breeds).  The bantams that we have acquired are unknown breeds, one (B1) looks like a pekin to me, and the other (Bubble) seems to be a pekin crossed with a silkie (apparently there used to be a B2 and a Squeak as well).  They are both tiny, about the size of a guinea pig, maybe about 500g each.

Things I like about bantams

• Bantams have a reputation for brooding, hatching and raising chicks, although they can only fit a few eggs under them at a time!  I would like to try this instead of using the incubator, as this would allow the chicks to be raised by the bantams and I wouldn't have to look after them!
• Bantams are tiny, do not eat much and do not dig massive holes in the lawn (unlike the big chickens where are currently working on turning our yard into a moonscape)
• Bantams are relatively friendly, I'm not sure if they like being picked up, but they don't struggle as much as a big chicken and I don't end up with scratches all down my arms.  I think they would be a good pet for children as they are a bit more cuddly and the right size for small hands.
• Bantams are CUTE!  All chickens are fun to watch, but there's something about mini-chickens that is really fascinating. 
• Bantams are very well suited to chicken tractors - the chicken tractor keeps them safe from predators, and being small, they don't need much area or height, they seem very happy in their small chicken tractor.  I haven't let them out to free-range as I don't want the large chickens to pick on them, but they have plenty of grass in their chicken tractor.  If you have big chickens and want to keep a few bantams, a chicken tractor is a good option for keeping them separate.

B1 the pekin

B1 with an egg carton for scale

Why I still need some big chickens
If I only had a small yard, I think bantams would be a really good idea, but while we have the space, I still prefer to keep a few (only 20!) big chickens for these reasons:

• Bantam eggs are small and infrequent - the eggs about half the size of a big chicken (actually surprisingly big considered the size of the birds!) and they don't lay every day, I need some big chickens to lay enough eggs for us to eat.  If you had a family of four you could probably keep six-eight bantams for a (small) egg each per day.
• There's not much meat on a bantam - I don't think it would even be worth the effort of butchering a bantam, they are just too small, I'd rather raise large chickens for meat.

B1 and Bubble in their small chicken tractor

Have you kept bantams?  What do you think of them? 

If you want to know more about chicken tractors, check out my book here.