Tag: chickens

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Trimming Beaks and Toes

Trimming a chicken’s beak, toenails or spurs can be intimidating. It probably wouldn’t be so bad if they could tell us when something hurts, but since they can’t, we tend to be a little reluctant to do the trimming for fear we might cause some pain or discomfort. A chicken’s beak, and toe nails, and a rooster’s spurs are all made out of keratin, a fibrous protein structure. That is the same thing that our hair and fingernails are made of and we know that cutting our nails doesn’t hurt, unless we get too close! And just as our hair and nails continue to grow, so does a chicken’s. Hopefully, through most of a chicken’s daily activities, they wear their nails and beak down naturally and don’t require any intervention. A chicken’s scratching in the dirt, looking for bugs and seeds, help to wear down their nails. You might have noticed a chicken wiping their beak on the ground as if to clean some dirt off. This act will file down a beak and keep it in check. A rooster’s spurs on the other hand grow out the side of the leg and are sharp, pointed and often used in disputes with other roosters. They do not touch the ground and so it is harder to keep them filed down. Spurs can grow to be quite long and get to the point where they interfere with walking, or injure a hen when mating. That’s when it’s time to intervene.

Chicken squawking
You want to trim what?
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Chicken Digestion

Not all animals were created equally. Many species have digestion systems that are unique and fitted for the environment they lived in, in the wild. We have domesticated these animals over the years and changed their eating habits. In an effort to make sure our animals are getting the nutrients they need, it’s a good idea, no matter how uninteresting it may seem, to understand their inner workings. Our goal is to raise healthy, beautiful, productive animals.

Silver laced wyandotte black and gray hen
Our goal is to raise healthy, beautiful, productive birds.
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Do Chickens “Talk”?

Have you ever wondered why roosters crow? Is it just to annoy the neighbors? Are they really nature’s alarm clock? Have you watched a mama hen patiently cluck at her young as she points out bugs, seeds or grain? Have you noticed that low growl you get from a broody hen as you attempt to remove the egg she just laid? All those cackles, chortles, squawks, purrs, growls and crows have meaning. It’s our chicken’s way of communicating with the world around them.

white chicken cawing
Chatting with me as I take her picture. Maybe she’s telling which side is her best!
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Dealing With the Loss of a Pet

Loss is a fact of life on a farm. A baby goat dies during birth, a dog in her prime contracts leukemia, the Houdini rabbit escapes and gets run over by a car and the matriarch hen succumbs to old age. Death and loss are just facts of life. Death is not a respecter of age or breed or our hard work. You have to figure that if you have animals, eventually you’re going to encounter some form of loss. 

Chicken eating apple
The old matriarch who recently succumbed to the ravages of old age.
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Feeding Supplies for Chickens

So, you decided to raise chickens. You have your plan in place for acquiring some chicks, preparing the chick nursery, and building the chicken coop. When we started raising chickens, we did so with three objectives in mind: 1) to be more self-reliant, 2) help with the food budget, and 3) teach our sons some important life skills. 

Nowadays, with all the things you hear and read about raising chickens, it seems like an expensive endeavor. You might actually be wondering if it’s just not a better idea to buy your eggs at the store. There are other reasons to raise chickens besides possible cost savings. There are health benefits…you know where your eggs came from. Farm fresh eggs taste better. Caring for chickens can be fun, they are quite animated and entertaining to watch. And raising chickens doesn’t have to be expensive if you don’t want it to be. Our first chicken coop was framed out of wood pallets that were free!

Chicken inspecting cabbage
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The Chick Nursery

Now that you have figured out whether or not you are getting baby chicks and when, it’s time to start thinking about and preparing for where you are going to keep them. You want to make sure that your chick quarters are conducive to their health and well-being. When we got our first batch of baby chicks twenty-some years ago, we got a plastic kiddie pool, put some sawdust in the bottom, pulled a chair up next to it that we could hook a heat lamp to and called it good. Surprisingly, all but one chick survived. The next attempt involved a cardboard box, and then we tried a round plastic tub that sat on top of the washing machine in the laundry room with the heat lamp hooked on to the cupboard door. That set up worked fine, except on laundry days. The point here being that any kind of container and set up that works for you and keeps your chickens safe and warm will be just fine, you don’t have to buy or build an expensive set up.

Chicken Nursery
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Thinking About Some Chicks?

Now that the holidays are coming to a close and as we move into the new year, it’s time to be thinking about if, when and where you are going to get your new chicks. February seems to be the month that feed stores typically start getting in their supply of chicks, and that’s just around the corner! It’s best to plan for starting or expanding your flock before the fact, rather than just going to the feed store one day and coming home with baby chicks. Now is the perfect time to start planning and preparing.

chicks in nursery cage
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Preening and Dust Baths

Preening is a chicken’s favorite pastime! It’s the method that Mother Nature has given them to not only look their best, but to protect and condition their feathers. A chicken’s feathers are their first line of defense in battling the elements and protecting their bodies. They have several different kinds of feathers, each serving a unique purpose, and they have several layers of feathers which provide insulation and protection against the weather. A chicken also has an oil gland near the base of their tail. If you watch them preen, you will notice the chicken rub their beak at the base of their tail, collecting oils which they will then spread on their feathers. This oil helps with insulation and waterproofing factors as well as aiding in the battle against external parasites.

chicken sun bathing 1
chicken sun bathing 2
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Chicken Aggression

When I was fairly new to chicken keeping, we got some chicks from the feed store and one of the hens turned out to be a rooster. He was a feisty guy. My boys were ages 2, 4 and 6 at the time and this rooster would chase them all over the yard. It got to where they would not go out back if that rooster wasn’t locked up. They named him ‘Killer’! He would go after anybody that came near his territory and if you have never been attacked by a chicken, as funny as it looks and seems, those little buggers can inflict some serious pain! For the safety of the kids, he was culled. I have only had one other rooster that would go after people and he was exiled from the coop. No longer having a harem to protect, he calmed down.

Chickens eating at feeder
Establishing a ‘‘pecking order” is natural in chicken culture.
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Friends!

In the middle of July I had a hen who was sitting on some eggs. Two of the eggs hatched. She sat on the chicks for a day, then took them out of the nest. While she was gone, showing her two newbies life in the big chicken house, a third egg hatched. If left to her own devises, she probably would have died. Mom didn’t want her, she couldn’t keep up and the other hens were starting to peck on her. I tried a surrogate mom, a broody hen sitting on eggs, but she pushed the babe out of the nest. So, I brought her into the house, set up a small plastic tub with a heat lamp and a feather duster (her faux mom – an idea mentioned in a Fresh Eggs Daily with Lisa Steele blog post), and left her to rest and warm up. I honestly thought that she would not make it. 

Baby chick
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