Chickens -ask your questions here!

On the farm we now have 40-50 egg layers - we've kinda lost count - 60 meat birds that will go to the butcher in another month and 18 ducks. So any questions about chickens? Considering chickens in YOUR backyard? I'd love to help!

Woo Hoo ! What a thread! Thanks Anitapreciouspearl, just what I've been waiting for...I'll try not to hog the space.

I am looking into a small flock, say starting with a dozen unsexed chicks. I figure that this would get me 6 to 8 layers and 2 to 4 males to cull out for meat. I am beginning to watch the afternoon sun on my property to figure out where to put the coop. I want to get the afternoon sun in the winter to help keep it warm. My questions begin when the temperature drops. My town has an average low of about -12 to -18 from Dec - Feb. But record lows hit the -35 range. Just how cold can these hens take, or rather, what is the min. temp I need to keep the coop? If I have to run a heat lamp for 4 to 6 months a year, it may not be worth the eggs. Also, do you know of any way to keep a rooster without ticking of my neighbors (read wife)? It would be great to be able to sustain the flock myself, but can it be done without rooster noise?

More questions to come, but I'll take it slow...thanks for the help.

Glad to help!

First off - I'm not sure how urban you are but I will tell you I am woken up many mornings by the crowing of a rooster - and they don't just crow to announce that it's morning - they crow ALL DAY LONG! There have been a few mornings where my son told me he wanted to point his BB gun out the window and shoot the darn thing so he could sleep. The no roosters in the city rule is a good idea and there isn't really a way around it for making babies. In a SHTF situation I think your neighbours might be more open to the idea and roosters are fairly easy to come by if you make friends with a country farmer. I would have 10 to choose from right now and I'd be happy to get rid of them.

Roosters also start crowing before they are old enough to butcher so I would rethink the idea of getting them non-sexed. Getting sexed chicks is no big deal and if you want some to eat you can eat the hens.

Now about the cold. I expressed this same fear to a friend when we moved to the country. I'll share a story he told me. His parents had chickens for years but after all the kids moved out they wanted to get out of the chicken business because they were tired of doing the chores - not very prepper minded 🙂 So they sold off the hens and had them shipped off. During the transfer from coop to truck one little lady got loose and they couldn't catch her. They finally gave up figuring she wouldn't last long due to cold and predators. WELL- she lived for 6 more years in the hedge. Never fed or watered except what she coud find on her own and with no protection except the hedge.

Now I wouldn't recommend this type of housing arrangement if you want eggs because I doubt she would have laid very well or at all after the first few years but it shows you how hardy they can be! In fact cold is not the enemy. If you've ever held a chicken you might be surprised to feel how warm they are and when they are together in an unheated coop they can actually create quite abit of body heat.

The real enemy is the quality of the air. Birds need clean air more than they need to be warm - even at 40 below - really. REALLY. I know that's hard to wrap your head around 🙂 The only time you would heat a coop is when you have chicks. Now I worried and fretted about them the first winter. My DH and I would lay awake in bed worrying about them and we had lows to -25 or 30 at times as well.

So here's what you can do.

1. Provide an appropriate sized coop with roost space for all the chickens. They roost beside each other and keep each other warm.
2. Keep the coop filled with shavings or straw (shavings are easier to clean) so they have something to nestle down into durning the day.
3. Make sure the coop is well ventilated - you have to allow for the toxic fumes from their own poo to dissapate or you could end up with respiratory problems. (more on this in another post)
4. Make sure you leave them with lots of food and water. The more they eat the warmer they are.
5. Have a window on the southside if possible or have their outdoor run in a sunny area. This will warm the coop by passive solar gain and provide as much light as possible which is the key to better egg production in the winter months.

If you are worried about the extreme cold you could add a row of straw bales around three sides of the coop.

Ventilation, ventilation! That's the thing to remember 🙂

I took the window right out of my current coop and replaced it with heavy duty mesh wire. I will put straw bales infront of it for the winter to prevent snow build up but I am leaving it open. it goes right against what you think you should do doesn't it 😮

Hope that answered some questions. Keep them coming!

Thanks Anita...it really is hard to get my head around but I will give way to your experience. As for passive solar, I am going to watch the sun very carefully this winter to get placement for the coop and window. For ventilation, I was thinking of a 4" pipe coming out the side near the top to take care of hat. I have to be careful about open windows as we have fox in the area. I have read that a coop should have 2-3 sq.ft. per bird so at 12 birds max, I figure 4 x 6 should take care of things...with a covered run outside. Maybe a layer if insulation in the walls would help, but then I need to finish the inside of it too. So much to consider...good thing I'm in no rush. I plan on building the coop this coming summer in preparation for birds the next spring.

You won't be disappointed with the chickens. They are the most entertaining animals around - better than a big screen 🙂 the bonus is the eggs! Just build the coop like Fort Knox - there is no such thing as overkill as far as I am concerned. I've seen coops where I was worried for the birds.

When building do NOT use chicken wire. Racoons and other animals will rip it to shreds.

Use hardware cloth like this instead: http://www.twpinc.com/wire-mesh/TWPCAT_4

Also if you are going to make an outdoor run bury the wire and put rocks or cement or other heavy items around the outside to discourage digging AND make the outdoor run high enough to walk around in - we didn't and it was painful to clean out while bent over.

I also found that we underestimated the room required for feed, buckets, feeders, shovels, brooms and all the other "stuff" you will need regularly. It's far more handy to have it all right there then to have to store it somewhere else. We reused a playhouse so we didn't have much extra room to use and sometimes it was a tight squeeze - bigger is better!

Just posted on the Canadian Preppers blog about Urban Chickens for those of you who don't frequent the blog 🙂

http://www.canadianpreppersnetwork.com/2011/12/urban-chickens.html

I'm green with envy, Anita. So far, the city where we live does not allow chickens. I'm planning to start a "chickenpaign" though, because I really want a few girls. What would you say is the minimum number of chickens one could start with? I'm thinking of two or three.

Keep the pressure on Daisy - there are many municipalities that are changing the bylaws to allow backyard chickens. Most that do allow urban chickens will allow up to 6 hens but prohibit roosters.

We had six red sex links and it was a nice number. They kept each other company and kept each other warm in the winter. Since they don't lay every single day 6 chickens would give you an average of about 4 eggs a day if you go with a good laying breed - but more in the summer and less in the winter unless you supplement with a light in the coop. It does depend on how many you can eat. You will find that you eat more eggs when they are your own. We went from saying - would you like an egg to do you want 3 eggs or 4 - especially when we had an egg surplus 🙂

Putting in our backyard coop was the smartest thing we ever did - despite my tongue-in-cheek comments. I love to learn and it truely was a worthwhile endevour. If we had stayed in the city it would have taken awhile for the coop to pay off but even then it would have been worth it. Having food security is also a major plus to me.

Taking the plunge seems like such a big deal and can be a little scary but it's much less work than a puppy 🙂 It took less than 20 minutes a day - 10 in the morning - 10 at night to take care of the 6 of them. The neighbours never complained but seemed quite interested. We did keep the coop super clean because we didn't want complaints.

I hope you are able to get the bylaws changed 🙂