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chickens
I'm 15 and live with my mom and recently we moved into a nice house with a nice back garden and we wanted to get some. hickens and was just wondering if anyone had some good advice on how to care for them and the basic needs of chickens and what you need in order to keep them
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Maybe give some free advice about: Pets?
Check with your local city offices to see if they have any problems with that. Some urban areas have laws against raising chickens in your yard.
If its okay here's what i observed from renting on property where the owner had chickens.
They had a permanent large chicken run about 5 1/2 ft high. 15 ft longInstead of chicken wire, they had a more sturdy wire in square pattern. But along the ground for about 18 inches they had lots of chicken wire as well to keep rats from going in. The ground did not have a blade of grass because they will eat anything. So besides grains, corn, you can fee them your apple peelings and any parts of veggies you don;t want, your grass clippings. From time to time they bought hay to spread down so they weren't living in mud. They had a roomy hen house. Chicken coops are known to smell bad. But the only time I smelled anything was on days where the temp outside was hot like 80 degrees. If you wish, there are people who sell portable chicken coops on wheels on line or the plans to build your own. That way after some time you can relocate to another area and put out seed to replant the patch they ate bare. Having chickens range free in your yard means having proper fencing, so little cracks where they can get out. And while dogs may not be able to get to them, neighbors cats certainly can scale anything to come in and entertain themselves with your chickens. So a coop and run are best.
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Popular thing at the moment. You need a hen-house to keep them secure overnight from predators and bad weather. And you'll need a 'run' that's got to be wired-off because they peck at and eat ANYTHING, so they'll destroy your small garden flowers, although they haven't got the ability to destroy larger shrubs/trees etc. If yoy've got a dog make sure it can't get into the run or the house. A nice, well-behaved pet can totally freak at the presence of chickens in the garden...and it'll basically want to kill them. Not great! Also some pretty garden flowers are strongly toxic (foxgloves for instance, full of digitalis). They'll probably eat these too, again...not what you want. Better quality feed you give them the nicer the eggs tend to taste. Plenty of grit in the run to peck at too. They adore those mealworm things people buy to feed birds, but that's maybe spoiling them a bit, and a bit pricey too. You do need to thoroughly clean a henhouse regularly, as you don't want pests and parasites or diseases. And they get jolly smelly amazingly quickly too if you don't. You'll have droppings to dispose of and they too are a pretty smelly when fresh. All that corn and a cosy house will tend to attract rats, so keep your eye out for signs of them and sort it out quick, before you get loads piling in for a free dinner. They need water as well but that's easily solved. If you haven't heard anything to put you off, go for it. It's a nice way of getting beautiful fresh eggs and really puts you in touch with nature and life. It's very unlikely to be a cost-saving exercise unless you have loads of birds and you've got a market for the eggs. But it's an admirable thing to do, so why not have a go and see how you get on??
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