Chook Care
Caring for your chickens centres firmly around the environment, space and housing that you provide for them. Chickens are naturally hardy creatures that can happily thrive in the coldest British winters as long as they have been provided with a strong, dry, draught free and well ventilated house to roost in at night. Chickens feathers provide very good insulation but must be able to be kept dry in the cold.
The Hen House
I have tried to design the perfect house for a small family flock of up to eight Chooks with our Gable Cottage so will start by outlining the desirable features from a hen’s point of view. Strength of build and proof against Foxes and Badgers and very desirable from a hen's point of view - this subject poses a dilemma though because a lot of people want to be able to move their chicken house easily around the garden, but if it is light enough to do this, it is probably not strong enough to withstand a sustained attack from an adult Fox or Badger. Our new Sleigh Run is our answer to this problem.
The essential things that a henhouse should provide are shelter from the elements in a drought free and dry environment with good ventilation, as well as good access to make cleaning as easy as possible. If you are keeping layers, you will need a cosy nestbox in the darkest part of the house for those private “laying” moments when a girl needs all the privacy she can get. The nest box should be low down in the house but preferably not on the floor.
Perches are the next essential, it is natural behaviour for a chook to “go up to roost” (that’s roost, not roast!) so the perches should be between one and two feet above the floor and higher than the nestbox otherwise they will roost in there, they like to get up as high as possible. Perches should be made from two inch planed timber with the corners rounded but a nice flat top as they rest on their breasts on the perch when asleep so this is most comfortable for them.
Raising the house off of ground, on a stand or on legs, has several advantages, one of which is that you don’t have to bend down so much to either collect the eggs or to clean out the house. Other advantages are that it provides a shelter for the hens in bad weather and also somewhere dry to provide their food water and grit as well as a place for them to make a dust bath. Lastly but possibly most importantly, raising the house up will prevent Rats from nesting beneath it. If the house is close to the ground this will create the perfect place for rats and other vermin to nest and they can secretly gnaw their way through the floor to steal the hens food, young chicks are their very favourite delicacy and they will steal them from under their mother one by one. So once again prevention is the answer, raise the house up letting in air and light, problem solved.
Keeping the house clean is very important and if the floor of the house is designed to slide out this is made much easier, the droppings and shavings can simply be scraped into a wheelbarrow or bucket and added to the compost heap where they do a fantastic job of accelerating and improving your compost. A new layer of about an inch of shavings is then spread out and the job is done, in literally a few minutes. I also add a few handfuls of clean straw or hay to the nestbox.
The Run
Important points for the run are, that it is big enough for the number of hens you are keeping and strong enough to keep them safe. Having a well designed and secure run allows you to go away for a weekend or on holiday with peace of mind and as you grow to love your chooks this becomes Very Important.Two hens of average size per square metre of ground would be satisfactory if they were allowed out to free range for a few hours per day but if they were to be kept permanently in the run I would recommend more, at least a square metre per hen and they must have room to flap and jump around. From a hens point of view you should try to make the run as much like an activity centre as you can with perching, hanging up fresh green veg for them to peck at but most important is the floor.
Hens love to scratch around looking for food, it is their main function in life and they start doing it almost as soon as they emerge from the egg. If you throw a handful of corn into some straw or grass this will keep the hen very happily amused, perhaps for hours. So what to put on the floor of the run, well I use a three or four inch layer of coarse wood chippings to cover up the bare earth, this also encourages worms and grubs which the hens love. Droppings can then be washed through by the rain or a hosepipe to keep it clean. As for the design of the run, it needs to be made from strong, treated timber or galvanised steel and covered in sixteen guage weldmesh with three quarter or inch squares. This specification will deter the most persistent foxes and badgers of which there are plenty in East Devon. The only additional requirement is to add an anti-dig shield by fixing weldmesh to the underside of the run panels protruding out at least one foot, the grass will grow through this shield as it lays flat on the ground outside the run and it will disappear. If foxes or badgers try to dig into a run they always try to start digging immediately adjacent to the mesh of the run, they are then defeated by the shield. Note, it must be a minimum of sixteen guage weldmesh as wire netting or other inferior products of which there are many will not do the job.
The Enclosure
The ideal setup, if you are lucky enough to have a large garden, orchard, paddock or field in which to keep your hens is to surround the house and run with an electrified poultry fence giving your hens plenty of room to free range. These fences are very effective if fitted with the right specification of Fencer Unit they are unobtrusive and readily available from country stores such as Mole Valley Farmers or Countrywide or over the Internet from sites such as www.farmcareuk.com .This arrangement allows you complete peace of mind, your hens stay where they are supposed to be and there is another line of defence against predators.Feeding
This subject alone could run into thousands of words so I will only cover the basics initially. Chicks, Growers, Layers and Finishers all have their own requirements with different feed preparations available for all the varying stages and types. Some people will want to feed Organically, others will be content with a Natural Feed with no GM or Meds and others will want a feed with an Anti Coccidiosis additive. You will need to do some research and make up your own mind as to which route to take. My advice is that a natural and complete layers pellet from an established source such as those made by Farmgate or Allen & Page Smallholder Range will have the best levels of vitamins and minerals and proven good results. I provide an on demand feed system usually using a green and white plastic feeder of the correct size for the number of hens. I also supplement this with a scratch feed treat of poultry grain mixed with additional cut maize thrown for the hens in the afternoon. Clean fresh water should be available at all times, it is surprising how much a few hens will drink so if you are new to keeping hens it is a good idea to buy a larger drinker than you think you need and keep an eye on it. I recommend a 13Lt side feed bucket as these have the advantage over traditional Galvanised Fountain Type drinkers that the water is kept cleaner and out of the Sun and so does not turn green.
It is also important to make grit available to your hens, they peck at it as required and retain a small amount in their gizzard to help grind up the hard husks of grain etc that they eat.
Cleaning and Maintenance
If cleaning and maintenance are carried out on a regular basis the task is really very quick and easy. I use a layer of wood shavings on the floor of the house and clean straw on shavings in the nestboxes. If the house is inspected daily and the eggs collected, it is little bother to keep a poop scoop in the house and regularly remove the worst of the droppings, this also gives you an opportunity to inspect them as they give a good indication of the condition of your birds, you will quickly get to know what is normal healthy poop. Then on a weekly or fortnightly basis clean the house out completely and replace the shavings. It is also essential to prevent rather than try to cure the infestation of the house with bugs, particularly Red Mite which can make a Chooks life a misery. Every time I clean out my houses I apply a small dusting of Diatomaceous Powder to the ends of the perches and particularly around the sockets where the perches sit, any nooks and crannies and around the nest box as well. The Diatom Powder needs to be used sparingly as it is quite expensive and I have found it best to apply it using a long bristled paintbrush as this allows you to get small amounts into all the nooks and crannies. Another trick is to occasionally alternate with a different Mite Dusting Powder, I have found this to be very effective. Also on a monthly basis I pick up the birds, gently turn them upside down on my knees and give them a good dusting under the wings and between their legs to prevent parasites, again I use Diatom and alternate with another proprietary brand of dusting powder.A very thorough spring clean should be carried out if any infestation or disease is suspected, I do this about quarterly as a matter of routine. The house should be emptied, and in the case of one of our Gable Cottages, the nest box, floor and perches all removed. The house should then be thoroughly scrubbed out with Poultry Guard or similar, I use a pressure washer to blast out the whole House inside and out. It is best if the spring-clean is done on a dry day and it can be left with all doors and windows open to thoroughly dry out before being put back together with clean shavings and bedding.
If this regime of cleaning and maintenance is carried out, as well as regular worming, you should have a happy, healthy flock with the absolute minimum number of problems.
Extreme Cold Weather
Having recently been questioned about this subject live on Radio 2 by Simon Mayo (29/11/10) I thought I had better put an additional note on here. As said at the beginning of this article, chickens, like most birds, can tolerate freezing temperatures without any problems, providing a few bare necessities are provided. They need a dry and very importantly, draft-proof house, that is well ventilated, they need to be well fed and will consume a little more food than usual in cold weather and they need access to clean fresh water. The water is the most difficult thing in frozen conditions and needs checking regularly to make sure it is not frozen. I put both feeder and water bucket inside the house in freezing conditions as this helps prevent it freezing and chickens don't like to venture out in the snow too much.
We have recently (December 2010) experienced the coldest spell of weather and the inconvenience of frozen hose pipes and carrying water is fresh in mind, I will be designing a small frost-stat greenhouse type heater into some houses in future, not to keep the hens warm but to keep the water from freezing.
Roger Mudditt
Tiphayes Farm