Chickens Chickens and even MORE Chickens
- Thread starter Lacey
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Oh yes, I adore chooks, as well as ducks. At one stage I had half a dozen of chooks, a rooster and 7 Muscovy ducks. My backyard was always busy and, at times, noisy, as various personal issues went on between the birds. But all in all, they greatly contributed to the fertility of my garden. I didn't let the ducks into my vegetable beds, as they were trampling everything down, but they were happy around the little stream that ran around our property.
May I ask how many you had?
Cute kids and adorable little chickens. Is the one with the black chicken one of your daughters?This is going back a few years now
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My father in law has chickens wandering his yard and he, too, has the best looking green grass ever. I personally don't like the fact that I may walk into chicken poop every time I'm over to visit but I deal with it because its his fertilizer for the yard. Free eggs is always a plus.
Ta
Yep, that's Willow and the Boy, doesn't seem that long ago, but She's at College now and i've just bought the Boy his first car
So I don't want to sound dumb, but how do you handle chickens? How do they know to stay in the yard? Are they fenced in?
we have had every poultry and waterfowl at one time or another. though. i like chickens, for pets, ducks are the most intelligent and will crawl on your lap for some bread. my mother had a white peking named ''mutty'. she lived for 13 yrs. and was the matriarch of our duck flock( over 40 strong at times) . she learned how to climb the stairs to the deck to get morning bread from my mother! if my mother had extra treats during the day, she would yell to her and you would hear her call out wherever she was on the property and make a beeline with the rest of her family, strait for the house! i still to this day can't bring myself to eat duck! we always kept a few chinease geese with our ducks. they where very aggressive and would protect the flock from predators as big as dogs and sometimes us! they always made a fuss honking if someone came in the yard that didn't belong there! we had a little spring pond in the back of the property they loved to hang out at.
my chickens always stayed within a 100ft. of their pen as their food water and roost is there. i let them out in the morning and at dark they are back in sleeping on their roost. i just then shut their door to protect them from predators. never had a problem with any poultry or waterfowl not coming home at night except guinea fowl who stay nearby but prefer to roost in my big spruce trees. i have been able to handle them all except the guineas and pheasant which are still wild. its like a dog. you have to gain trust. sit on a pail so you don't look as threatening and throw bread to them . it doesn't take long you will be able to touch them. some more than others. ducks and turkeys are the most trusting. had a 40 lb . tom turkey named tom surprisingly! he would let me pick him up to put him on the picnic table so the kids could pet him and feed him bread. after awhile he figured out if he sat on the picnic table himself, we would go feed him and give him attention. we had him for nearly 10 yrs! miss that ol' bird!
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Amazingly enough, you can train your chickens to stay in your yard! I have heard from many people that your chickens will follow you around the yard, though I always have assumed that your chickens must be comfortable enough with you to follow you around the yard. You can also train chickens with treats. If you open the door of the chicken run and hold treats by the door, they will surely enough run out. You can train them to walk back in the coop with treats as well. I let my chickens roam around the yard, and they don't roam too far away from me. I have never had a problem with them leaving the yard before. I imagine that this would only be a problem with people who have smaller yards.
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Leah, that is not a dumb question (I asked it before we got hens!). The breed of chicken will determine how tame/friendly/calm the chickens are. We have Black Australorps, a friendly and calm breed that lays great big brown eggs. Our girls will follow me about, and if I need to get them back into the coop when a storm is brewing, or at dusk, I just take their metal treat plate out and tap on it lightly with my fingernails. They practically trample me getting back into the coop to enjoy their treats
Having a rooster will give the flock a tendency to roam more. We don't keep a rooster for that very reason, and also I don't want to have to candle eggs to see if they are fertile.
Our ladies have two inside coops, and a large outside coop. All are fenced, reinforced, and fortified because we have feral cats, coyotes, and the occasional stray dog that show up here on our farm. The ladies are only out of the protected areas when I am with them, and then only three or four of them are out since they tend to stay close to the rest of the flock, which is inside a fortified area. They can easily be gotten to a safe area if needed.
Having chickens is entertaining, rewarding, and the eggs are great!
Having a rooster will give the flock a tendency to roam more. We don't keep a rooster for that very reason, and also I don't want to have to candle eggs to see if they are fertile.
Our ladies have two inside coops, and a large outside coop. All are fenced, reinforced, and fortified because we have feral cats, coyotes, and the occasional stray dog that show up here on our farm. The ladies are only out of the protected areas when I am with them, and then only three or four of them are out since they tend to stay close to the rest of the flock, which is inside a fortified area. They can easily be gotten to a safe area if needed.
Having chickens is entertaining, rewarding, and the eggs are great!
The free range method of rearing chicken in my area is quite common. This applies to traditional breeds and I concur that they are excellent gardeners. Ducks are also good at this and they can even weed a garden if the crops are tall. One however has to make sure that there are no vegetables in the compound since they can destroy them. Also ensuring that the fences are intact and without gaps would reduce squabbles with neighbours.
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We also have some free range chickens in our extended garden but the purpose is not for the fertilizer from their poop but just for the fun of seeing them roaming around. They take care of some bugs and other insects that pester the plants. The neighbor actually takes care of the chickens but we share in the cost of feeding just for a little help (the old woman is in a state of poverty). Right now one hen is already in the hatching stage and we are hoping to see some chicks soon.
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Chicken poop makes a good organic fertilizer. If you have chicken poop, you don't need other fertilizer for your plants. Chickens are also easy to raise. There are two benefits of raising chicken, one your needs of meat is fulfilled, two you get fertilizer for your plants. I once had reared chicken, however, gave up this business because I could not manage time.