All the time, the hen house and additional equipment must be clean. Before the chickens arrive, scrub and sanitise the environment where they will live. Remove any manure or litter from previous animals, including chickens that have lived there before. Once you have the hen house sorted, a feeder preferably metal and drinkers for the chickens is a must. You can also consider if you want to have perches or nests filled with wood shavings or straw for your soon-to-be pet.
Creating the perfect hen house. There are a variety of conditions that promote better health and egg laying. To raise hens that lay plenty of eggs, they should have a minimum of 15 hours of light per day and. They also need to be protected against potential predators, including rats who could carry diseases , cat, and foxes. If you have newborn chicks, then they need to be kept somewhere else for three weeks in a heated environment.
After a few days, the enclosure can be cooler, and once they reach about five to six weeks, then they can live in a normal temperature. If you are keeping chicks from the day they hatch, we recommend you read more on the perfect conditions here. What do you feed them? Once the shelter is sorted, the next thing to solve is what they eat.
Just like humans they need nutritious food that is full of protein and energy, vitamins, minerals, and calcium. Prevention is better than cure for poultry health problems. Have a peck at the top 5 chicken health products I use to keep my hens happy and healthy. Chooks confined to a chicken run need activities to stimulate their minds and keep them active and happy. Check out our guide here. Have a peck at the top 3 ways to keep hens cluckin' in their coop and chicken run with our top 3 ways to keep chickens happy and healthy right here.
Sick or weak chook? Keep your backyard chickens productive, healthy and happy as we head into the warmer months with our Spring Chicken Checklist. Search The Chook Coop. Ask our resident poultry expert - it's free. Submit your question to our resident poultry expert - it's free Thank You!
Our poultry expert will contact you soon. Do you currently have chickens? This will prevent fowl getting out and wild birds and predators getting in. Poultry need to be protected from weather extremes, so placement of the hen house is important along with design aspects for ventilation, roofing and so forth. Dappled sunlight I find best. A position under trees if possible is ideal and deciduous trees are a great choice, so that there is warm winter sun but summer shade provided.
Chickens like all animals need a good balanced diet of minerals vitamins, protein and carbohydrates. The easiest way to give your poultry all this nutrition is to buy a commercial ready-to-go poultry feed. There are quite a few bagged options available at produce stores such as layer pellets, layer mash, fine layer mash and mixed grains. Poultry also need a range of greens in their diet to give them all the essential vitamins, particularly Vitamin A because this is what gives the yolks that vibrant yellow colour.
Great greens to grow are comfrey, chicory, dandelion, chickweed, sorrel and silver beet. Even free ranging will allow chickens to pick on grass and a range of weeds. Shell grit is also important in adding calcium to their diet to help form good strong eggshells but it also aids with digestion. Most commercial poultry feeds will have shell grit already added to their mixes.
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