Backyard Chickens

Keeping the Home Poultry Flock
Happy and Healthy

I recommend using the deep litter system in your chicken house.

Raising backyard chickens will add life and laughter to your garden with their antics. My favorite backyard chickens are Bantams with their cocky attitude and incredible energetic activities.

Make sure you put a seat where you and your visitors can stop and watch them as they go about their business of keeping the bugs down. Non-stop humorous helpers, mixing the humus!

Starting Your Backyard Chicken Flock

• If you raise your own chicks by hatching eggs in an incubator, this gives you control over the timing of the hatch, and the breeding.

  Get your eggs for hatching from a source where the breeding stock is kept outdoors - free range preferably. Incubators are very economical, especially for more than one hatch, or you can share with a friend.

• Buying day old chicks from a reputable breeder is a good option too, although you will still have the mothering to do, the same as if you hatch your own.

• You can also buy pullets, which are young hens just starting to lay eggs. This option gives you instant gratification, as they will start to lay soon, if not laying already.
  
• Sometimes you can acquire a broody Bantam hen, with a clutch of eggs already under her. This is tricky, as moving them can often upset them enough that they abandon the nest.

  If this happens, you’ll have to start all over again next time she goes broody.

  For the most successful transfer, do it at night, and very quietly. If she’s already in a cage, so much the better; don’t handle her if at all possible.

  Did You Know?

  There is an old time technique for sexing eggs before setting them in an incubator or under a hen called 'witching' or 'dowsing'

• Once you have a backyard chicken flock started, you can allow one or more of your hens to hatch out some eggs, either from your own flock – you’ll need a rooster if you go this route – or buy the eggs from a breeder.

• If you're lucky enough to have a determined broody hen you can also graft some extra chicks onto her.

Add the new chicks at night as she sleeps and is drowsy, and by morning she’ll accept them as her own. It’s a magical thing, this maternal instinct. Even a tiny Bantam hen can brood many more chicks than she can hatch, as she fluffs up her feathers, and spreads her wings over them for warmth.

She clucks to them, calls them to her if they wander too far away, and woe betide any cat, dog, snake or other predator that threaten their safety.

A protective mother hen is a force to be reckoned with, leaving you free to carry on the important task of gardening.

Some breeds of poultry are better at mothering than others; this is one reason I’m partial to Bantams. They still have this instinct, unlike breeds developed for egg production, or as meat birds. Some Bantam roosters are also very protective of the chicks, even going so far as to brood them after the hen deserts them.

This trait of broodiness is unwanted for egg laying hens, as they stop egg production to become mothers.

If you start your backyard chicken flock with some Bantam hens, then allow them to hatch out eggs of other breeds, you can eventually have the best of all worlds; a multi-purpose mixed flock.

Keep in mind that the ratio of cocks to pullets is sometimes as high as 80%, so be prepared to cull any excess roosters, preferably before they start to fight.

If they’re big enough you can butcher them to make into soup, as usually they’re pretty tough if raised free range, and not suitable as broilers.

Raising chicks, whether day old, hatched by you in an incubator or purchased, is a full time job for the first few weeks.

Waiting until the weather is completely settled in June to hatch your brood is a wise decision, unless you have a willing mother hen to do the work.

Care of Baby Chicks

Put the new chicks in the brooder only after having the heat lamp on for a few hours prior to warm it up.

A small dish or saucer with pebbles in is perfect for a waterer for the first few weeks. Refresh it often, using warmed or tepid water.

As you put each of the baby birds in the brooder, dip it’s beak in the water to show it how to drink. If you have mother hen, she’ll take care of all this for you.

Winter Care of Backyard Chickens

If you live where it gets cold enough to freeze their water use a heat lamp or water heater to keep it from freezing. Adult birds can withstand a lot of cold, but they still need water to produce those eggs.

Make sure you collect the eggs frequently, as they will freeze too.

Some chicken fanciers feed their birds strictly layer pellets, or mash, made from questionable ingredients. For the healthiest birds, and the eggs with the dark golden yolks I prefer feeding chickens natural foods.

You choose, but once you’ve tasted those incredible free range eggs, you won’t go back.

Learn about raising chickens frugally here.

Tell me your Backyard Chickens story...

What are your best tips on how to make rustic chicken house furniture for your birds? A hint to other chicken gardeners out there on how to make chicken raising easier? Share it!

See other great Backyard Chicken Stories here;

Each link goes to another page about our favorite birds...

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Sustainable Gardening

Composting