Chickens

A small flock of chickens are worth their weight in gold in your garden. Not only are they pest catchers and egg producers, they are also wonderful at stirring up the compost, and they add their own blend of nutrient rich fertilizer to the mix. I recommend using the deep litter method in your chicken house.

Raising chickens will add life and laughter to your garden with their antics. My favorites 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 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 flock, 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.

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

If you start 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.

Chickens need an incubation period of 21 days, sometimes 22 days depending on the temperature. Most incubators come with complete instructions for successful hatching.

Feeding Chickens

• Hen scratch, which is several types of whole grains plus crushed corn and I scatter it on the deep litter of their cozy little house.

  Additionally, they get

• chick scratch, similar to the above, but chopped, which I soak for a few minutes with hot water. This swells it up, and when they eat it for their evening meal, they get a double benefit. They get additional water in their diet, plus if it’s still warm when they eat it they will be warm all night.

  In very cold spells, I also cook up

• potatoes which I mash and add to the porridge mixture.

  They also get

• grated apple,

• worms from the vermicompost bin.
• Scraps of bread, rice or noodles from the family dinner table. In summer, I pull

• weeds or

• green manure cover crops that are cut from the mulch bed
  

• alfalfa, which I grow in a chicken herbarium so they can't scratch up the roots.

• Brassicas such as cabbage or

• Chinese greens.

• Sprouted grains of any kind are very nutritious, as are sprouted weed seeds.

  If you are fortunate enough to have access to

• hay, they’ll gladly scratch around in that until they find any seeds.

Chickens prefer to scratch for their own food, foraging in your garden, under shrubs and trees, and generally fending for themselves.

Unfortunately, they sometimes are so zealous that they do some damage. If you can make a movable pen or chicken ark for them, they are safer from predators and you can confine them away from delicate crops. Chickens like lettuce just as much as you and I! Lighting is very important for your hens – if you want them to lay eggs. They need an increasing amount of light, and it can be any kind.

Natural daylight is best, but in winter you can boost the length of light they receive by using a simple 60watt bulb in their house.

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 to feed natural foods.

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

Tell me a story about your chickens!

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