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Learning how to handle birds is important and should really be learnt from a professional. Old methods of handling birds, such as suspending them by their legs, can cause injury or death.
Basic care consists of letting the birds out of the house in the morning and filling the feeders with meal or pellets. Nest boxes should be checked and eggs removed at least twice daily as they can be crushed. This is not only a waste of eggs but can lead to hens eating their eggs. While checking the nest boxes, you should also notice is there is enough clean litter in them and add more if necessary. Feeders and drinkers should be emptied and filled with fresh water daily and if using an electric fence you should make sure the current is working. In the evening, hens should be shut away to protect them from predators. Don’t leave it too late in the evening or you may find that the fox has been there before you.
The hen house will need to be cleaned out regularly – at least once a week. Painting inside and outside the house with wood preservative will kill parasites, but the hens will need to be moved out while it is done and for several days afterwards.
Broody hens used to hatch chicks will require particular attention. Signs of broodiness are that the hen sits tight on her nest and clucks noisily at any disturbance, getting very annoyed if anyone tried to move her. Eggs should be collected regularly if you want to avoid hens going broody, having no eggs to sit on dampens their enthusiasm.
If you do want to produce chicks then natural hatching is a far easier, more economical and a more interesting way for small poultry keeper than using an incubator. Chicks hatched between March and June are probably the best proposition. Make sure that the eggs are fertile and that the broody hen doesn’t have too many eggs to sit on, 10 – 12 eggs is a reasonable clutch. If she has too many she will be incapable of incubating them all and when some have hatched she may abandon the others after a few days in order to take her newly hatched chicks to find food and water. The incubation period for chickens is 21 days. It is advisable to place the broody hen and her newly hatched chicks in a separate coop to avoid the other hens damaging or killing the chicks.
You do not need a cockerel for hens to lay eggs.
A word from our experts…
Keeping chickens can bring you great satisfaction as well as the added reassurance of knowing exactly where your eggs and / or meat are coming from. Simply make sure they are fed every day, their eggs are regularly collected and that they chicken house is kept clean to get the most from your chickens. A handy tip for livening up the pen to relieve any boredom that might set in (if grass supplies are getting low) is to hang some CD’s or maybe a cabbage, which will give the chickens something to peck at.
When trying to give chickens the best quality of life, it can be hard to get the right balance between their freedom and their safety. In order to protect free range chickens from the threat of predators, electric poultry fencing is the ideal solution. Supplied complete with support posts the netting can be easily erected and moved in minutes and can be powered either by mains electricity or by a battery operated energiser deterring even the boldest of predators.
Jonathan Skeggs
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