As an experience, raising your own chickens can be pretty satisfying in many levels. It carries with it the same basic pleasures you get from keeping a pet around – which isn’t something you’d expect to hear from somebody who owns a chicken.
Plans are a must in building a healthy brood of hens that will be interesting pets and producers of poultry products, though. Although they’re relatively easy to take care of, without knowing what kind of animals you want to grow, or how you’re going to take care of them, you may end up wasting good money on an exercise in futility.
The very first bit of chicken planning you’d want to do is to consider your territory. Some people make a mistake of thinking that chickens will survive in any weather – and they will, generally.
But if you want to keep a happy and productive brood, you might want to look into kinds of chickens you can grow in your area. Don’t be a heartless owner and just let them learn to adapt. The happier your chickens are, the more they’ll be able to do for you.
How about living space? Where’re you going to keep them? I know somebody who used to keep a lone hen inside an aquarium, and the bird flew the coop – so to speak – before you can say fried chicken. Plan your hen house with the territory in mind.
Know the temperature of the area you’ll be building your coop in. Chicks will need to live in an area with controlled temperature for a time before you can subject them to colder temperatures, so if you’re living up north, you may want to figure out a way to insulate your chickens.
Plan the size of your coop to how many chickens you’ll be having – the average room size per chicken is anywhere from two to three square feet.
If you live in an area that has natural chicken predators, remember to protect your coop. Big animals like foxes, coyotes and mountain lions, while rare, need to be taken into consideration when planning your chicken fort.
Smaller predators are easier to manage but watch out! Rodents are a pretty serious threat to the structure itself, while dealing with mites can be a truly trying ordeal.
You’re raising a living animal, so you need to make sure that your chickens stay healthy. It isn’t that hard to figure out what kind of food to give to your birds. Most bird owners usually just go for the classic chicken feed, and construct homemade feeding systems for their coop.
If you want to make them feel loved, feed them with vegetables and bread, or occasionally, even bugs. At the same time, keep the coop clean to prevent the proliferation of scat-oriented diseases that can severely harm your chickens.
One thing I nearly missed – know what you’re raising chickens for. This will determine the kind of chicken breed and method of housing you’ll want, saving you from having to go through chicken after chicken trying to figure out your end goal.
A final note before I sign off. Chickens are just like any other living organism in this planet. It pays to know what you’re getting into before you dive in so that you end up wasting more money and harming innocent chickens.
Plan your way around the initial stages, and you’ll be reaping the rewards of being a chicken owner in no time at all. Good luck!
