The Chicken Coop Rundown

What Caring for Chickens Comes Down To

Chickens are great for getting eggs and meat from. Hens are the female chickens that lay eggs. Roosters are the male chickens that protect the flock and fertilize the eggs, leading to new chicks being born. Taking care of a chicken coop comes down to these key items:

• being aware of some common myths
• the costs of caring for your chickens
• rules that different cities and states have about keeping chickens around
• how to care for your chickens and the chicken coop
• how many chickens do you plan to have

“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:”

Matthew 3:11 of the KJV Holy Bible

The Myths About Chickens

Chicken Coops Bring a Mean Odor

Chickens can stink it up. You can dodge this by

• keeping your chickens well
• having the right coop & litter setup
• the right outdoor run
• not feeding them too much

You Need a Rooster to Get Some Eggs

You won’t need roosters to get eggs you can eat. These eggs are unfertilized eggs, which means you don’t need roosters.

Chickens Are Loud

Chickens usually aren’t too loud unless they’re about to lay an egg or if they just had a fight.

It’s a Lot of Work to Run a Chicken Coop

When it comes to handling your chicken coop there’s not much that you have to do. All you’ll have to do is:

• collect those eggs
• keep the coop and litter clean
• water and feed the flock, which can be automated

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Chickens Lay Eggs Daily

Chickens don’t lay eggs every single day. In their first 3-4 years young hens lay eggs relatively consistently. In the summer seasons a young hen can lay an egg every 24 to 26 hours in peak season. Winter pulls up and a young hen may go two days without laying an egg. When hens get older the number of eggs they lay starts to drop until they completely stop. At this point they can be used as meat birds or kept as a pet.

Freshly Laid Eggs Must be Put in the Fridge ASAP

Eggs that have just been laid by a hen don’t need to be put in the fridge right away. The eggs have a natural bloom, or coating, that completely seals the eggshell to give it a shelf life of two weeks before having to put it in the fridge. Washing them with water shortens the egg’s shelf life because this removes the natural bloom.

Your Chicken Coop Won’t End with the Same Number of Chickens You Started With

This is because having more chickens increase egg production.

Chickens Only Survive in Specific Climates

Chickens are able to survive in much hotter or colder climates. This is made easier if you think about the coop design, ventilation, and insulation.

Chicken Coop Regulations, or Rules by Different Cities or States

Each city, state, or province has different rules when it comes to letting people keep chickens. It’s good to check your local area’s rules before you pick up a flock and find out they’re not allowed in your area.

High Quality Eggs Come With Space

Space, the overall size of the coop, is comfy for the flock. When people are buying grocery store eggs they look for pastured hens because they have the highest space that is high quality. Your covered indoor run should give each chicken 10 square feet because it will reduce fights. For the indoor hen house or the roost it’s good to have a square foot of roost bar per hen. You’ll have your flock extra comfy if you throw on some ventilation.

How to Get Your Chicken Coop

This is how you’ll either buy or make your chicken coop. Sometimes buying them isn’t cheap. A low quality coop goes for 200 bucks USD. You can also make your own.

Where You Get Your Chickens

You can get chickens directly from eggs or as pullets.

Raising Chickens from Eggs

Raising chickens from eggs is the most advanced level of raising chickens. It’s hard to tell if a baby chick is a hen or a rooster. Most times people can’t keep roosters and people usually don’t them.

Getting Chickens as Pullets

Pullets are chickens that are near the age of being able to lay eggs. They’re at the point where their feathers are coming in. Getting these lets you skip raising the baby chick into a full grown chicken.

A Chicken Coop Setup for Broody Hens

You’ll need a good set up for when your hens become broody. This is when a hen does stuff when it wants its eggs to hatch, like sitting on top of her eggs all day to try making them hatch. Without a rooster, this will make the hen sit on the eggs her whole life because the eggs won’t be fertile and won’t hatch.

A good set up for broody chickens involves having

• a container
• bedding
• and keeping the hens warm

You’ll want to stay away from regular heat lamps. This is because it blocks their ability to ejecting their stool once they face the condition of pasty vent. This happens when the heat lamp makes the stool catch on the fluff they have back there and shuts the vent. This can be be fatal for them. On the other hand you can let your hens and chicks kick it under an electrical heat setup, which doesn’t cause pasty vent.

Different Breeds with Different Traits

When it comes to which breed of chicken you’re looking for it mostly comes down to preference in

• aesthetic
• personality tendency
• tolerance to extreme climates
• the colour of egg the hens produce

Example breeds of chicken include Orpingtons, Wyandottes, Cream Legbar, and Rhode Island Red chickens.

• Orpingtons are the friendly, highly popular, and mellow chicken that make good moms that have a tendency to be broody
• Wyandottes are the chickens that bring more of that attitude
• Cream Legbar chickens are an English chicken variety
• Rhode Island Reds are a mix of a meat bird and one that lays eggs

Looking After Your Chickens is Made Easy Using This Cool Schedule

On the daily you should make sure to make sure your chickens are fed and to collect those eggs. Once a week it’s good to check if the feed and water’s running low, and to do a light cleaning of the coop. You may need to do a more thorough clean once a month of the outdoor run or inside the coop. To spare yourself some energy every six months or so you’ll need to rake up stuff the chickens are not eating and dunk it in the compost. It’s good to make sure they’re looking healthy. If not, you should rake the flat interior run and shake up the hen house bedding so that the droppings don’t pile up in one area. Every six months to a year you’ll need to do a full change of the litter.

Keeping Your Chicken Coop Predator Proof

Chickens have birds and mammals trying to mess with them. You can hook your chicken coop up with protective features to keep them out.

The Costs of Keeping Chickens

Unless you found materials and you’re a boss carpenter or builder building a chicken coop can cost between 300 bucks to the price of a car if you deck one out as big as a house. This includes

• materials
• tools to automate and save time
• the chickens themselves

Chicken Coop Materials

When it comes materials you’ll need a feeder that the chickens can eat or drink out of. You should be okay if you do this yourself and can be free with certain types of materials.

Chicken Coop Automation Tools

You can cop yourself some tools to automate letting your chickens feed and drink water. There’s feeders that hold two 50-pound bags of feeding with multiple feeding areas. Chickens won’t have to have a rumble just to eat.

The Chickens Themselves

Chicks and chickens themselves can be $5 – $100 bucks, but most rare breeds won’t go above that. You can also ask homesteading friends to hatch some for you. Chicken feed can cost between 50 cents and two dollars a pound. This gives chickens 1.5 pounds of feed they can eat in a week, unless you have a garden or food scraps that’s also feeding your chickens. Not giving chickens feed is a bad idea because feed gives them all the nutrients they need to help them lay eggs and for calcium.

Daily Life Turning into an Episode of Survivor for Some

It’s a good time to at least know about how to keep a flock of chickens nearby. Got a coop at your residence? What does your set up look like? Is it allowed in your area? Leave your answer in the comments below. And share the content. God bless.