Caring for your chickens | Backyard Chicken Zone

Chicken Predators – Technology Solutions to Protect Your Flock

February 6, 2016 by James McGregor

The info-graphic below provides a great summary of the passive measures you can take to protect your flock from various predators but it is 2016 and you probably have more computing power in your smart phone now than NASA had on the moon lander when they put a man on the moon.

So lets look at some technology solution to enhance your physical chicken predator measures such as fencing.

1. Predator Guard Solar Power Deterrent Light

This deterrent light works by simulating the reflection of the eyes of a larger predator to create fear and uncertainty in nocturnal animals.

Wild animals that hunt or feed at night are acutely aware of their surroundings. They will only feed in a safe area
where they will not be noticed. Predator Guard introduces a pair of flashing lights that an animal assumes is a set of eyes.
This disrupts their sense of safety and makes them immediately flee your property.

At under $30 from Amazon this device is a good investment even if it only deters one attack on your flock.

Predator Guard Solar Powered Predator Deterrent Light

2. Garden Owl

An eco friendly alternative to other pest management solutions is this realistic looking horned owl decoy. The head moves in a realistic fashion drive by the solar panel installed in the head of the decoy scaring away garden pests and smaller predators. Available from Amazon.

3. Foxlights Night Predator Deterrent

Unlike the predator guard lights above that simulate the eyes of a larger predator, this system operates by creating a random set of lights to create the impression that an area is occupied. The sequence is random so the idea is to create uncertainty in the mind of the predators by not having a pattern for them to learn from.

Foxlights Night Predator Deterrent – Night Predator Control Light. Protect Flocks and Crops! Use 1 unit that flashes 360 degrees. Scares away and alarms wildlife animals.

It is worth pointing out that the technology above is not meant to replace physical protective measures like fences, but will enhance protection of your flocks and crops.

Some breeds of chickens also have much better instincts when it comes to predator awareness. Check out our guide or subscribe below to get a copy of our guide to selecting the best backyard chicken breed that identifies the breeds with the best predator awareness instincts.

Check out other cool eco friendly gadgets for the home here from our friends at GoGetEco.com. Also check out their high tech eco friendly gadgets for the garden here.

Click here to get your members only "Guide to Selecting the Best Backyard Chicken Breed"

Chicken Coop Cleaning Checklist

January 19, 2016 by James McGregor

Maintaining the hygiene of your flock is an important aspect of being a responsible backyard chicken keeper.

Click here to get your FREE copy of our "Chicken Coop Cleaning Checklist"

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine tracked 316 cases of salmonella poisoning from handling live chickens from 2004 to 2001. Most of the in Backyard chicken zone - chicken coop 2 fection were traced to an unidentified mail-order hatchery.

According to Dr. Casey Barton Behravesh, a veterinary epidemiologist for the CDC, “A perfectly healthy chicken can shed salmonella bacteria.”

“People know to wash their hands after they handle raw chicken from the grocery store, but forget that live chickens can carry salmonella germs too.” Dr Behravesh said.

Despite the concerns you can avoid the risks of salmonella and other health risks by doing a few simple things such as washing your hands with soap and water after handling your backyard chickens, washing the birds’ bowls outside and not allowing children to bring chickens into the house.

We have put together a easy to following “Backyard Chicken Hygiene Guide” which comes with a bonus chicken coop cleaning checklist. This is available to members only so sign up here.

Chicken raising tips – Backyard chicken hygiene

January 19, 2016December 19, 2015 by James McGregor

Maintaining the hygiene of your flock is an important aspect of being a responsible backyard chicken keeper.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine tracked 316 cases of salmonella poisoning from handling live chickens from 2004 to 2001. Most of the infection were traced to an unidentified mail-order hatchery.

According to Dr. Casey Barton Behravesh, a veterinary epidemiologist for the CDC, “A perfectly healthy chicken can shed salmonella bacteria.”

“People know to wash their hands after they handle raw chicken from the grocery store, but forget that live chickens can carry salmonella germs too.” Dr Behravesh said.

The following is some tips and guide to help maintain good flock hygiene for both your chickens and your family.

Click here to get your FREE copy of our "Backyard Chicken Hygiene Guide"

Clean your chicken coop and chicken runs every 1-2 weeks

Start by removing the chickens from the coop and lock them out. Make sure you wear some gloves because it can get messy.

Remove the roosts and place them in the sun.

With a dust pan remove the soiled pine shavings or whatever you choose to line your coop with and put them in the compost bin.

Wipe down the surfaces of the coop with a water and white vinegar mixture. There is always some caked on poop that needs a bit of scrubbing.

Next you will want to disinfect the coop using a broad spectrum virucidal all purpose disinfecting formula and cleaner.

Poultry Disinfectant – click for details

After the coop is disinfected give everything a spray with Mann Pro’s Poultry Protector to prevent mites and lice.

Finally replace the flooring with fresh pine shavings and sprinkle around a nesting box blend. Nesting Box Blends is a strong and aromatic blend of natural flowers, herbs and leaves with strong antibacterial, parasitic and insecticide properties.

Have a dedicated pair of rubber boots and disinfect them regularly

Caretakers or others who need to come in contact with your flock should change their footwear and wear a pair of rubber boots you keep outside the run dedicated for ‘visitors’.

Set up a footbath for disinfecting boots.

Fill the boot bath with a mix of 3/4 Cup bleach per gallon of water. Also keep a stiff brush nearby. Ask friends who come to visit to first scrub their boots to remove caked on dirt and manure and then to stand in the foot bath and scrape the bottom of their boots on the mat before approaching your chicken area. It’s also good practice to use it yourself any time you enter or exit the run. (Rinse and refill as needed as the bath gets dirty.)

Wash your hands after handling your chickens

Wash your hands with soap and water after handling your backyard chickens.

Alternatively keep waterless hand sanitizer in or near your run – and use it often. Also keep one in your car and use it after visiting the feed store.

Wash your home grown food

Wash eggs before you put them in the refrigerator. And don’t let the chickens run freely in the vegetable garden during the growing season.

Make sure you wash vegetables that you have grown in your garden if they are in the vicinity of the chickens also.

Biosecurity

Biosecurity of your flock is important. This article from fresheggsdaily.com says it better than we could so we recommend reading this.

Keep chickens outside

Finally, keep your chickens outside. Children tend to want to bring them inside particularly when it is cold. Tell the kids the chickens do keep warm outside in the chicken coop in the winter!

Good hygiene comes down to common sense and it is an important part of keeping happy backyard chickens and a happy healthy family.

Incubating chicken eggs

December 9, 2015November 17, 2015 by James McGregor

Hatching chicken eggs using artificial incubators is both an art and a science. Whilst it is not difficult incubating chicken eggs there are a number of key principles that you need to adhere to.

The first thing you need to do is to source quality fertilized eggs for hatching your own backyard chickens.

Good quality eggs require that the hens are in good health, have a well balanced diet and managed so that each hen is regularly serviced by a fertile rooster. The eggs should be clean fresh eggs that ideally have not been washed – washing can dramatically reduce the eggs viability be removing its protective bloom creating the potential for germs to infect the egg.

Source your eggs from a reputable breeder who keeps the nest boxes clean and filled with fresh dry bedding to prevent soiled eggs, collects eggs frequently, and stores them correctly.

For the best results in hatching chicken eggs the eggs should have been stored at room temperature with their pointy end down, rotated daily, and ideally should be less than 7 days old.

If possible your should pickup up eggs directly from the farm gate, however if you get them through the mail you should keep them still for 12-24 hours to allow the air cells to settle prior to placing them in an incubator.

As temperature is the single most important factor for successful hatching you should try and locate your chicken egg incubator in a room that has a relatively steady temperature, not in direct sunlight and away from draughts.

Recommended incubator – click for details

Turn on your chicken egg incubator and allow it to run for at least 24 hours to make sure the temperature inside the incubator has stabilized.

Set your eggs up in the chicken egg incubator on their sides or pointy end down in accordance with the incubator manufacturers instructions.

(Quick note on hatching rates – no matter how good your chicken egg incubator you can never fully replace a brooding hen and hence some eggs simply won’t hatch. The best rate you can expect is about 85%. If you are using eggs that have been posted to you then the hatching rate can be much lower around the 50% mark.)

Incubating chicken eggs will take 21 days after whichever time you will have a bunch of hungry chicks to feed.

Successful hatching using an chicken egg incubator requires four key factors:
1. Temperature

2. Humidity

3. Ventilation

4. Turning

Temperature
Every chicken egg incubator model will have its own settings for temperature however it is a good idea to get an incubator thermometer rather than rely on the incubators factory thermometer. If your eggs fail to hatch then temperature is the most likely cause. As a guide your eggs are unlikely to survive several hours of temperatures above 103degF or under 96degF.

Humidity
Humidity within the chicken egg incubator affects how much moisture is lost from the eggs during incubation. Fortunately most incubators create their own humidity through the use of water trays. (Tip – always use Luke warm water when you refill these water trays). The ideal humidity for hatching your backyard chickens is around 50-55% for the first 18 days and 65-70% in the final three days before hatching.

Ventilation
The embryos inside the eggs need oxygen which they get via their shell from the air around them. Therefore ensuring your incubator maintains good ventilation is important.

Turning
To be successful at incubating chicken eggs and hatching the chicken eggs, the eggs must be turned regularly for the first 17 days to prevent the embryos sticking to the shell. Ideally they should be turned 2-3 times per day. (Tip – mark the shells with a pencil with an A and a B on opposite sides so you can easily see if you turned all the eggs.)

You stop turning the eggs in the last 3 days of incubation.

Hatching your backyard chicken eggs
Soon the chicks will begin pipping – this is when they begin to peck through their shell. This can take up to 6 hours with a further 6 hours for the chicks to dry and “fluff up”. Since they still have the reserves for the egg yolk to draw upon the chicks don’t need to eat or drink for the first 24 hours.

Once they are dry they can be moved to a brooder. Check out our post on raising chicks to see what to do next.

Raising Chicks

June 16, 2016November 10, 2015 by James McGregor

Raising chicks is relatively simple and simply requires you to provide three key things for your chicks.
1. Warm clean housing
2. Plenty of food and water
3. Lots of love and attention.

About 24 hours after your chicks hatch or when they first arrive the first place they will call home is the brooder. The brooder is basically the equivalent of the nest in the case where the chicks are being cared for by a hen. It can be as simple as a box, enclosure or even a cat carry box.

The brooder should be lined with soft materials such as towels or blankets for the first few weeks (be careful of loose threads that small feet can get tangled in) and then changed for straw or pine shavings. Do not use slippery surfaces such as newspaper to line the brooder as it can result in the chicks having malformed legs.

It is very important to keep the chicks warm as they will require temperatures between 95 and 100 deg F. This can be achieved by using a heat lamp or a purpose designed radiant brooder (our recommendation).

Radiant heater (recommended). Use 90% less energy. Click for details.

Heat lamps are a low cost option but they do come with some safety risks of burns and also risk of fire if located inappropriately hence why our recommendation is to use a radiant panel style of brooder similar to the Brinsea Ecoglow brooder panel shown in the photo above. The heat source should be located down one end of the brooder to allow the chicks to move about and experience a range of temperatures.

Now that we have housing and warmth sorted we need to think about food and water.

You will need a good quality chick starter crumble (see our post on what to feed your chicken for more details) and something to feed them in such as a chick feeder or just a simple bowl that the chicks cannot tip over. Same for water.

At around 6 weeks of age they can move onto a pullet ration that has a slightly lower protein content until they are around 22 weeks of age or until they begin laying eggs.

With housing, warmth, food and water under control we need to think about some other practical issues.

At about 4 weeks of age you can introduce a low perch so the chicks can start to practice roosting.

Some chicks will also start to want to practice having dirt baths (a critical skill for managing parasites) so if you have space introduce a tray of dirt or sand and watch the chicks having fun.

Perch installed in simple chicken brooder

Cleanliness is important to keep you chicks healthy so make sure you do regular housekeeping. Change their bedding regularly (at least daily) and make sure they always have clean food and water.

Last but not least, enjoy the experience and delight in watching your chicks grow. They grow very fast so enjoy it while it lasts because in no time you will be feeling that empty nest syndrome – but hey, to overcome the grief of your chicks growing up at least you have fresh eggs to look forward to (around week 22 for most breeds).

How to clip your backyard chickens wing

February 2, 2016November 3, 2015 by James McGregor

This instructional video from our Urban Farmer YouTube channel will show you how to clip your chickens wing safely and easily.

Click here to get your members only "Guide to Selecting the Best Backyard Chicken Breed"

Hatching Chicken Eggs

May 24, 2016October 17, 2015 by James McGregor

Hatching chicken eggs using artificial incubators is both an art and a science. Whilst it is not difficult incubating chicken eggs there are a number of key principles that you need to adhere to.

The first thing you need to do is to source quality fertilized eggs for hatching your own backyard chickens.

Source your eggs from a reputable breeder who keeps the nest boxes clean and filled with fresh dry bedding to prevent soiled eggs, collects eggs frequently, and stores them correctly.

For the best results in hatching chicken eggs the eggs should have been stored at room temperature with their pointy end down, rotated daily, and ideally should be less than 7 days old.

Click here to get your members only "Guide to Selecting the Best Backyard Chicken Breed"

Turn on your chicken egg incubator and allow it to run for at least 24 hours to make sure the temperature inside the incubator has stabilized.

Set your eggs up in the chicken egg incubator on their sides or pointy end down in accordance with the incubator manufacturers instructions.

Incubating chicken eggs will take 21 days after whichever time you will have a bunch of hungry chicks to feed.

Successful hatching using an chicken egg incubator requires four key factors:
1. Temperature

2. Humidity

3. Ventilation

4. Turning

Ventilation
The embryos inside the eggs need oxygen which they get via their shell from the air around them. Therefore ensuring your incubator maintains good ventilation is important.

You stop turning the eggs in the last 3 days of incubation.

Once they are dry they can be moved to a brooder. Check out our post on raising chicks to see what to do next.