Homesteading Class - Day 2

Day two started off with the class walking out to the chicken coop and learning what is required to properly take care of chickens, differences in breeds, common illnesses, etc. We then discussed other poultry, herbs and concluded with orchards. I’ll just briefly discuss chickens in this post due to their importance on a beginning homestead.

Our instructor obviously had a fondness for chickens (and really didn’t like turkeys) and spoke of his birds with great feeling. He does eat his birds, so his feelings don’t lead him to make them his pets, but rather to steward them very carefully and thoughtfully. He told us that the most important part of taking care of your chickens is to spend time with them everyday so that you can notice small changes that might become big problems. A water-born disease from an unnoticed muddy cage might kill off half your birds when a simple clove of crushed garlic added to their water could have saved them all if caught in time. He encouraged everyone in the class to never use an automatic feeder for their birds because sometimes life on the farm gets busy, and you might not go to their cage if you know they have food. Not seeing the changes that take place in your birds and their environment EVERYDAY could have a drastic negative impact on your birds and the health of your whole farm. Yet again, here is a place to apply the old saying “the farm’s best fertilizer is the farmer’s footsteps.“

The average egg-producing hen lives approximately 3 years. If you force hens to produce eggs through the winter months by using electric lights, they live approximately 2 years. When first getting chickens you should ask yourself if you want primarily a meat bird, an egg bird, or one that could be used for both. Also, consider the amount of space you have. A regular chicken requires 4 square feet of space per bird, but Bantams only require 2.

Your chickens' housing should be set up so that they have room to come out from their coop and peck at the ground for worms and other needed substances naturally in the dirt to help them stay balanced. This ‘walking around’ area needs to be fenced in so that stray dogs or foxes, other farm animals, etc. cannot intrude and bother or hurt them. Their coop should be off the ground if possible and easy to clean (a concrete floor works best). The coop should be able to be securely closed up for the night and well built to protect from predators that love to make a chicken coop dinner. These predators are very smart and persistent so your coop needs to be built in order to sustain repeated attacks from very hungry and potentially desperate critters. They should also be built so that air can flow easy through them and if possible, so that your egg boxes can be accessed without entering the area of the coop where hens are.

Bantams are a smaller chicken and many love to brood. If you take a fertilized egg from one of your bigger egg producers so that she can continue to produce eggs for you instead of going ‘broody,’ the bantams will usually be willing to sit on the egg. Sometimes they will sit on 5 eggs at a time, which saves a lot of lost egg production for the farm, but continues to keep the farm supplied with new chicks.