Today, we have a special guest post by Carla Raley! Be sure to read her bio below and visit her page. I’m so excited to have her and I’m sure you will love her post!
Photo courtesy of lierne on Flickr
How To Raise Chickens
by Carla Raley
Raising chickens on the small family farm can be a fun and profitable thing to do. There are several things to think about, to ensure success:
For example, I have found that many people don’t realize you do not have to have a rooster to have eggs. However, without a rooster, the eggs will not be fertile, so if you want to raise chickens from the hens on your property, you must get a rooster. It doesn’t need to be the same breed, a rooster is not picky. He will breed any hen on your farm, regardless of type or size.
You will need to either invest in an incubator, or buy a batch of hens that will tend to get broody. Bantams are good at this. When you find that you have a hen that wants to stay on the nest, you can add other hen’s eggs to her eggs, until she has all the eggs she can sit on. You can save eggs (at room temperature) for up to two weeks, and put the eggs under the hen all at once, so that the eggs will hatch at the same time. Otherwise, the hen will jump off the nest after she has a few chicks, and the rest of your eggs will be lost. Another way would be to remove the chicks as soon as they are hatched, to encourage the hen to keep sitting. It takes three weeks to hatch a hen’s egg.
Remember, putting an egg under a light bulb will not work. There is a very intricate process of humidity and heat that is needed hatch an egg.
You can also buy chicks from a hatchery. You can order all pullets (hens), or you can go the cheaper route and buy straight run, which means you will get a mixture of both roosters and hens.
Your newborn chicks will need a warm, dry place to grow. You can leave them with the hen, although this is very risky if the hen is allowed to roam, or you can fix up a ‘nursery’ for them.
Here are some guidelines for your chick nursery:
They must have temperatures of around 90 degrees in the beginning. They must be dry; a wet chick is a soon to be dead chick. Sometimes if they get wet, you can revive them with a hair dryer, but the best course of action is to make sure they don’t get wet.
I have also found that it is not necessary to change the litter under the chicks. Start out with clean dirt. Every week or so, add some fresh dirt. The composting process of the dirt, feed and droppings from the chicks will actually help keep them warm from the bottom up. Just make sure the dirt and litter is very dry. Again, dampness kills the chicks.
Always protect against crowding. The chicks will need plenty of room to move around and also to get away from your heat source if it gets too warm. Chicks are bad about climbing all over each other, and smothering the ones on the bottom of the pile. It’s better to have too much room, than not enough.
For the first two weeks, it is best to get chick starter feed from your local feed store that has medication in it. That will keep the chicks from getting a bloody diarrhea that will kill them. It’s also a good idea to buy a packet of powdered electrolytes and vitamins to add to their water. This will make your chicks very hardy.
Keep your baby chicks under the light until they are about six weeks old, or have their feathers. Then, you can move them to another safe, protected space. They will still need to be protected from cold, wet weather, but they do not need the high temperatures they once did. Once they are fully grown and able to fend for themselves and fly away from predators, at least to a point, it will be safe to release them to free range on your farm. To keep from having a large loss after all the work you did to raise them, make letting them loose be later, rather than sooner. If in doubt, keep them protected.
Chickens lay best their first year. The second year, they may not lay as often, although it will be close if they are well cared for, and their eggs will be a little bigger. By the third year, you might consider selling or butchering, and starting over with a new flock.
Raising chickens is an enjoyable, fun and profitable thing to do on your small farm. It’s a good way to introduce chores to your children, as they are easy to care for, and children usually enjoying feeding and gathering eggs. It’s also a calming soothing thing to watch chickens pecking and scratching as you sit on your front porch. It’s an endeavor well worth checking out.
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Carla Raley is a Christian wife and homeschooling mommy of ten children. They live on a mini-farm in a small Texas town where they raise chickens, ducks and rabbits, along with their many dogs, cats, and birds.
You can visit Carla at her blogs, Raley Family’s Farm and Book Reviews by Carla.
Essential Traditions/Real Food Real Frugal 