basic chicken care, keeping it simple

Chicken care is not complicated if you know the basics. To live a happy and healthy life chickens only need a few basic things.

Chickens are kept for various reasons.

For instance, chickens are often kept for eggs, or meat, if you want to keep chickens for eggs you have come to the right place.

Besides being great for eggs, and meat they are also good at keeping insects under control.

Another, reason to keep chickens is they make good pets and will be a great addition to your family.

Moreover, they are easy to care for and don’t require much time. I was taking care of chickens when I was 8 years old.

For that reason, if you have kids they can probably do most of the chores that chickens require.

As a result, your kids learn responsibility and the joy of taking care of an animal.

This post is all about basic chicken care, keeping it simple

REASONS CHICKENS MIGHT NOT BE RIGHT FOR YOU:

The first reason is probably the most obvious one, and that is if you live in the city or a neighborhood,

Some places like these will allow you to have a few chickens but you will need to find out.

Similarly, if you are renting you will want to make sure it is ok with your landlord.

Second, if you don’t have enough space for chickens.

The third, reason is if you don’t have enough time. As I’ve mentioned earlier taking care of chickens doesn’t take a whole lot of time,

but you will need at least 10-15 minutes every day (depending on your setup) supplemented by regular cleaning of the coop and layers.

If You Feel Chickens Are Right For You The Next Step Is:
To figure out how many chickens you want.

When deciding how many chickens you want here are a few factors to consider.

Firstly egg production, most hens lay 1 egg a day but this varies a little in different chicken breeds.

Thus, you will want to figure out how many eggs you will be able to use and or what to do with the eggs that you don’t use.

For example, you can sell your unwanted eggs and maybe even make some money (another great reason to keep chickens).

Or if you have a dog you can feed them the eggs that you do not use.

Secondly, how much space do you have? It will help you decide on how much chicken you can get.

Also note, some neighborhoods will allow you to have chicken but only a certain amount so you will want to check that.

HOUSING

Now that you have decided that chickens are right for you, and how many you want.

The next step will be to figure out how big of a chicken coop you need,

Coop and run (I will talk more about these later) size will largely depend on how many chickens you are planning on getting,

Most commercial coops will be labeled as to how many chickens you can keep inside,

However, most of the time I would not recommend housing as many chickens as they recommend.

As for run (a small area where they have access to grass) size, the larger the better,

But I realize that not everyone has the space for a big run,

Therefore, as a rule of thumb, I would recommend 5 square feet for the first chicken (also depends a little bit on the breed)

And then 2-3 square feet for each additional chicken. I’m not going to go into too much depth on coop and run size in this article.

Most commercial coops also come with a small run but are often not big enough for chickens a lot of chickens.

therefore it is often a better option, that way you can customize it,

and, building your own chicken coop and run is a great option because you can make it however big you want,

Besides, building your own coop can help cut down on costs,

Especially if you have some scrap wood lying around.

There are also some nice commercial coops available.

BUYING CHICKENS

Another thing you need to decide is where to get your chickens from if you don’t have some yet.

There are a few different options:

The first option is to buy chicks, chicks are most often easier to find than full-grown hens.

Most places like Tractor Supply will have chicks at least at some point in the year, normally spring and summer.

As well as at feed stores you can also get chicks by mail from big hatcheries.

The second option is to buy older chickens, you can sometimes find chickens for sale on Craigslist.

CHICKEN FEED

Feed is an important part of chicken care. There are plenty of chicken feeds that will meet all your chicken’s needs, but most of those feeds contain ingredients that I don’t want in my eggs.

Therefore, I like to make my own chicken feed, but this takes a lot more work.

So if you’re just starting out with owning chickens I would recommend just feeding commercial food and keeping it simple.

Here I will list a few of the chicken feeds that I would recommend:

• New Country Organics (this is a really great feed and probably the closest to making your own) click here to buy on Amazon
• scratch and peck feed layer mash (also organic which is really great) click here to buy
• Manna Pro all flock crumbles (great if you also have ducks and other birds) click here to buy on Amazon

Treats and supplements:

1. Mealworms
Mealworms provide an excellent protein boost to your chicken’s diet, They are especially great if you are making your own chicken food.

Mealworms are also great if your chickens don’t have a ton of space for your chickens to roam around and find bugs.

As well as in the wintertime when all the bugs are hibernating.

2. Oyster shells
Oyster shells are a great boost of calcium for your chickens, If they are laying eggs with soft shells, it means they need calcium.

Unless they are laying soft-shelled eggs Or you feel like they need more calcium it is not necessary for your chickens to have oyster shells.

Some people also give their chickens crushed egg shells while this isn’t necessarily bad I wouldn’t recommend it.

Because the nutrients in eggshells are not as available as the ones in oyster shells.

3. Fruit and vegetables

Your hens will love eating some fruit and vegetables this can also help cut the cost of feed,

You can feed them table scraps, which is also great for the wintertime because Your chickens don’t have access to fresh grass and bugs.

Also note:
Chickens can have meat, unlike some people believe, but too much fish can make the eggs taste fishy.

DAILY CHORES

Chicken care mainly consists of daily chores which include feeding your hens giving them fresh water and gathering the eggs.

As you can tell, chicken care is pretty simple and won’t take much time each day!

 In conclusion 

chicken care can easily be kept simple and even make it possible for people with a busier lifestyle to have chickens and produce farm-fresh eggs.

This article was all about basic chicken care, keeping it simple!

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