Keeping chickens can be a pleasurable pastime, and getting to know your birds and their personalities can be great fun. Also, you get the added benefit of having fresh eggs. Knowing how to look after chickens will ensure the birds are happy and heathy, and live a happy life.
To look after chickens, you need to ensure they have the basic requirements; A safe place to live, access to good quality food, and clean fresh water. They are clever animals, so will also need some entertainment and company. Knowing how to look after chickens will keep your pets happy and heathy.
Chicken Housing
Chickens need a house, known as a coop, and this provides a number of functions. It is somewhere that the birds go to roost at night, to keep them safe from foxes, rats and other predators. Most coops have a nest box attached, and this is where the birds will go and lay eggs and sit if they get broody.
Typically, coops are on legs to get them off the ground. This may only be by a few inches, but it keeps the base of the coop off the ground, and stops it getting damp.
The coop should have a door that can be closed, to stop predators getting in, and the chickens getting out.
The nesting area should be enclosed on at least 3 sides, allowing the bird to feel like it is in a box. Most nesting areas are 12″x 12″ (30cm x 30cm) or there abouts.
The birds also need somewhere to roost. This doesn’t have to be anything complicated, and may just be a couple of strips of wood a few inches above the floor of the coop.
There are many styles of coop, and they range from the flat packed ones you can buy on the internet, to garden sheds, and boxes. You can make and convert your own, and I have seen people even using cars for their chickens. So long as they can be made safe and secure, they can be used as a coop.
How to look after chickens – What to feed chickens
Chickens are omnivores and will eat alot of different things. This may range from seeds and berries, to plants and leaves, through to bugs, worms and insects. Chickens have even been known to eat the odd mouse or two! Feed is one of the most important things to know, if you want to know how to look after chickens
Whilst it is important for the birds to be able to have access to scratch around the ground, and explore, we can also provide additional feed which can help with their diet, and keep them healthy. This maybe in the form of layers pellets, mash, wheat or corn.
Layers pellets and mash are specially formulated to ensure that chickens have all the vitamins and nutrients that they need. Chickens can survive exclusively on a diet of layers pellets, but we like to mix things up a bit. Where birds are kept in coops with no outside access, we add corn to their feed as well.
Chickens should have access throughout the day to food, but they don’t need access to it at nighttime.
Remember, in the UK it is illegal to feed chickens on scraps from your kitchen. More can be read about that here.
Chickens need water
All chickens should have access to clean, fresh water. They drink water throughout the day. As with the food, chickens don’t need water within the coop overnight.
There are a myriad of different drinkers available for your chickens. These range from drip drinkers to drinkers that store water, through to non-stop drinkers fed from tanks or mains. You can even use a washing up bowl for them, but remember to put a couple of bricks in it, in case they fall in.
What you choose should meet your needs. The drinker needs to be big enough for the chicken to be able to use it. If you keep large fowl birds, they won’t be able to drink from something that a bantam would use.
If you’re using a drinker with a bottle or a tank attached to it, make sure it is big enough for the number of birds that you have. We have some that have a litre bottle, that wouldn’t be big enough for others that have a 20l tank. You don’t want to be filling it up every few hours.
Chicken Entertainment
Whilst chickens may be the butt of many jokes, they are actually very clever birds, and need to be stimulated and entertained.
Firstly, they are social birds, so it’s never a good idea to keep birds on their own. 3 should be a minimum, and 5 or 6 are easy to look after.
Chickens should have somewhere to scratch around and explore. This maybe an area of lawn within a tunnel, or allowed to free-range and explore themselves.
If given the opportunity, they will climb and get up trees. They love exploring around the branches. In the wild, they would roost up in trees.
This is a small example of how to look after chickens. If you get the basics right, they can be great fun to look after. Its not difficult and can be very easy to look after your chickens.
For further reading, have you seen our article on keeping chickens in your garden? https://annoydad.com/can-you-keep-chickens-in-your-garden/