Chickens are the cutest! Truly they are one of my favorite pets so far, and I have had a lot of different kinds of pets. They are so much more then just a bird that provides eggs. They are so quirky and fun to watch and just so easy to have around. Caring for your chickens is actually pretty easy and fun. Your pet chickens will have the same basic needs as any other animal. We will talk about their daily needs, monthly, yearly and seasonal needs below. By the time you are done reading you will see they are so easy to have around.
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Daily Care
One of the most important daily tasks in chicken care will be to ensure they have access to feed and fresh water. You will want to make sure their water is clean. Chickens tend to like clean water and sometimes will not drink water that is dirty. When your chickens are not drinking enough water they can easily become dehydrated and this can lead to them getting sick or even death.
Check on your flock daily to make sure they are all active and appear to be healthy. Chickens can become sick quickly and it is always best to stay on top of these things. If you notice that your chickens do not appear to be mobile and there normal happy self, call your veterinarian and tell the your concerns.
Everyday we loved seeing what eggs were left for us. I loved the blue and green eggs they were always so fun to get! Make sure to collect them daily. We would wait sometimes a couple of days to get the eggs and we regretted it every time! They would be so yucky and not fun to clean, some where so pooped on we just chucked them so don’t make the same mistakes as we did (or you can but good luck) Daily is a much cleaner job. If there is poop on them or dirt, don’t use soap just gently, under warm water rub off the poop and dirt.
Your eggs can then go in the fridge and be stored for up to two weeks fresh, I have heard it can be even longer but two weeks is a better way to go.
Other reasons you want to get the eggs daily is because you don’t want the hens to start thinking they need to stay on them to hatch them. We had this happen several times and those chickens get feisty and don’t want to give those eggs up. Its kinda funny but a pain. Also you don’t want to encourage other animals to come around to steel the eggs. We had a skunk that discovered our chickens, luckily it couldn’t get in with them but it came back several times to try.
Chickens love to roam free. We let our chickens out of their “Home” every day and let them go play. They love roaming the yard and they never go to far from their home, although don’t go to the store or something, make sure you stay home if they are roaming cause once in a while we had to push them back toward their house and out of my front yard. Always lock them back up though at night. Predators will find them, they just know when they’re out at night and it never ends well so always lock them back up to keep them safe at night.
If you need to leave town, we would just have someone refill their food and water every couple days. (get a good feeder that holds food and water for days) But really they do pretty great at taking care of their selves for a few days at a time. You can of course have someone check daily if you want but once every couple days is great just to refill the food and water (or clean the water out) or to change out their sand bath if needed.
If out of town the other reason you might want someone to come every day is for gathering the eggs. If you want to, just let the neighbor come collect all the eggs in payment for helping watch them 🙂 Who doesn’t love fresh eggs. Or you can let them site a few days and just collect them when you get home they will probably just be dirty, but any eggs over a few days left out side are best just to be thrown away incase they went bad from being outside to many days.
Monthly Chicken Care
The following are things you should do each month. The bedding in the nesting boxes and chicken coop will need to be changed monthly for sanitary reasons. If the bedding is not changed fairly often it can cause ammonia to build up and this can be dangerous to your chickens, resulting in respiratory issues.
Get a Coop that will allow you to easily pull out the “Floor” so that you can deep clean the coop monthly. No one should be living in their own droppings! So make sure to clean the floor inside the coop monthly and out side of the coop too.
Every 6 Months
Every six months you will need to clean your chicken shed thoroughly. This means you need to remove the bedding as well as all of the nesting materials and containers for the feed and water. Many experienced chicken keepers choose to use a solution of one vinager, one part natural dish soap and ten parts water for cleaning. Remember to make sure you rinse all items well and allow them to dry before you replace them or fill with fresh bedding. Some people use chemicals like bleach. I would not I prefer natural coop cleaners. But thats just me.
Seasonal Chicken Care
If you live where it gets cold and snowy like I do it is very important to have several things.
One you may want to find out what chickens are best for your climate.
Make sure you have warming lamp/pad. We had a nice warming lamp set in a safe place where the chickens could all huddle together to keep warm. However some would say chickens will generally adapt to cold weather over a period of time as their metabolism will change with the change of the seasons. This is why it is not necessary to heat your chicken shed or chicken house. Warming our coop in one spot was great for our chickens HOWEVER we only did it at night and when it got 20 degrees or lower. Other wise the lamp was never on.
One thing you can do every few days, it is a good idea to rub petroleum jelly on their wattles and combs to protect them from frostbite.
You will also want to make sure the water supply doesn’t freeze. This is very important. Remember that your chickens will not be able to survive long without access to fresh water. One option is to provide electricity to your chicken coop and use a water heater, this is what we did. Another option would be to bring the waterer indoors every night and then return it to the chicken shed the next morning. You should also check the water once or twice throughout the day to ensure it has not frozen.
Make sure your chickens have protection from the cool air. This is why we always have a coop with walls. The cold wind is really hard on chickens and can even cause death, so make sure they can get somewhere to get out of the cold wind. In the summer months the walls are nice for providing shade for when it to hot. Make sure their is window to open so that they can get a nice breeze following through. (in the winter definitely close the windows)
Chickens are pretty easy
As you can see like any animal chickens are some work, however, it’s not hard work and they are so much fun. Out of all the pets I have had Chickens are my favorite. They are just so funny to watch and so easy to have around. You got this!
