Rule Your Roost

Introduction

Dear Readers:

You’ve made the decision: It’s time to get chickens.

You’re not going to let any of those lingering doubts keep you from your dream of having chickens any longer. Now the hard part … You need to figure out how and where to start. Don’t worry. We’ve all been there.

That’s exactly what this book is all about. Think of it as your quick-reference guide to help you answer all those nagging questions you might feel a little silly asking. But you shouldn’t! Asking good questions is the key to successfully chicken ownership.

To help you answer those silly questions (as well as a few more detailed ones), this resource guide will lead you to industry experts, including the talented writers and editors at Backyard Poultry Magazine, who have spent years specializing in assisting readers in raising all sorts of poultry safely and efficiently.

What follows are five steps our collective experts all agree you should take to help you get your chicken coop up and running, and your flock producing, along with award-winning articles, books and online resources to help you.

Before we get started, Byron Parker of the Randall Burkey Company in Texas put together a solid piece for all those dumb questions you don’t want to ask. It’s a must-read before you start digging deeper. We did not publish the whole article below, but you can read it in its entirety here.

1. Do I need a rooster for my hens to lay eggs?

Okay, stop laughing! At one time, we all didn't always know the answer to this question. The answer is no, unless you want chicks. If you're just looking for eggs to eat and/or some nice yard pets, hens minus the rooster can provide you with plenty of farm fresh eggs without a single crow to wake you up in the morning.

2. How long do chickens live?

The life expectancy of most standard chicken breeds shielded from predators and deep fryers can range from eight to fifteen years. There are many reports of pet chickens living as long as twenty years! With the increasing popularity of raising chickens as pets, I imagine someone will develop a new line of chicken coops such as nursing coops or assisted living coops for the growing population of elderly chickens. All joking aside, chickens are very hardy animals that rarely need a trip to a veterinarian, no matter how long they live.

3. What do I need when my chicks arrive?

What you do need is a way to keep your chicks warm without cooking them. Depending on the number of chicks and your budget, there are several options. Most commonly used and most economical is a single lamp infrared brooder with a two-hundred-and-fifty-watt, red glass infrared bulb. Of course you will need a perimeter to contain the chicks inside the heated area —something as simple as an eighteen-inch high corrugated paper chick corral will get the job done. Place a small thermometer inside to ensure the correct temperature of ninety-five degrees (F) is maintained, dropping five degrees each week thereafter. A proper chick feeder and waterer is also necessary and you should provide ample space for the number of chicks inside. Pine shavings will work well as bedding. Although there are many other options, you want to avoid using material such as newspaper that does not provide stable footing.

4. At what age do hens start laying and how many eggs will they lay?

Typically hens will start to lay when they are around five to six months of age and will lay approximately two hundred to three hundred eggs annually, based on the breed type. Breeds like Rhode Island Reds, Golden Sex Links and White Leghorns are considered some of the most prolific egg layers. Peak production generally occurs at two years of age and slowly declines thereafter.

5. How much feed do chickens eat?

The amount of feed a chicken will consume varies dramatically based on breed type, feed quality, climate, and other variables that make it difficult to provide one good answer. However, a typical laying hen will consume around four to six ounces of feed each day with an increase during cold months and a decrease during warm months.

6. How big does my chicken coop need to be?

Because chickens spend most of their active time outside of the chicken coop, generally two to three square feet per chicken is sufficient space. Remember, you will need to provide space to roost at night and space for the nesting boxes. If you plan on keeping them cooped up full-time then eight to ten square feet per chicken would do, counting the outside run. In this case, more is always better. If you are planning on buying or building a mobile chicken coop, space requirement is minimized because it offers you the ability to frequently move the coop and chickens onto fresh ground.

7. How many nest boxes will I need for my hens?

If you asked a slick nest box salesman, he would probably tell you the answer is one box for every hen and then tell you how much he likes you and how he is willing to give you a great deal if you buy today. Fortunately, I don't think there are many nest box salesmen, especially slick ones. However, there are plenty of poultry supply companies that sell nest boxes and the answer they should give you is approximately one nest box for every five to six hens.

8. What is the best way to deal with internal and external parasites?

Because we are dealing with an animal that we may eat or eat the eggs from, I prefer to recommend the more natural alternatives for treatment opposed to chemical use. Food grade diatomaceous earth is the fossilized remains of microscopic shells created by one-celled plants called diatoms and is the most popular natural product for controlling internal and external parasites. Chickens can be dusted with it to treat lice and mites, and it can be mixed with their feed to control worms. Another alternative all-natural product is Poultry Protector, used to control external parasites such as mites, lice, and fleas. Poultry Protector uses natural enzymes to control parasites and can be sprayed in all areas of the chickens' living quarters and safely on the birds as well.

9. What is the best way to protect my chickens from predators?

Obviously, a well-built chicken coop is your first and best defense against predators. The coop should be designed to prevent predators from crawling through small openings or from tunneling under. Most troublesome predators come at night, so it may be a good idea to place a few NiteGuards around your coop. NiteGuard Solar emits a flashing red light at night that makes predators think they're being watched by something more terrifying than they are, forcing them to leave the area, and preventing predators from ever approaching your coop.

10. How do I get my chickens to go in the coop at night?

Chickens instinctively move into their coop when the sun goes down. It may take a little coaxing for grown chickens to move into a newly built coop, but once they realize it's home, they generally go right in at night. Your job is to close the door behind them once they enter, and then to open it back up in the morning. If this sounds like something you don't care to constantly deal with, you can buy an automatic chicken coop door.

CHAPTER 1

Step 1: Know the chicken laws

You don’t want your chickens to be outlaws, do you? So while you may have decided you want to have a flock of one or a hundred (we recommend starting with just a couple, and growing from there), making sure you can live in relative peace with them is a whole different question. In recent years due to the downturn of the economy and better education about the public health benefits of raising poultry locally, we have seen hundreds of cities, towns and counties adapt or loosen their laws to help people own chickens. This is all great news for you as you begin your new adventure.

That said, many neighborhoods, homeowner associations and communities are strict about how many chickens are allowed per property, and how many roosters you can own at one time. And as many are showing across the country, some towns need a push from its residents to help adopt new laws or fix existing laws that unfairly prohibit raising chickens.

(Quick side story, and one we had to share. Recently, a person working with their town council, who had a member who insisted that roosters were just old hens.)

It may all sound like a lot of trouble, but don’t worry — you’ll find others in your community willing to help. But if you are starting from scratch, don’t be in a hurry, as creating an ordinance could take a year or more. Hopefully this isn’t the case, but just think about what your efforts will bring.

If you have an accepting law, then you’ve cleared the first hurdle. If you’re not sure where to start, here’s some more information.

Step 1 Checklist: Understanding the law

• To find your town ordinance, go online and search under zoning to see what the law is. If you have any questions and would prefer to talk to a human, call the zoning office or town hall administrator and ask them to help you. They are listed in the phone book. The government should be able to provide you a copy of the law, or at least show you how to access it if you so desire. Make sure you are one-hundred percent clear on the law before you begin, and definitely before you start buying chickens and building coops.

• In the area, meet your allies. There are dozens of groups all across our country that provide resources, advice, supplies and general knowledge to help you with any issues that come up.

• Talk to your neighbors. As Backyard Poultry writer Ana M. Hotaling found in her reporting, neighbors can as big of a bigger nuisance as city, town and county codes. She interviewed a family that had followed the law, but ran into a group of unhappy neighbors who refused to recognize their right to farm. As she wrote, it took a toll — both financially and emotionally — on the family, who in the end decided to move to a new house in an area that was more chicken-friendly.

• Finally, involve the community. If you feel nervous about how the neighbors will react, invite them over. Explain your plans to them. When you buy your first chickens, throw a chicken party and show all the neighbors. Heck, even let them name one or two and help take care of them. And of course, share the eggs. That usually wins a lot of friends, and smiles, which will go a long way to helping you start your coop.

Step 1 Resources:

Short articles:

One dozen tips to help legalize backyard chickens: Chicken writer Jono Miller of Sarasota, Florida, wrote the following piece in Backyard Poultry. It’s short, realistic and gives great advice. Read it here.

How to pass a poultry ordinance: This group in Madison, Wisconsin, fought hard and won. Here’s an article published in 2005 in Backyard Poultry that tells how.

Best books:

How to Raise Chickens. Veteran author and writer Christine Heinrichs wrote a stellar book that helps answer a lot of questions, and touches on the legal questions as well. Like us, she advocates the open door approach, especially in urban areas, which means inviting the neighborhood over to check on the chickens and see what’s happening first-hand. Read more about our bookstore and ways to buy this book here.

Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens: A print edition, this is the definitive book on raising chickens and has more than 35 pages on how to build a great shelter for your chickens. Author Gail Damerow, a regular writer for Backyard Poultry, spent time in the third edition refining the first two best-selling editions. Read more about our bookstore and ways to buy this book here.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Raising Chickens: J.D. Belanger wrote an excellent piece on all-things chicken, and its last chapter is devoted to egg quality. Order the book in our bookstore. Read more about our bookstore and ways to buy this book here.

Online:

Backyard Chickens is a great resource, and the editors there have gone town-by-town, state-by-state to post the ordinances on their site. It includes more than 950 town ordinances, and can be found at www.backyardchickens.com.

BackyardPoultrymag.com. Warning. This is a shameless plug, but we have hundreds of articles we have previously published about chickens, and it’s worth a look. If we weren’t proud of it, who would we be? (End of shameless plug.)

Your town, city or county website should have links that allow you to search laws. Most urban areas already do. Also, most urban areas also have advocacy groups who closely track the laws. Finding out what groups are in your area is a good idea anyway, so give them a call and ask a bunch of questions. Some rural websites are not so robust, so you may just need to call the zoning office or someone like a town clerk.

CHAPTER 2

Step 2: Choose your chickens

There are hundreds of different breeds of chickens that vary in just about every size, shape, personality and color. Some lay blue eggs. Some do not. Some live more comfortably in cold temperatures than others. Some are big. Some are small. … You get it.

As any chicken expert