Cassie LeMaster 0:01

Hello and welcome back to the Extension Connection Podcast. I'm Cassie LeMaster Area Livestock and equine agent for Polk County, North Carolina. Today I'm going to be talking about keeping backyard chickens and I will be sharing some information from a North Carolina Cooperative extension fact sheet called Keeping Garden Chickens in North Carolina. Chickens can be a colorful, beautiful, entertaining addition to your garden, and a few hens in your backyard can supply all the eggs your family needs, along with litter that can be used as a source of organic fertilizer. Your hens will supplement their diet with bugs and grubs, and they can turn your garden and kitchen waste into tasty eggs. No wonder you're interested in raising chickens. Before ordering your chicks, you should consider several issues. First of all, if you live within city or town limits or in a restricted subdivision, ordinances or covenants may prohibit keeping poultry on your property or limit the types and number of birds you can raise. Even modern ordinances, allowing garden hens usually prohibit roosters. A call to your local animal control or zoning office prior to ordering your bird. Will allow you to make an informed decision on what type and how many birds to order. If there are livestock restrictions that are being applied to pet garden hens, consider gathering a group of like-minded individuals to follow the proper channels to change those regulations so that garden hens are allowed. Use modern ordinances such as those for Raleigh as a guide. Once you've determined that it is legal for you to keep poultry, think carefully about your ability to provide the necessary care. A home flock needs fresh food and water every day. You must gather eggs every day, and you must make sure that the flock always has clean, dry shelter. This means that someone must be available to care for the birds. Seven days a week, every week. Don't be surprised, however, if you find a number of your friends are willing to occasionally babysit your flock. Many people are charmed by laying hens and enjoy the chance to visit them to provide food and water, knowing they will find a gift of fresh eggs in the nest box. Once you're certain you're ready to raise your own hens. The next decision is how many birds you should keep. Consider the size of the available area for your coop and run and your individual or family consumption of eggs. Small housing units that may be perfect for an urban or suburban setting may house only two or three birds comfortably. Each hen will produce around two eggs every three days. Up to 15 dozen eggs during her first laying year. The number of eggs produced by each hen then declines yearly. Those same hens will produce about two eggs every four days or up to 12 dozen eggs in year two. Choose a number of hens that will meet your egg needs, including eggs to give away to friends and neighbors if you plan to share. And that will fit in the housing that you have without overcrowding. Make sure you finalize your coop plans before deciding how many chicks or pullets to order. Keeping space restrictions in mind when making this first essential decision will ensure that you not overcrowd your first flock. Think also about your neighbors and about noise. Hens are fairly quiet and noisy roosters are not necessary to get a full harvest of eggs. Without a rooster, hens will lay unfertilized eggs, which is what most people eat. With a rooster, hens will lay fertile eggs that can be hatched into chicks. For most residential settings, a small flock without a rooster is the best choice. For the safety and health of your hens, flocks of less than 10 should not have a rooster. You can start your flock in one of three ways. With day old chicks, which is the least expensive but riskiest, most work intensive choice, with female birds that are young called pullets. This is slightly more expensive if you buy locally, quite a bit more expensive if you order from a large supplier and must pay shipping. But they're ready to put in your coop without going through the brooding process. Or you can start with mature hens if you can find a source that you trust that the hens are no more than a year or so old. If you're going with day old chicks, make sure you end up with a proper number of healthy laying hens. Purchase one or two more known female chicks than the final minimum number you hope to have in your flock. This allows for the possible death of a chick or two during brooding, unless you know without question that you have a good home where you can send unwanted young roosters. Do not purchase straight run or mixed male and female chicks and do not hatch your chicks from eggs for your garden laying flock. It may be difficult to find homes for unwanted roosters, and you do not want to add to the problem of unwanted domestic animals. Tell your day old chick supplier that you absolutely do not want male chicks added to your order as packing peanuts to help keep your female chicks warm. Combine orders with others to have enough female chicks, so that these extra males are not needed. If you are purchasing started pullets or already laying hens, purchase a number equal to or only one higher than your final minimum goal. Once you decide how many hens to raise, it's time to choose a breed. If collecting slightly less than one egg per day per hen in the first year is adequate for you, and you would like Hardy hens that produce regularly over a longer period of their lives. Consider some of the heritage breeds. The website for the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy is a good list of heritage breed chickens. Two examples of these are barred rocks and Rhode Island Reds that do well in North Carolina, but others will do just as well. Another list of chicken breeds that you can review, which describes the color, size, weight, origin, egg color, and egg productivity by breed can be found if you search online for the handy dandy chicken chart. Similar information may also be found in the Purdue University publication, choosing a chicken breed, eggs, meat, or Exhibition. If your goal is to maximize egg production in the first year, and you don't mind that your hens may have a shorter productive life, then you may choose a commercial breed designed to produce an egg a day, almost every day in the first year, such as a leghorn. Keep in mind, however, that these birds are light and flighty and that maximum egg production in the first year may come at a price. Such breeds are designed for short term high production and may not be as hardy, long term as a heritage breed. Sex linked hens, which are hens that have a pure bred leghorn parent, usually crossed with one of the heritage breeds are excellent egg layers and are often chosen for home garden flocks. If you want both high first year egg production and hens that can be used for stewing meat when production slows after a few years, consider Plymouth rocks, including barred rock, Rhode Island reds, new Hampshire's, Sussex, or wyandottes. Note however that these dual purpose breeds do not lay as many eggs as the commercial egg laying breeds do. And they do not produce as much meat as commercial meat breeds do. They are however hardy proven breeds that should do well in a backyard garden flock. If you decide to start with day old chicks, you will need special equipment to care for them when they arrive. Day old chicks must be kept warm in a brooder, which you can construct from a cardboard or plywood box for the first three weeks or so. A box two feet wide by three feet long and 18 inches deep will house 25 chicks. Adjust the size based on the number of chicks you are rearing. Place clean, dry wood shavings, dry sand, or other absorbent material in the bottom of the box. Chicks have down rather than feathers for the first few weeks of life and cannot maintain their own body temperature without supplemental heating. Keep the chicks warm by mounting a single light bulb. A hundred watts should be enough in mild weather. Inside a reflective shield, about eight inches above the floor of the box. If the chicks huddle under the lamp, a sign they're cold, the lamp may be lowered slightly, or a higher wattage bulb may be used. If the chicks move away from the light, or they're panting, a sign they're too hot, raise the bulb or lower the wattage. Leave the bulb on all day and night during the first three weeks. By then, the chick should be about half feathered and heat can be reduced. When well feathered, the chicks can be moved out to an unheated poultry house, but do not mix new pullets with older hens. They may not be able to compete for food and may be seriously injured by the hens. If you start with fully feathered young hens or pullets or mature laying hens, you will not need supplemental heat. These birds can be placed directly into your enclosed dry hen house. Place two to three inches of pine shavings on the floor of the enclosed coop space to help absorb moisture from the chicken manure. Stir the bedding daily and remove it when it's no longer absorbing moisture or when you begin to notice a strong odor. The bedding manure mixture can be composted to use as fertilizer. Now to talk about feeding when they arrive, your chicks will need to be fed. Fresh feed and water are critical for raising healthy chickens. Feed can be purchased from your local hardware feed or farmer supply store. Specialty feeds can be purchased online. Chickens of different ages will need different feed formulations. Chicks raised for egg production will eat starter feed from hatching until eight weeks Old. Grower feed from eight to 12 weeks. Old developer feed from 12 to 21 weeks old. Then layer feed from that time on. Place feed for new chicks in shallow troughs. Allow one linear inch of feed trough per chick initially. An increase to two inches per chick after two weeks. A hen will eat about five pounds of feed per dozen eggs produced. Each hen, therefore, needs about one third of a pound of feed a day while laying. The best feed to support an egg laying hen will consist of about 18% protein. This is the level you'll find in most commercial laying feed pellets or crumbles, and you can mix your own feed to achieve the proper balance. Although hens love, mixed scratch grains, cracked corn with other grains, too much will make them fat. Feed no more than a quarter pound of grain per five hens per day. Hens may also be fed table scraps and garden products. To avoid spoilage and rodents feed only as many scraps as the hens can consume in 20 minutes or so, you also can supplement your layer of feed with pasture or other materials or the bugs that they collect in that pasture setting. All hens over one year of age should get a calcium supplement such as crushed oyster shells and grit, and that should be made available to all hens. Keep your chicken feed in a metal can with a tight fitting lid. To keep out mice and rats, which can often chew through very strong plastic. Birds that are range fed or allowed to forage in the lawn or other areas of the yard will need supplemental feeding. Fresh water of course, must be available at all times to all chickens of all ages. So this will be a two part series. Next time we will discuss housing and we will discuss health for your Flock as well. Thanks again for tuning in to the Extension Connection Podcast.