Predator Proofing and Drainage

It turns out, my coop's run isn't very predator proof. I purchased poultry wire, instead of the 1/2 inch square galvanized wire, so its not very strong and the larger holes make it easier for smaller varmints to enter the run. Mostly this more intense wiring is used for raccoons, as they can stick their arms through and kinda beat through this thinner poultry wire. As there are no raccoons here in Juneau, Alaska, I started to think about the local predators. The ones that would come by air, like Ravens and Eagles, would be detoured enough by the poultry wire. There is probably no need for the better wire for these guys....but the ones coming by land are a bit different.

Dogs can probably get through by digging underneath, so burying some below the ground level would help with that. As for Bears and Minks. A Bear can probably shatter through most any light construction, so if there is ever a bear problem, it will have to come to perimeter electric fencing. Minks are very sneaky. They can crawl through very small spaces, chew through wood, dig tunnels and more than likely, very abundant in population. By process of elimination, this is enemy number one on our farm, the mink.

I don't think there is any way of stopping a mink, if it decides to get into our run, outside of re-wiring the whole thing. So for now, I will play the odds that the mink will not attack by day, and keep my chickens in their metal hen house at night. I feel pretty good about the hen house, once I beef up the bottom of it with some more metal sheathing it should be pretty tough for a mink to crack. So for now, I can only beef up the run from dogs by burying some poultry wire about 8-10 inches around the perimeter of my run.

I started digging and realized this would be a perfect time to get some drainage around my coop as well. I dug a trench around the three high sides of my run about 8-10 inches deep. I put in some temporary boards I had laying around to sort of raise the sides to maybe hold more litter in the run. I then stapled some poultry wire to those boards and ran it down into the ground. I had some 4 inch black drainage tubing laying around the house so I perforated that, and stretched it out around the trench. I decided to fill the trench with beach rock, rather than filling it with the removed soil. Beach rock is very abundant in Juneau, and is good to have near the chickens for grit and they peck at the shells found in it for calcium....oh, and its free. So the removed soil was relocated and the trench was filled with beach rock.

We loaded up my Jeep with 4 buckets and a shovel and drove the 2 blocks to the beach and filled them up with some small-ish gravel we found at a local rock skipping spot. Nicholas skipped rocks while I shoveled away...3 trips and we had it filled. There is so much available I may even create some paths to the egg door, that will make for easy snow removal. I also am thinking of going ahead and continuing the trench all the way around as to promote high and dry soil in the chicken run. (I have to bury wire over there anyway) This will aid when they are dusting up and seems like it will work, but as winter slowly approaches, I really can't predict too far ahead. Im just going to take it one day at a time.

Hen House

There has been a lot of minor construction since we started our backyard chicken farm. We erected some fencing, a few fence doors were put in, completed a woodshed floor as to have a place for the straw and wood chips we need, and of course our coop/hen house.
By far, the most challenging part was getting a decent hen house built. It had to have roosts, laying boxes, chicken access, electricity, white light, heat, ventilation, food and water, human access to gather eggs, and in the end...it needed to be predator proof as well as able to handle an Alaskan winter. To say the least, the rest of the light construction was sort of caveman-ish compared to that!

The first major re-build, was due to my own rookie mistakes...I was wrong when I thought that chickens slept in their laying area. I assumed the chickens slept in their nests every night, and laid eggs there as well. So I constructed our first design to have six laying nests and no roosts. Then, as I learned how chickens slept in roosts and shared laying nests. I put in the roosts above the second story of nests to solve this mis-step, and figured they would just have extra area to lay eggs.

This first change may have been okay, except, the roosts were too close to the ceiling of the hen house, and this put the chickens dangerously close to electrical wires and fire hazards. Lowering only the roosts themselves would make the top laying boxes the highest roosts. Chickens sleep in the highest available space they can roost on, and they poop a lot when they sleep. If they were to roost on the top laying boxes, the eggs they lay would get really dirty, and can spread salmonella a lot easier. So the top floor had to go, as seen here on the top photo. I also, put in a thermometer that is easy to read, and 2 lights on timers more centrally located on the ceiling.

Next up, food and water. So the weather here in Juneau, Alaska basically hovers in the 40°-50 °F realm, and it is cloudy a lot of the time. In the winter, we can get blistering clear cold days and even get blizzards where temperatures can drop below freezing for a couple of days at a time.I don't have any practical application experience, but from what I read, chickens will hunker down in their hen house during such storms, yet want to venture out on the clear days. Without a heating device, the water in the chicken run will most definitely freeze during below freezing temperatures, so I wanted to put both a food and water source in the hen house, so I could lock them in there during a storm and not deprive them of nutrients and hydration.

We used to put the water and food container we kept in the brooder in there, but now that they don't have to go back and forth, we installed a waterer and feeder. I built the feeder out of wood, and mounted it to the wall. Nicholas calls it the Piano feeder ...because it looks like an upright piano. We also bought some bird watering nipples, that the chicks drink from, they are designed specifically for chickens.You just drill a 3/8 hole in the bottom of any plastic container, pop um in, and you got yourself a watering system the chicks cannot contaminate.  So we made a small one, hung it in the hen house.

The last modification was installing my thermostat to regulate the temperature in the hen house from fluctuating due to wind or sun. I have a thermometer installed at a low/coldest point down by the chicken door, and I have another mounted just higher than the thermostat. The top temperature is always 67°-72°...and the lower temperature is always around 62°-65°. I can't say enough about the thermostat. Not only has it solved any temperature issues I had, but it saves me electricity. If the sun shows up, the light is hardly on at all. When its cold, the heat lamp is on around 70% of the time, usually 40 minutes on and 20 minutes off, give or take. Maybe some hardcore types will scoff at such an extravagant set up. I really just wanted to make it so I didn't have to do much thinking. :)

UPDATE: Originally I stated the following: "The top temperature is always 67°-72°...and the lower temperature is always around 62°-65°" But after the hens had full down plumage, the thermostat was lowered to 50° (just enough to keep their drinking water from freezing, which all drinking water is housed in the hen house during winter), making the top temperature 50° and the lower temperature 40°. I didn't want to mis-lead folks into thinking that I keep my hen house at a toasty 70°.

From Chicks...To Chickens

I swear, right before I left for work one morning, I let the chicks out onto their run...and when I returned home in the evening, they were full blown chickens. I don't know what happend? They seemed to grow up overnight. We haven't given our chicks names per say...but Nicholas lovingly calls this chicken "Fatty Brave-y" because its the fattest bravest chicken we have. It also has the brightest comb of all the others. My guess, is that Fatty Brave-y most likely is a rooster.

This chicken gives off a cool warning cackle whenever there is a low flying Blue Jay around. and sometimes...(and I mean only sometimes), this bird seems to patrol the other four...corrals them...or does what Nicholas and I call a "body slam". A Fatty Brave-y Body Slam is performed from a high point in the chicken run, usually from the front door or the ramp itself, then a big jump and flap of the wings, only to come down 9 out of 10 times right on top of another chicken. Im trying to catch it on video, but its hard to know when a body slam is about to happen. Ive seen other ones in our flock do the same thing, but Fatty Brave-y is the best at hitting the target, and avoiding collision with the chicken wire or other obstacles.

The flock is healthy and happy and live full time in their new coop. At 6 weeks old, we are moving them off the 30% chick starter (30% protein)...to a 20% Flock Raiser...or Developer. Developer has less protein, and higher carbs, to kinda fatten them up. Also we have started on some scratch grains. Small amounts of Rolled Oats and Cracked Corn is sprinkled into their run every morning by our Chicken Wrangler, and we crush bread and oats together and mix it with various other scraps. By far their favorite scrap food is apple cores. We dice an apple core up into small edible pieces, mix in our oats/bread mixture, toss in any other lettuce or carrot pieces and it turns into an irresistible treat. I gave them too much the first time I made this, thinking they would regulate themselves, but they were at the trough for hours. Its important not to do that as they may get malnourished by filling up on greens and not getting enough protein, but the chicks have been free ranging and have been eating lots of slugs and worms. I'm sure it will all balance out in the end.

Auto-Eggs

Chicks grow fast. The photo on the left is a chick about 3 and half weeks old, complete with a decent set of wing feathers, a nice little comb coming in, and they have giant feet. The weather has been cool and sunny here this past week, and the chicks spent their first night in the hen house. It was equipped with a 120 watt red flood light during the evening hours, and the chicks were noticeably cold. My thermometers read an outside temp of 54 °F. They don't have all their feathers at 3 and a half weeks, so they piled themselves in the corner to keep warm. So I decided it was time to get more heat, so I bought a 250 watt red heat lamp to keep on during the night. I tested it and realized with the small chicken door closed it was too hot in there. If I left it open, they would get too cold. So I put in a burlap curtain to have this middle ground so the chicks would be comfortable. And the second night they were sleeping a bit spaced out and one even jumped up on the roost.

Now the chicks are comfortable, but with the door open it leaves them vulnerable to predators. Also, while I was testing the heat lamp, I noticed the timer thing wasn't going to work for me. The morning was sunny, making the hen house 85 °F with the light on, shut it off and it dropped to an ideal 70 °F. Later in the day the clouds came in and it got windy and cool, but with the light off, the temp in the hen house reached 58 °F. I turned it back on, and we get back to the 70 °F. Then later at night it got even colder, and I had to shut the chicken's door to maintain the temp. I have a full time job and cannot really hit light switches all day, and I can't keep leaving the door wide open all night. Not to mention winter is just around the corner, and any sort of miscalculation could cause the chickens to freeze to death. This is Alaska after all. What is a chicken farmer to do?

Luckily there is this great company called KKONTROLS. They sell weatherproof 120v thermostats specifically designed for barns and greenhouses. I picked up the simplest one they had on their Ebay store for under $40 shipped. They have dual purpose ones that run a heat source in the cold and some exhaust fan or air conditioner in the hotter temps, and some with remote sensors, or even fancy programmable ones. But I just wanted it to do one thing...keep my chickens warm, without over heating them. This thermostat is designed to take on higher amperage heaters and heat lamps, and has a 2.5 degree differential. The differential is the difference between the set temperature, and its upper temperature (heating) or lower temperature (cooling). For example: a heating thermostat with a differential of 3° set to 70 °F will kick on when the temp gets lower than 70 °F, and kick off when it reaches 73 °F. On the opposite side: a cooling thermostat with a differential of 3° set to 70 °F will kick on when the temp gets higher than 70 °F, and kick off when it reaches 67 °F.

In other words, I really wont have to worry about temperature once this gets installed, I can open and close doors, and the outside temperature can fluctuate all it wants. No timer guess work on how cold its gonna be on any given day. I got my trusty thermostat on the case. All I have to worry about is making sure the chickens get enough light, and keep my eyes on the thermometers I have installed in the hen house. And so the term was coined...."Auto-Eggs"!

Chicks Update

The chicks are now about 13 days old, and as their appetites increase, so have their feathers. The wings are the most apparent. They can now fly over their feeder, and seem to do it as a bit of a competition sometimes. They line up and each give it a shot, much like a diving board at a public pool. If they don't get a good start they end up landing on it, instead of over it. Also, at night, as their light attracts flying insects, they have begun flying a bit to catch them. Its more like fly-jumping, but it makes for good chick exercise if you ask me, and not to mention putting a small dent in the flying insect population.

In most recent days, the chicks have started sprouting little tail feathers. They are showing signs of combs on the tops of their beaks, and their beaks themselves have grown a bit...but the rest of their body is still covered with fuzz, and they still cuddle together when it gets cold. We put grass clippings in the enclosure about every other day to keep them busy, and feed them worms from our yard. They enjoy the smaller worms right now, as they are easier to gulp down while the other chicks are trying to steal it. The larger worms just last longer in the pen, and gives the less aggressive birds in the pen a chance at a treat.

I am trying to hand tame them as well. I try and hold a few chicks a day, and put my hand inside their dwelling whenever I'm checking up on them, just so they are used to me. So far they have been easy to care for, lots of fixing the water dispenser as they kick litter into it when they scratch, but nothing major. I cleaned the litter out of the whole pen while the chicks were in it one day, and they were pretty traumatized. They were standing in the corner all bunched up with their necks stretched upwards, chirping violently. I'm hoping the next time I clean it, they will be large enough to go into their coop and explore for a while.

Chicken Food

The coolest thing about chickens...is they eat everything. I think there are a few things you should keep away from them, like snails and slugs because they tend to choke on the slime, citrus because they don't like it, avoid feeding onions and garlic to egg layers because the taste transfers to the eggs, and cedar shavings because ingesting large amounts could kill a chicken. But mostly they eat anything.

Your basic chicken diet consists of proteins, carbs, greens and some calcium...in the natural world it's Insects, Seeds/Grains and Leafy stuff like grass....On a free range farm its Insects, Soy or Milk supply the protein and calcium (and Meats from dinner scraps), Seed from the land, and harvested grains such as Corn or Oats, and they free range on fresh grass, fruits, berries and leaves as they peck around the farm. Which is also important, because the chicken will peck and eat small amounts of pebbles and sand that are collected in the Gizzard, to help grind the seed before digestion.

Pre-Fab chicken feed comes in 3 styles, Mash (fine powdery stuff), Crumble (like Grape Nuts), and Pellets (a bit larger). Size of feed is relevant to how you want your chickens to behave. I read the pellets are wasted less and generally given to the adult chickens, and that the mash is used to keep chickens busier. They all have a balance of the Protien-Carb-Greens-Calcium-Grit all built in, but can still have trace amounts  of bi products and contaminants. A 50lb bag of Pre-fab feed runs under $20...even here in Juneau, Alaska. The rule about how much chickens eat is: 12 birds will eat 50lb bag of feed in one month. For the beginner, such as me, I really just chose this Pre-fab feed to really make sure my first batch chickens aren't malnourished, and gave me more time to erect the coop and fences. I have this idea that eventually I will be smart enough to cut costs on feed by making my own. I am finding out now that what you feed a chicken, depends on what you plan on doing with that chicken...and how 'organic' you desire your flock to be.

A quick general feeding pattern for an egg laying chicken is different than a chicken you raise for meat. Also you can keep a laying hen as long as it produces the eggs (generally 2 years, but some say it depends on diet, and the chicken itself), and the meat birds are ready in about 8-10 weeks. Here is this handy chart I found online, but what it doesn't explain is the carbs. So in general; Protien = Energy for meat or eggs, Carbs = the building blocks for meat and eggs, Greens = Vitamins and complex amino acids. So the 'Developer' given to laying hens is basically higher in carbs than the 'Layer', which is higher in Calcium, for better Egg shell production. And the meat bird "finisher' is also higher in Carbs as to build more meat on the bird before slaughter. You can skip the Finisher and Developer stages, and all you will do is wait a bit longer for the bird to get there.

Lots of folks simply just add their own cracked corn or rolled oats to the layer feed and its home made 'Developer/Finisher'. Pound for pound, cracked corn and rolled oats are much cheaper than the Pre-fab food. Here is a cool fact, Cracked corn will raise the body temperature of your birds more than the oats will. I will probably feed oats in the summer and corn in the winter as a treat they would forage in the scratch area. Also, I hear, coming into your chicken's realm with treats such as this really help to tame your birds, and get them used to you and other humans to be around them.

I would like to finish this off by reminding people that I am not an expert on chicken nutrition, nor should you use this as a guide. There are plenty of resources out there to help you fully understand the feeding cycles you should have for your chickens. This is simply a gathering of the information that is freshly being researched by me right now. And as revelations hit me, I will be posting them here. There are many schools of thought, and some chicken farmers go to extremes to provide truly 'organic' meat and eggs like making their own feed mix for a particular climate or season, or replacing water with milk to produce thicker egg shells etc.

I know what some of you are thinking....if chickens eat anything, and basic elements of food are cheaper, why don't you mix your own feed for the chickens and go fully organic? This is a very complex adventure, as it requires learning the Dairyman's Square rule, and also having enough chickens to keep this bulk feed on hand before it goes stale, which all feed does. I assume that would be a topic for another post, many months from now.

Medication and Antibiotics

I was feeding my chicks the other day and found the word "medicated" on the chick starter bag...hmmm. Then I was looking over my receipt from the hatchery, and I see my chicks were vaccinated. I looked into some of the diseases common in chickens and found the following ailments.

Marek's Disease
Infectious Bronchitis
Fowl Pox
Laryngotracheitis
Newcastle Disease
Fowl Cholera

Some vaccines are general vaccines given to the birds as a precaution, and others only need be given if there is a nearby outbreak or if you see warning signs in some birds, and will be used to save the birds who have not contracted it yet. I assume the vaccination they gave my chicks at the hatchery was a kind of bulk vaccine like most cats and dogs get. I sent an email to the hatchery to see exactly what was given to them, and I will update it here.

So why is the chick starter medicated if they received the vaccines? Because of our little friend Coccidiosis. Coccidiosis is a common parasitic disease of poultry which affects the digestive tract and is primarily found in chickens and turkeys. While the chick is young, it is very vulnerable to this parasite, because their immune systems are very fragile. The antibiotic added to my chick starter is Amprolium, which helps the chick survive the first couple of months, then you move off the starter and the chicken will live on without needing the medication.

Anti-Biotics in adult chicken feed is a different story. As every farmer has his/her own style this is a difficult thing to really define if this is the right thing for your flock. Anti-biotics in feed eventually comes through in the eggs and meat the chicken provides, which minimizes the effects of Anti-biotics as a whole. Mass production hatcheries are now slowly lowering the amount of anti-biotics they put in chicken feed to stop it from passing on to those who consume their eggs and meat. And its generally going out of style. But as small operations go...the smaller your operation is, the less you will need Anti-biotics. Sick birds can be quarantined until they bounce back or perish. Also, proper conditions and general cleanliness is a safe bet against most common ailments. Yet if you have 300 birds in a small space, this may be harder than you think. As I only have 5 birds, Im going to attempt to not use Anti-biotics at all in my adult feed, and may buy a small bag of it, or some additive when they seem sick.

I know what some of you are thinking...why not use seed instead of this pre-fab food? That is a question for another post.

Why Chickens?

The big question is why chickens and why now? A few weeks ago, I had no idea I wanted chickens. I thought they would be smelly and noisy, and I would need some remote homestead to raise a decent flock. I also thought they would be hard to care for, with all the droppings and buying the straw and supplies needed. I even read a recent article in the paper that boiled it down to this: "Its cheaper to buy your eggs at the store". Then we went to the Haines Fair on a family trip and stayed at our friend's place, Carlos and Sierra, who had chickens for a spell before a bear came over for lunch.

First of all the Haines Fair had a petting zoo with a few very tame chickens. And my son Nicholas was into it, to say the least. He brushed off the Alpacas and Ponies and was pretty much in the pen, with chickens, whenever he was allowed. He wasn't like most of the kids, poking them in the face and bugging them. So eventually the chickens would climb right up on him one or two at a time. Boy, Nicholas really likes chickens, and they like him....hmmm reason number one to get chickens? They will make great pets for my son.

Still, I had no idea I would be farming chickens at this point. Then we went back to my friend's home and Sierra showed me her coop on the 3rd day I was there. I didn't even notice the coop was there for 2 days...no smell. Sierra told me about the Plymouth Rock Chickens, how they were quiet, didn't fly much, laid about an egg a day even in winter, and where to get them. She also said there is nothing better tasting than an organic free range egg, and cleaning the coop isn't that difficult if you use pine shavings and straw. So much for my theory on them being smelly and noisy. In short, yes its cheaper to buy mass produced eggs at the store, but if you have laying hens, you will have fresher better tasting eggs at about the same cost as buying organic free range eggs. So reason number two to get chickens....better eggs.

Now I just had one mental obstacle left...Will I have the space to raise these chickens?, and am I allowed to? A quick call to the City Office and spoke to a lady in "Regulations"...and she stated my home was in a zone where 6 hens could be kept, and no roosters. Simple enough. Then I did a bit of research on what kind of space they need to live comfortably. Seems chickens only need like 4 square feet to live in. I have a giant back yard...plenty of space. I theoretically could fence off my side yard and have 40 chickens?!? Cool! So reason number three to have chickens....We have the space and we are allowed to.

 
Im only a few days into it and all I can say its not that hard. From what I have read in my region the big problem is predation. Bears, Minks, Owls, Ravens and Eagles are the culprits in my neck of the woods. I hear mice, rats and even smaller birds can cause problems too, but so far its been smooth.

Baby Chicks Arrive

Bought 5 Barred Rock Pullets from Cackle Hatchery. (Pullets: A female chicken between the ages of 1 day and 12 months). Most places will have a 25 chick minimum order, and for the backyard chicken farmer who is only allowed 6 hens, it really didn't work out. Cackle Hatchery will send as little as 5 chicks, which is the main reason I went with this hatchery. I would have loved to buy from an Alaska Hatchery to keep things local, but they didn't have any available until spring, and I wanted fall chicks.

The Barred Rock Hens or AKA Plymouth Rocks, are bantam dual purpose birds. (Bantam Chicken: basically a smaller sized chicken). They are fantastic birds for our climate as they are good egg layers in the cold weather, and are also good for roasting. All chicks are healthy and eating and drinking. Two days in and no visible problems with the chicks. We have them in our chick box, with a 120 watt flood light about 20 inches off the bedding...and its hot, like 100 °F hot. And we put cardboard around it to keep out the drafts.

We didn't want to wait until Spring to get these chicks. As it would be a year before we would see our first egg. So we opted to buy these later in the summer, August. We hope the chicks will have full plumage before the weather gets too cold. We hope to have our first eggs by New Years Day.

Building Our Coop

We live in Juneau, Alaska and the weather is wet and cold for most of the year. I am going to try and document our chicken coop disasters and successes and maybe we will make mistakes others can learn from and help some other South East Alaskan chicken farmers. I pulled the picture above from a pre-fab chicken coop operation, just to get basic design ideas. I liked that this unit was of a good size, yet still somewhat mobile, and it looked like it could handle some snow too.

Our Coop is framed in 2 x 2 common wood, Inner walls are made of particle board, roof and other surfaces are sheeted with plywood. I covered the nesting area and roof with tar paper and then covering it with metal sheathing. Have not insulated it as of yet. With a heat source installed in such a small space, it may not be necessary to insulate. I plan on putting in some thermometers to make sure my chickens are comfortable, and make sure its not too hot or cold in the roosting area. But I made sure its windproof, and vented it well. I could also insulate it next spring if I have trouble keeping it warm this winter.

Above is my son Nicholas, our Chicken Wrangler here at our farm. We want to have a name for our farm, but haven't decided on one yet. This is our nesting box and roosting area for our chickens. As you see there is a light wired in, and we have moved it around quite a bit trying to find the best spot for it. Dimensions of this area is 5ft high x 4ft deep x 3ft wide, and has a potential for 6 nests...but that's up to the chickens. Im no expert on chickens, but have researched that chickens don't need alot of space...3-4 cubic feet per chicken is all they need in general, and you only need to provide each chicken with 1 square foot of roosting space. My entire coop is 256 cubic feet, with a nesting/roosting box that is 60 cubic feet, which more space means happier healthier birds.