Chicken care habits are essential for your daily routine and for keeping your flock healthy. However, some chicken care habits can also be bad, so take a look at these five chicken-keeping habits you may need to break.
#1 Not Taking Predator Attacks Seriously
The most common bad chicken care habit to fall into is not taking chicken predators seriously. It’s easy to look around your sunshine-filled yard and think that there couldn’t possibly be any predators lurking behind the bush or crouching near the edge of the woods waiting to snatch your free-ranging hen.
The chances of a raccoon opening the hook and eye latch on your coop door may seem impossible, and your next-door neighbor who warned you that the resident Great Horned Owl would eat your bantams roosting in the tree, probably doesn’t like owls and is overreacting. If this sounds like you, it’s time to take action.
Good chicken care begins with taking chicken predators seriously and protecting your flock from predators. Never free-range your flock unless directly supervised by an adult. (meaning you are right there with them, not checking on them out a window or across the yard). Also, consider leaving your smartphone in the house to avoid distraction during supervised free-range time.
Predator-proof your coop and your chicken run by attaching half-inch, 16-gauge hardware cloth to the run walls and roof. Attach the same hardware cloth around the perimeter of the coop and run to deter predators from accessing the enclosures via digging underneath.
The coop should be set on a cement block or a concrete foundation, and should have no gaps larger than one-half inch anywhere. Cover windows with half-inch hardware cloth, and bolt doors, popholes, and outdoor nesting box doors with padlocks.
# 2 Overcrowding Your Chickens
Overcrowding causes stress and tension in the flock and is a frequent bad chicken care habit many flock owners fall into.
When chickens become stressed due to overcrowding, bad habits can occur. Feather picking, bullying, cannibalism, and egg eating are much more likely to occur in an overcrowded coop.
Stressed chickens are also more likely to become ill and often live shorter lives.
While overcrowding the henhouse is a common chicken care mistake, it’s one of the easiest to prevent.
Before acquiring new chickens, be honest with yourself. If your coop can’t house more chickens without overcrowding your flock, it’s best to wait until some of the older flock members have passed on before acquiring new members.
#3 Not Keeping it Clean
One of the top chicken care habits to break is practicing poor hygiene. While the daily and weekly chore lists will vary from flock to flock, there is no room in the chicken care list for poor hygiene.
Practice good chicken keeping hygiene by entirely removing the soiled bedding from the coop at least once every two weeks (every week is better, but if your schedule doesn’t permit, every two weeks is fine).
Say goodbye to the deep litter method, as this method of cleaning is potentially harmful for chickens, especially aging hens and roosters. If chickens are housed in a permanent run, cleaning the poop out of the run will help prevent disease and harmful pathogens from building up over time.
Your daily chicken care routine should involve completely emptying water fountains twice daily. Rinse thoroughly to remove any lingering dirt and manure before refilling.
Feeders should be emptied completely every night. Clean up spilled feed and leftover uneaten treats daily to prevent chickens from ingesting moldy foods.
Keep coops, runs, garden areas, and yards clear of junk, old, non-working vehicles, and weeds to prevent predators and rodents from being able to access your flock and coop.
#4 Forgetting Your Chickens
Yes, forgetting chickens is a bad chicken care habit. Between modern conveniences such as automatic popholes and busy lives, chicken keepers can accidentally forget about their chickens and leave them outdoors overnight.
While many flock owners use automatic coop doors to ensure their flock gets locked up before dark, the bad habit starts when you don’t check each evening at dusk to see if all the chickens made it into the coop.
Some chickens simply refuse to go into the coop, or a rooster may get left out, making sure his hens all make it into the coop for the night. Whatever the reason may be for your chicken to refuse to enter the coop, doing a quick head count in the coop every evening could be the difference between life and death for your chicken.
#5 Chicken Care Mistake: Feeding Too Many Treats
If there’s one bad chicken care habit every flock owner is guilty of, it would be feeding too many treats to their chickens.
As part of good flock care, it’s only natural to want to show our feathered pets some love by handing out treats. Using healthy chicken care practices means that some varieties of treats or too many treats can be harmful and can even lead to shorter life spans.
Feed healthy chicken treats including salad greens, grains, herbs, peas, dried black soldier fly larvae, squash and fruit. Avoid feeding bread and other baked goods, cat food, corn, mealworms, meat, pasta, processed foods, and tomatoes.
Keeping treats to a maximum of ten percent of your flock’s daily rations will help your hens from becoming obese and causing egg laying issues and other health problems.
Chicken Care Habits: The Bottom Line
Chicken care habits can be good or bad. Keep the good and get rid of the bad. Breaking bad habits is a key step toward better chicken care and a happier, healthier flock.
This article about chicken care habits was written for Hobby Farms and Chickens magazines. Click here to subscribe.
