The Scoop Behind Bringing Up These Ladies of the Coop
❉ By Libby Hirshberg
I don’t know when I became interested in raising chickens, but I’ve always enjoyed having a vegetable garden, picking berries and foraging for mush- rooms, so it just seemed natural to get some chickens. I mentioned my interest to my husband, Bill, and the journey began. Four years later, I still smile when I collect eggs, and I continue to talk to “the girls” each time I see them.
It all started with Bill giving me a photo of a chicken coop as a gift! It was kismet that shortly after receiving the unusual gift, The grange had a “Chick Day” where you could get five free fluffy chicks if you bought the starter supplies for raising chickens. We came home with a variety of chicks, a deep tub to raise them in for the first two months, chick food, food and water dis- pensers and a heat lamp. We set up their temporary home in the garage.
To help us, we got a how-to book on raising chickens and spoke to people who already had a flock. One suggestion was that it was good to expose the chickens to human contact so they would be calmer when we were in their coop. We talked to them daily and picked them up frequently to get them used to us. The chickens respond to our voices now and have never been upset when we reach in and take their eggs.
Bill did some research on the Internet and found several free blueprints for building a coop. It’s best not to use chicken wire for the coop but instead use hardware cloth, a wire mesh that comes in rolls. It is stronger, the holes are smaller and it will keep more small animals out of the coop. It is necessary to encompass the entire coop in the hard- ware cloth, both the bottom and side walls. The reason for this is that small animals tunnel and big animals dig to get to the chickens and/or their food.
The cost of building a coop varies; including a metal roof, we spent about $500 for the supplies. Bill and a friend built the coop. They got it done just as the chickens started roaming around the garage, so the chicks went from a 3-by-2-foot tub into an 8-by-16-foot, two-story coop.
It’s great to take what was once food waste and turn it into eggs. I don’t give the chickens anything that was in a dressing or sauce—just fresh ends of lettuce, tomatoes, beet tops, apple cores, berries, etc.
We chose a variety of chickens that would be able to tolerate our winter weather. At first we got more familiar breeds, such as Orpington, Rhode Island Red, and Plymouth Rock. The best egg layers and most beautiful of the bunch were the Plymouth Rock hens. We then added Ameraucana and Cochin chickens, and found the Ameraucanas to be great layers; it is easy to tell since their eggs have a green shell. When mixing different varieties, it is important to try and get breeds that will get along with each other, even though there will still be a pecking order despite all of your efforts.
We have learned that backyard chickens live longer due to their healthy environment; they average eight to 10 years, with some chickens living up to 15 years. They have a few good years of heavier egg laying, which decreases as they get older, but on average they lay for five to seven years.
It’s not necessary to have a rooster to have a hen lay eggs. Hens lay their first eggs when they are about five months old, and lay most of their eggs in the spring and summer months.
During the next five months after moving the chickens to the coop we got about two dozen eggs a week! It was great taking them as hostess gifts, and I started a tradition of giving “birthday eggs” rather than cards to our friends. Friends started saving egg cartons for us, and we had a label made to dress up the eggs that we gave away.
It is now part of our daily and weekly routine to feed, check for eggs, refresh the water and visit with our chick- ens. With the cost of the coop, the food and the scratch, I am quite cer- tain raising chickens doesn’t save us much money, if any, but it continues to be a joy to be able to gather eggs
from our own chickens. ❖
Some Quick Tips
❉ Clean up the chicken poop regularly so it does not become a big project. It is much nicer to have a clean coop.
❉ Have ground-up oyster shells in the coop for the chickens to nibble on. It keeps their eggshells strong.
❉ Give the chickens scratch regularly.
❉ Build the chicken coop prior to getting the baby chicks.
❉ Enjoy!
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