Are You Keeping Chickens Healthy In Your Backyard?
Now you have your chickens, well…
That’s only party of it.
Like yourself, you need to be keeping chickens healthy as well.
So where do you start you, chicken lovers?
Did you know that keeping healthy backyard chickens, result in a greater number of those delicious, organic eggs that you are scooping up from your hen house and putting proudly in your house for the next feast?
By maintaining the health of your chickens inside your chicken coop, you are making a happy chicken.
After all…
No one wants unhappy chickens, when they are unhealthy, there can be many reasons for this.
As an owner of backyard chickens, like any pet owner, you need to make sure that it is your responsibility to do everything necessary to keep your chickens healthy.
The Importance Of Keeping Chickens Healthy
Since the health of your chickens will impact the quantity…
Yes, quantity of hen eggs you are getting.
Would you want to lay an egg if you were not feeling well?
So why should your hen want to do the same right?
It does really make sense to be knowledgeable in the area of chicken health.
There are four key areas to keep in mind:
- having regular feed and water
- adequate chicken housing
- stress minimization
- prevention of parasites
Did you know that all these areas are interrelated to each other, and therefore are important for maintaining the health of your urban or backyard flock of chickens?
Having Regular Supply Of Feed And Water
Chickens, like all animals even plants, need a regular supply of food and water and will almost predictably stop laying those eggs for you if you let them go a day or so without these essentials.
Chickens like many birds seem to stress quite easily…
And your hens can even ‘go off the lay’ for several weeks at a time if they’ve been stressed out by you not giving them inadequate food and water you know…
If you are able to, and I don’t see why not.
Unless you just don’t eat and that is not a possibility.
Is, to provide your backyard chickens with all those leftover kitchen scraps or even fresh weeds you have growing wildly from your garden.
By keeping chickens healthy, you will be improving the health of your chickens and the quality of the eggs that they will be laying for you.
Adequate HousingFfor Your Chickens
All chickens need a chicken coop, right?
So when designing a chicken coop, or even buying a new chicken coop, it is important to make sure your chicken coop is well ventilated.
Not too draughty mind…
You don’t want heavy drafts rushing through your house, so your chickens might have feathers, but they don’t want to be getting a chill.
And when it comes to the months of hot summer. Chickens that have a poorly ventilated chicken coop can get stressed out with the heat as you would.
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Not to mention the smell of the chicken house in the height of the summer, their poop will smell.
You will find chicken coops available on the market these days that have removable panels to allow for the much-needed good ventilation in the summertime, and good cosy housing for winter.
For those wetter and cooler wetter months, you will also need to make sure that your chickens have good shelter from the wind and rains.
Also…
Do not forget to check that your chickens’ bedding materials, such as sawdust, for instance, do not get wet after rain.
Make sure you check to make sure your hen house is still dry.
And do not leave the bedding on the bottom of your chicken house wet for extended periods of time, or else it will go mouldy.
As it’s such a good environment with the scratching of the chickens their poop and all number of things to create a great environment for mould.
A wet environment inside the housing section of your chicken run can lead to ammonia and other noxious gases forming, which can lead to lung infections in your chickens.
Stressed Out Chickens
You do not want a stressed-out chicken?
When keeping chickens healthy, it’s not nice to see ongoing stress in your chicken coop.
As an animal lover myself, I like to see that things are fairly tranquil in my chicken run.
And when something happens to stress them out I need to find out what it is and then fix it.
And if there has been a dog or fox lurking around their chicken coop.
Your chickens might also stop laying their eggs for a period of time as well…
So make sure when you build your chicken coop to make sure that your chicken coop is predator-proof.
The last thing you need is for predators trying to enter their coop at night or even brazen enough to do it in the daytime.
That would stress anything out.
The other thing you might not have thought of is overcrowding your chickens in a small space.
Overcrowding can be stressful for your chickens…
Everything needs space, and animals are just the same as us. If a chicken constantly has another chicken in their space this can cause fights and squabbling.
So do make sure you have the appropriate number of chickens for the size of your chicken coop ok…
No skimping on space, give a chicken space enough to be themselves and be along when they want.
Prevention Of Parasites
Pesky parasites…
Wherever you go they are there…
And when it comes to chickens and feathers.
Well…
Enough said.
It is a common issue for all chicken owners that parasites such as mites or lice to be lurking in their chicken coop.
Yes!
Chicken coop as well.
Not only do they like to make their homes in that fluffy array of your chicken’s feathers.
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They also lurk around the corners of your chicken coop and even on their perches as well if they are rough such as a bow of a tree.
Many entry points to set up home.
Yes…
The cracks and crevices of the chicken coop walls.
Timber chicken coops can be somewhat worse.
But don’t be put off having a wooden chicken coop though, they have great advantages.
And you will get these mites in any chicken coop, just not in the same places, like the cracks in the wood that’s all.
Mites are red in colour one they have been feeding on blood from your chickens.
But usually black in colour when not full of blood.
You can easily find them if you go out at nighttime on your chickens.
They might be very small, almost invisible to the naked eye in fact without magnification.
Now lice are white in colour and larger than those mites, and they are more ‘host’ specific.
This means that they will more likely stay on the one chicken, compared with the mites who may like to share themselves around the chickens over time.
As far as keeping chickens healthy, mites are not in the factor…
There is a range of anti-mite or anti-lice powders that you can buy in the stores or online now.
In keeping chickens healthy, you do need to dust your chickens, to help rid them of these pesky bloodsuckers.
If you have mites on your chickens then you most probably have mites in your chicken coop as well…
So yes!
You will need to clean your chicken house.
It is not so bad…
Just think of it as time to give the chicken coop a good spring clean anyway…
Cleaning with a high-pressure spray is good, so where is that hose?
Get the jet of your hose water into the small cracks for an extended period of time to really blast those little critters out!
Mites love living in wood so give it a good blast.
You can however have fewer parasite problems if you choose a chicken coop that is made from steel or aluminium.
But it does not cure the fact for the mites finding their way onto your chickens…
While mites can still appear in these coops, it’s not as common though, and they are much easier to clean to remove those pests.
So do occasionally check for parasites on your chicken’s people…
Well, keeping chickens does not just mean that you can buy your chickens and throw them into a coop and forget about them.
And I am sure if you are on this site, that that is not the way you would go about keeping chickens in your backyard.
Making sure that keeping chickens healthy is an important factor of being a chicken owner, and your chickens will reward you with their personalities’ and the eggs they lay.