As the winter slowly fades into Spring, I have heard quite a few inquiries and questions on keeping chickens.  For the next few blogs, I am going to share some of what I have learned in the last year of keeping these delightful, feathered friends.  I happily welcome any questions or feedback.  The following recommendations are for keeping chickens as an egg source and not as dinner.

Where to Start 

The first place to start is to see if it is legal for you to have chickens on your property.  You will need to find out what zoning laws exist for where you live.  To find this information, you need to look on your city/town’s website, contact city hall, or contact the local zoning office if there is one.  Due to the recent heightened interest in backyard chicken keeping, many cities have become accepting of backyard flocks (yay!).  Most neighborhoods also have their own rules about backyard chickens-check into your homeowner’s association.  Hens are obviously much more accepted in a city setting than roosters since they are quieter.

Gathering the Supplies 

If you have found out you are legally allowed to keep chickens, that’s exciting news!  If you aren’t allowed, it’s time to start a petition to get those laws changed!

A medical word of advice: chickens do put off a dander so if you or someone in your family has a lot of animal allergies, asthma or COPD, make sure this will not aggravate their conditions before you go through the time and expense of getting everything established.

Next is to obtain the necessary supplies you will need over the next few months.  Anticipate spending anywhere from $50-$100 on supplies.  This is the higher average, it is definitely possible to do it for less with more frugal choices.  Chicks need to be kept in a brooder box for several months (if you get day old chicks).  A brooder box is a secure box that houses food, water, a heat lamp and the chicks themselves.  My general rule of thumb is they stay in the brooder box until their chick fluff is gone and they have feathers to keep them warm.  Typically once this happens, it has warmed up outside as well (in our area).  Some people move the chicks out to the coop sooner than later and place a heat lamp in the coop.

The brooder box needs to be a deep box with enough space for the chicks to walk around comfortably.  There are all kinds of ideas for brooder boxes, from plastic swimming pools to wood crates.  We used a large plastic storage bin and cut the inside of the top out and replaced it with chicken wire.  Make sure you have a top on the brooder box because they can find their way out!  In the brooder box you need to have a watering container that is kept full of fresh water at all times.  Make sure you get one that is especially designed for chicks, they are not very smart and can drown in an improper container.  You also want to have a feeder and a heat lamp.  Both of which can be purchased at the local feed store.  Wal-Mart also sells heat lamps near the car/camping section and the bulb will be with the regular house light bulbs.  Chicks are little and unable to maintain a steady body temperature.  We kept the heat lamp on most of the time and made sure it was angled at one end of the box so if they got hot, they can move to the other side.  Just be careful of fire hazards, make sure its not too close to anything flammable, they get very hot.  Here is what we used (with the top off):

There is conflicted feedback on what type of shavings to use with chicks.  The majority of what I read says that cedar chips are toxic.  Just keep in mind that chicks are babies and will likely eat whatever type of bedding you use, so make sure it’s something natural and non-toxic.

Check out your local feed store for chick feed options.  You can also purchase feed online, although I never have.  Tractor Supply and Southern States are our local franchise options.  However, we like to support the local feed store down the road.  Make sure you are buying the right feed for the age of your chickens.  There is different feed for each major phase of life.  We chose to keep our chickens natural and hormone free so we made sure our food was sans antibiotics.

You now have all the materials you will need for your little chicks.

The next step is to find and purchase your future egg layers!  Check back for the next blog to continue our chicken learning adventure.

Until next time…

Don't miss the whole chicken talk series, check out the full blog for more info HERE.

Friends of GRIT,
I’m an English teacher, and NPR (National Public Radio) recently held its annual “3-Minute Story” contest, and I had in mind an idea for a story based on an experience I shared with my mother-in-law a few months back… having a hen put to sleep.  I wrote the dark little story about death and choices and family togetherness and prepared to submit it when I noticed the theme was supposed to be about an American president, living or dead.  “Hmm,” I thought.   “Is there a way to work that in to my chicken story?”  Yes, in fact.  My mother-in-law, Kathryn, suggested that the hen be described as a rooster, and that the rooster might be named Abraham Lincoln, and I took it from there.  With just a few changes, I sent the story on.  I haven’t heard from NPR.  However, I know that the deeply sympathetic, intelligent, insightful, and sensitive hen-loving crowd at GRIT will appreciate my story, so here it is.

Depth of Field

Mrs. G and her daughter-in-law entered the veterinarian’s office somberly, the younger Mrs. G carrying a rooster swaddled in a white towel.  The startled looks of other customers shifted to amusement and finally to curiosity. The Mrs. Gs were not in the mood for entertaining this curiosity, and when asked directly about their patient, the daughter-in-law answered simply that the rooster, known as President Lincoln because he was so tall and godlike, was “very sick with a disorder that did not allow him to eat normally.”  She could not bring herself to say that he was, apparently, blind.  She had ascertained that much from observing the rooster’s odd wandering and pecking about for food with little success while his companion hens and another rooster feasted on not only normal feed but delicacies such as cantaloupe and tomatoes.    After speaking with Dr. Beverly, (the vet), the elder Mrs. G recalled a fight between the two roosters a week or so ago.  That was probably the cause, explained Dr. Beverly; roosters will sometimes peck at the eyes of a foe in a barnyard civil war, resulting in blindness.  Ever against cooking up one of her own chickens, Mama G asked if there might be another alternative.  She was advised that the rooster might be separated from the other chickens, kept in a more confined space with readily available food; a lonely life, yes, but one likely to keep him from starving.  The only other choice would be to euthanize him. 

The Mrs. Gs headed home with their cock-of-the-run, drew him into a segregated area with a high fence and plenty of food, and in just a few weeks’ time, he had regained his full masculine figure and began to crow as he had before his wounding. 

Then came a cloudy April evening when, with the two women rocking on the porch and all the chickens clucking and crowing in the happiness of a normal country day, and the rooster strutting around his enclosure and growing fat… something flew out of the darkening sky like a small monsoon, like an illusion, like cruel opportunity, and came down upon the rooster’s back in the blink of an eye.  The hawk tore back the way it had come, claws held fast to President Lincoln, up and up, out of sight, delivering its cry of victory before the astonished kinfolk offstage had the chance to look for grace.

One of my favorite writers, David Sedaris, was once asked if his stories were true.  He replied, cleverly, that they were “mostly true.”  I’ll only go so far as “partly true.”  If you want to know the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I’ll tell you in my next post, where you will find many happy hens and the ghost of dear ole’ Abe around the feeder.

One of our golden hens, we call her Goldie. 

Adding a cockerel (rooster) to your existing flock of hens is one of those things where you'll find almost as many different opinions as there are chicken breeds!  It's a passionate subject, and one that I had the opportunity to delve into recently.

In the fall of 2010, a post came across our local Freecycle group looking for a home for a beautiful young Buff Orpington rooster.  He'd been part of a larger flock that included a number of roosters, most of whom had ended up in the stew pot - save for this guy, and his infinitely more aggressive coop-mate.  At the time, I seriously considered bringing him home, to the point of contacting the owner and making arrangements to go out for an introduction.

But things just didn't gel and we never did make it out to the farm to see him. 

Then a couple of months later, the post came over Freecycle again.  He was still looking for a home.  And my research background kicked into high gear.

I spent an entire day, maybe two, researching rooster behaviour, flock behaviour and the best way to introduce a rooster to an existing group of hens.  Visited probably 20 different websites and forums - all with really valid and experienced advice on the best way to accomplish the task successfully (and safely for all involved).  But the best wisdom came from our Facebook page - I can't thank everyone there enough!  (If you haven't had a chance to join us there, do!  We've got a fantastic group of people from all walks of life and stages of 'self-sufficiency' - newbies, will-be's, and incredibly experienced folk: facebook.com/modernhomesteading).

After a number of questions and a lot of reading, we decided to take the plunge. 

I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't a bit nervous.  In my research, I'd come across some horror stories of roosters who were way too aggressive for the hens, and hens that literally 'hen-pecked' their new gentleman caller til he had to be removed to save his life.  Life with chickens isn't always pretty.  But I decided to swallow that fear and take the plunge into the world of roosters and having an intact flock of birds living as nature intended.  Well, sort of like nature intended - as much as can be realistically recreated in a backyard type arrangement.

Why Have a Rooster?

There are numerous reasons to have a rooster as part of your flock.  Some people thought we were crazy for wanting to bring a rooster on board, and many others were excited for us as we took this further step towards 'self-reliance'. 

These are the reasons we wanted a rooster: 

1. After losing a hen to a coyote because she wandered far away from the flock, we thought having a rooster to keep the girls 'rounded up' would be advantageous.
2. A good rooster will apparently throw himself between the hens and a predator, essentially sacrificing himself for the good of the flock.  Not that I want to sacrifice our gorgeous guy, but hens are a big time and sometimes financial investment - losing just one is a big deal (at least to me).  And roosters are just tougher, generally speaking.
3. Once a good rooster is present, the hens can settle into more of a relaxed state because they no longer have to be hyper-vigilant about keeping an eye out for predators.  They've got someone else to do that job now.  Not that we want them to get totally complacent, but having them not beating each other up on a regular basis was a definite plus in our eyes.
4. We plan to renew our flock with a few new chicks every year - this way, the flock becomes self-sustaining to a degree.  I do need to do more research in this regard as to how the genetics work after the first year (we're still new at this), but for 2012, we now have that capacity.
5. There's just something about a rooster on a homestead.  Many people can't stand the sound of a rooster's crowing, but I love it.  (Yes, even at 4:30 a.m.)

How We Did It

Now, after assessing all the pros and cons and determining our reasons for wanting a rooster were valid and reasonable, here are the steps we took to introduce our 'Tom Wattles' successfully to our girls:

1. Determine a Good Fit:  First off, the rooster in question had to be a good fit for our existing flock of hens - and for our family.  In this case, we knew he wasn't overly aggressive (he'd lost the battle with is coop-mate), had a gentle disposition, and was slightly older than our 14 hens (they were 7 months at the time, he was 9).  I'd read that younger roosters can be ripped to shreds if introduced to older hens, especially if the rooster is on the docile end of the spectrum, so it was important to me that any rooster we brought into the flock was able to hold his own and exert dominance without being overly aggressive).  The breed mattered as well - Buff Orpingtons are known as a more 'personable' breed, so that fed into our decision as well, as my son does a lot of our chicken care, and it was important to me that the rooster was gentle and not aggressive to children especially, but to humans in general.  Also, when we visited him at his original home, it was clear he was well cared for and healthy.  We were able to get a full history on his health and behaviour, which allowed us to determine if he was a good fit.  We decided he was perfect!
2. The First Night:  We brought him home that first day in a big cardboard box in the back seat of the car.  The whole process was pretty calm.  He was super gentle and allowed my son to collect him out of the box to transfer him to his temporary quarantine pen inside my son's 'fort'.  We provided him with a bit of scratch and a dish of water, as well as a towel covering up the tarp we'd put on the floor.  Not ideal, probably, but he was safe for his first night with us.  Hearing him crow that next morning was so wonderful!
3. Quarantine:  In my research, I'd read many experienced people making it very clear that quarantine of new birds was absolutely essential.  The advice went from 72 hours to assess disease to 30 days of isolation from the existing flock.  We decided on something to the lower end of the scale, mostly because we didn't have a secure 'extra' coop to house him in for 30 days.  He stayed in my son's fort (the only other place on the property that is secure from weasels) for 5 nights, and was moved to our portable run during the day.  We located the portable run about 50 feet from the coop and run where the girls were and they spent 5 days eyeballing each other across the lawn... or rather what's left of the lawn now that the chickens have had their way with it for the last few months!  This went really well, even through a coyote ambush where our new guy got his first taste of life in our little hollow - including a few lost tail feathers.  He definitely knows what to look for now! 
4. Checking for Disease and/or Mites:  The quarantine period allows us to watch our new bird for any signs of illness - runny 'nose', sneezing, droopiness, etc., as well as checking him for mites.  I was pretty sure he didn't have any of these things, but I'm glad we took that time.  Some more cautious chicken-raisers warned that some illnesses don't show up in a few days, but rather a few weeks - and that anything less than a 30 day quarantine is asking for trouble.  This may absolutely be true in many cases.  But in our case, we visited the flock that this guy came from, and I trusted the owners when they said that the flock was not ill and had not been ill and showed no signs of illness of any kind.  Sure, some illnesses don't show signs right away, but their birds aren't located near any other flocks, and while yes, I'm sure there was a chance of something 'getting through', I was comfortable in what my research had turned up and in our decision.  So we watched him closely, gave him two dust baths with diatomaceous earth (which was a bit of a challenge, but I think it worked), and planned the big introduction.
5. Introductions:  On Day 6, we decided it was time to get these birds all together.  So on the advice of numerous experts, we waited til nightfall, carried 'Tom' into the coop when all the girls had taken to their roosts for the night, and popped him up on a roost by himself (across from the others).  Then we waited.  It was fascinating - first of all, he looked a bit flummoxed by the whole thing, like he couldn't believe his good fortune... all those girls!! (Yes, I'm anthropomorphizing, but it's hard not to).  Then came all the calls and sounds we'd never heard the hens make.  After 10 minutes or so, we locked up the coop for the night and crossed our fingers that when we came out in the morning, we wouldn't find a rooster massacre.
6. Monitoring:  The next morning it was like he had never not been there - just like everyone said would be the case.  We monitored them over the next few days, ensuring there wasn't going to be any bloodletting by the hens, but everything was pretty sedate - save for the first day when one of the hens decided she wasn't having anything to do with him, and expressed her displeasure by taking a swipe at his comb and wattles (to the point of blood - it was a bit of a mess... but we cleaned him up and all was well).  We watched the dominant hens settle down into a new, more relaxed state (there was less fighting among them and less picking on the lower-level hens), and all seemed well.  We did this for 4 days to allow for the rooster to get used to the idea that the coop and run was 'home', and to cement his role as the dominant member of the flock.  And then we let them out to range late one afternoon

It was quite the process, and I'm grateful to everyone who shared their expertise on the subject.  Here's a video of them all together that first day:

Episode 43 - Our Rooster's First Day with His New Flock from Victoria Gazeley on Vimeo.

The Wrap-Up

Now, three weeks later, we've seen that Tom is quite the gentleman, collecting food for his first harem and proudly caring for them when they're free ranging.  He's not overly aggressive when it comes to mating, and seems to have settled into his role as the protector of the flock.  All in all, a great experience!  If we hadn't done our research, the outcome could have been very different.  You can check out our chicken videos for updates about Tom Wattles and his girls...

Have you ever introduced a rooster to an existing flock of chickens?  How did it go?  We'd love to hear any advice you have to share in the comments below.

A few weeks ago, Elly and Andy were sitting in the parlour (or sitting room to you young people), and suddenly Andy stood up to stare out the window. He called me over to ask what he was seeing; a smallish animal trotting across the field behind our house. I took a look and together we decided that the dog sized, greyish creature was a fox. Before we could secure the binoculars, he had disappeared into the trenches of our property line drainage ditch and that was that.

I remember remarking something about the fortune of having small carnivores on our premises to take care of rodent problems. It wasn’t until Andy returned from morning chores that we learned why that fox had been bee-lining his way off our land.

Andy found seven dead laying hens out by our mobile coop. A significant loss, considering they are older and producing really low egg numbers for our store (like 2-3 dozen per day out of 160 hens).

But then he dropped the bomb. The fox had taken out Reinhold as well. All that remained were some golden feathers right behind the house! That fox had killed our favorite rooster while we slept peacefully in our beds not 20 feet away. We could scarcely believe it.

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Let me take you back a little bit. In February you may recall that we adopted a little black and white dog named Rio to be our new farm dog. You may also now realize that we haven’t mentioned Rio since that post. Just over a month after we welcomed him to our family, he was tragically hit on our busy road right in front of our eyes. It’s a miserable story to recall and I get misty just thinking about it, which is why we never posted a blog about him. We were too heart-broken to let everyone know what happened and just tried to get on with things at the farm without him.

I truly believe that the wild things in our area make note of what properties have dogs and which do not. All the years that we had a farm dog, we never had squirrels in our trees. The trees just across the road would be all a-twitter with chipmunk and squirrel activity, but they never ventured to our side; not even when our fruit trees teased them with ripe treats or our gardens were overflowing with great veggies.

The same held true for raccoons, skunks and foxes. Even coyotes were held at bay by the viscious barking of a 40-pound farm dog.

But the absence of a dog here on our land has been taken note of, and the wild things are beginning to return. Now, I’m all for an eco-friendly farmstead. It’s what we’re all about. The coyotes and turkeys and opossums and Sandhill cranes all have a place in our fields and woods.

But when they have the boldness to take out a beloved rooster right under our noses ... well that isn’t right. Reinhold was more than a rooster. He was our farm mascot.

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Let me explain ...

When Andy and I first moved onto the farm and began renting the house from my parents, we were still city folk living on the farm. We didn’t work on it, Andy commuted 45 minutes one way to a sales job, and I stuck around the home with a baby Elly. Several months later, our next door neighbor got out of selling eggs and offered us her remaining 6 hens as a backyard flock. We gladly took them and began the joyful trail of chicken husbandry.

That very spring, we noticed that the lead hen, a big black lady named Rocket, was acting very broody over the nest of eggs. My dad suggested we find ourselves a rooster and see if she would hatch some chicks for us.

Within a week, we heard about Reinhold at a farm about 25 minutes away. He was an older boy, head rooster of a similar backyard flock, but was slated for the axe because the farmer no longer wanted to deal with an old rooster. We said we’d take him!

He came to us in the front seat of my sedan after the farmer’s wife and I chased him around and finally hooked him with a chicken catcher (these are long-handled rods with the ends curved around like a tiny shepherd’s hook to swipe under the fleeing chickens’ legs; ideally the hook catches a leg and the chicken is yours for the taking).

We intoduced him to the ladies and he took charge as if he’d always been their Man. Reinhold didn’t come with that name; it was some generic rooster name that I can’t recall. It didn’t fit him anyway. He looked too regal for that. He was pale yellow with a big proud tail and golden flecking on his wings. His crow was lusty and strong. He was alert and attentive to his new hens. He needed something unique.

Reinhold. It just came into my head and we went with it. And he totally lived up to his name by the end.

Rocket was allowed to set on a clutch of eggs and even hatched one! We had a nice fuzzy yellow baby for about two weeks. Then, three hens and the baby were taken out over the course of two nights by a racoon. The third night we caught him and took care of him the way farmers do. It was a devasting loss, and we could tell Rocket gave her life to protect that chick. Capturing the racoon was more satisfying than I ever thought I’d feel about it ... and it gave me pause. We had really grown attached to these chickens!

When we finally decided to free-range the flock of four that next summer, Reinhold took the timid hens out on “hunting” parties. These hens had never been free-ranged, but Reinhold had had the run of his other farm. He knew what to do and showed them all they ever needed to know about scratching out worms, pecking seed heads from grasses and snapping bugs out of the air. He would find a pocket of tasty bugs and dance and cluck until the hens came running. Then he would back up and let them feast.

He watched the perimeter and warned them when they should take cover. He helped them find the best places to sunbathe and dustbathe. They were a really nice group to see wandering around the yards.

Over time, we saw that he had developed an intentional relationship with Goldie, a robust golden hen that had taken Rocket’s place as lead hen. They could be seen foraging together, sunning together and even roosting next to each other at night. It was quite heartwarming.

In October of that year, we purchased 120 more laying hens and 8 roosters. When we introduced our small flock to this large group, Goldie got lost in the mix. We were never able to identify her again. Lady and Henny Penny were a little more unique looking, being Araucanas, so we can still pick them out to this day. Reinhold, however, had a little bit different experience.

While the hens just sort of assimilated into the group, the roosters had to re-establish pecking order. The eight that we got had already figured this out, as they had grown up together. Throwing elderly Reinhold into the bunch really cramped their heirarchy.

We feared for his life, with him being older and not as virile as the younger roosters. We feared this ... until we saw him in action.

Within two days, he had established himself has The Rooster of that chicken house, and all other roosters ran from him! We couldn’t believe it and actually felt a sense of pride seeing him chase off the competition with a ruffling of his golden feathers. He was OUR rooster, distinguishing himself from the crowd once again.

Over the long winter he had to daily establish his supremecy, and it began to wear on him. By the time we moved the chicken trailer to the fields this April, he had been beaten to the lowest ranking rooster and in fact had quit roosting with the group at all. He became an old loner, wandering around the outskirts of the flock and running from the roosters the way they once ran from him.

When we took them the quarter mile down to the cow pastures, Reinhold wandered back home. We returned him to the group twice before realizing that he was really unhappy with the flock. His big proud tail had been pecked away and sometimes he came back with blood on his feathers. We decided to let him stay here, to be our homestead rooster.

As May gave into June, we became accustomed to being awakened at 4 am to his crowing. Well, I did. Andy did not. Some mornings he started at 3:30 and Andy would stumble out of bed, yell a few choice words at Reinhold and slam the windows shut. After a moment or two of blessed silence, we’d hear an even more pointed, though very muffled “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” I’d smile to myself as Andy would stuff pillows over his head.

One evening in late July, we were relaxing on our patio and Reinhold came right up to us and searched around for food. We were amused at our “pet” chicken and happily threw him some of our grilled entrée. From then on, he was unashamed to come around all sorts of folks who came and went from our store. He would hang out in front of the house and crow all day. He snuck strawberries from our ever-bearing patch. He took beak-shaped snips out of our ripening tomatoes. He bedded down like an old man would at about 7 pm in the small cavity under our front porch.

Late in the summer, he began hanging out down the field by the rest of the flock. He’d walk the quarter mile in the early misty morning, crowing as he went. He’d stop at the pastured chick house and banter with the “young-uns” for a spell before making his way to the big chickens. Then we’d see him again, meandering his way back to the farmstead just before noon. Only this time, he wouldn’t be alone! He’d have a pretty young hen accompanying him all the way back to our front yard. They’d spend the day scratching and pecking, dirt bathing and sunning, hunting for bugs or exploring the garden. Then, as the shadows began to grow long, Reinhold and Miss Hen would make the long trek back to the mobile coop. Shortly before dusk, Reinhold would return to our patio, alone, and retire to his porch home for the night.

He was a true old gentleman. In the morning, he’d repeat the process all over again. In these ways, and many more, Reinhold became a beloved animal on our farm. True, we couldn’t hold him and cuddle him. He wasn’t producing anything of monetary worth. He could even be annoying at times! But he was a mainstay and a celebrity of sorts to the friends and family who got to see him trotting across the lawn in that peculiar fashion of his.

So the morning we saw that fox and then found his carnage ... I had to think to myself, did we hear Reinhold this morning? I had become so accustomed to hearing him that I almost didn’t hear him anymore.

We will never forget our first rooster. It’s funny to try to quantify to someone who’s never been close with poultry. Ha, indeed! Until we owned chickens, I wouldn’t have believed that was even possible. But it is. Those funny little birds have a way of scratching a small place into your heart.

Thank you Reinhold, for all the laughs and the joy. You were a wonderful old gent.