Problem: Chickens are picking the feathers off other hens

Causes:

• Crowding
  
• Inadequate feeder and water space
  
• Feeding pellets
  
• Malnutrition and underfeeding
  

Solutions:

• Beak trimming
  
• Increase space
  
• Increase feeder and water space
  
• Feed crumbles
  
• Lower light levels
  
• Free range
  
• Salt cure
  
  • In the morning add 1 Tbs. of salt per gallon of water, change to fresh water in the afternoon. Repeat 3 days later.
    
• Add palatable, high fiber feeds
  
  • Whole or rolled oats
    
  • Alfalfa hay
    
  • Alfalfa meal
    
  • Green range
    
• Use peepers
  
  • Sold at Kuhl
    
• Lather pine tar on wounded areas or bare skin
  

The cause could also be molting; all layers should molt after 12-14 months of laying but poorer layers molt earlier. Molting is marked by losing feathers first on the head, then the neck, breast, body, wings, and tail. Poorer layers will molt for 4-6 months while good layers molt for 2-3 months.

Backyard Flock Basics, Special Edition

Vol. 1, Ed. 1

Introduction

Since there has been a rising amount of backyard flocks in Glynn County, I felt the need to publish a bulletin to give advice and general knowledge about the wonderful world of poultry keeping. When I worked at Tait’s Feed & Seed Inc. on Highway 341, I was greatly surprised at the amount of ignorance of the basics of how to start poultry. This bulletin should address this problem; the reader should be able to begin raising poultry with confidence after reading this bulletin. If further advice and help is needed, my contact information is posted below.

Back to Basics

            First, I would recommend the reader reflect on what he or she desires to obtain with a flock of chickens. Since the most common usage of chickens is for egg production, I will deal with the basics of raising hens in prospect of obtaining eggs. Unfortunately, I have no experience with meat chickens or hobby chickens so I cannot help those who wish to invest in those methods of poultry keeping.

            With egg production in mind let us answer another question; how many eggs does your family consume in a week? The answer to this question has a great deal to do with the type of coop you must construct to house your hens and even what breeds of chickens you wish to keep. Consider the chart below as it will help you determine the number of chickens one needs to meet your egg consumption.

This chart comes from Success With Baby Chicks by Robert Plamondon, 2003

Modern hybrid layers are high-strung breeds for intense production of eggs. These are the workhorses of the commercial egg business and include such brown egg layers as Production Reds, Black Sex Links, ISA Browns, Golden Comets, Cherry Eggers, and Brown Sex Links; white egg layers such as White Leghorns and California Whites. Austra Whites are a crossbreed of Black Australorps and White Leghorns that lay tinted eggs. These breeds will lay about 240 eggs a year.

Old-Style commercial breeds include the more common New Hampshire Reds, Rhode Island Reds, Standard Leghorns, California Grays, Barred Rocks, White Rocks, Anconas, White Wyandottes, and Delawares. These breeds were once common in older egg farms but have been outdone by the modern layers. They lay about 180 eggs a year. All other breeds include all the fancy chickens, bantams, and every other chicken breed and these lay considerable less than the other breeds (about 120 eggs a year).

With these numbers in mind, one should be able to determine how many chickens one needs and even what breed they might use. Of course, your choice of breed depends on your taste and judgment. Even some of the modern commercial breeds are very eye-catching like the Red or Black Sex Links. The Red Sex Links are all red with white flecks throughout their body. Black Sex Links are glossy black with red flecks on their breast and tail.

Third, I would suggest building a coop for your flock so that they will have a place to live when you obtain them. We will worry about brooding chicks or purchasing pullets later. The coop should be provide protection from the weather, predators, and should be spacious for your flock’s well being. Space and health are the keys to success in poultry keeping. Choose a place to build your coop that is not in low terrain so that the coop floods or high on a hill to be mercilessly exposed to the elements. As a rule, one could not do poorly with too much space; too little is dreadful for the flock as it increases stress, disease, and as a result, causes poor production. In a closed house with no outdoor access or free range, five square feet per bird is adequate. For coops with free range or outdoor run access, three square feet per bird is adequate. I use a coop that gives the chickens a fresh spot of grass (called a chicken tractor) and it has an upstairs and downstairs to increase space; three square feet is adequate in my pen.

The coop should provide a place for your hens to lay their precious commodity of eggs in a safe place. Provide one nest box per four to five hens and it can often be constructed one foot deep, one foot tall, and one foot wide. This should be placed at a comfortable height below the roosts. Another type of nest box to consider is a community box. A community nest is a box four feet wide and two feet deep, with a doorway that’s not much more than six inches wide and eight inches tall (and maybe with a flap of cloth or plastic across it). This is good for fifty hens.

The coop should also have a place for the hens to roost or sleep. Since chickens once slept in trees, they have a strong inclination to roost on a high pole. Roosts can occupy the most space in a coop but can be placed so that are out of the way or high up so that one can clean underneath them. A sturdy 2×4 turned on edge can be used for the roosts or even a stout stick. Allow two to three chickens per foot of roost and each roost should be about a foot apart.

The coop should have windows for sunlight to benefit the chickens (sunlight kills many poultry germs and gives the chickens vitamin D). If you have a run for the chickens to exit into the sunlight, provide a little door that can be opened or closed to keep predators out at night. Lights can be added to the inside of your coop to add light to increase egg production. The design of your coop is up to you. I have built many different designs of chicken coops from one I can move around to another that was non-moveable but hard to enter for myself. a helpful website to look at is www.backyardchickens.com.  They have many different coop designs to fit your need. Of course, you will need feeders and waterers. These can be bought at Tait’s Feed & Seed or Tractor Supply. On the other hand, you could even build a trough feeder yourself out of PVC. Cut a six-foot piece of PVC down the middle and put two caps on the end. This type of feeder can be hung by a chain from the ceiling.

The coop should have a good floor with good drainage. Concrete is the best medium but it quite expensive. Another option is deep litter where a systematic layering of litter keeps disease low and even can keep the chickens warm in winter. Here is an excerpt from a post on my poultry keeping blog www.newinverness.wordpress.com.

“This idea [deep litter] is not a new one as it was developed in the 1940′s to conserve resources during World War II. This method is useful for the chickens and useful for their caretakers.  This system makes for healthier chickens as the rate of disease in this system is very low. This system also provides heat for the chickens and a way to obtain food. When the litter has been decomposing for many months, the litter actually accumulates hordes of good insects that the chickens eat. First, this system has relatively low maintenance after the height of the litter exceeds six inches. The more litter there is the better. To maintain all you have to do is to stir it up with a rake when it gets caked or stir corn into the litter. This gets the chickens stirring it up and any stuff they miss becomes sprouts that they will relish as green feed. After a few months the litter will become immune to Coccidia so don’t even bother about cleaning it up. You can remove a part of it and it makes the best compost for gardens.”

Now as to obtaining the chickens, I would suggest either buying day old chicks or buying ready-to-lay pullets. Buying older birds is not profitable at all unless you want to butcher them for stewing meat. You can buy from hatcheries but there are no hatcheries close to Georgia. I have bought twice from Murray McMurray Hatchery in Iowa but the cost has been extreme and the birds have not done well in shipping. For chicks, I would suggest buying from a man in Brantley county. He sells many production and fancy breed chicks contact me for his contact information. As to buying pullets, I do not have experience but I would suggest purchasing birds that look healthy, are vivacious, and possess well-developed red (they might not be bog but the best birds will have redder wattles and comb than the others) wattles and comb. These birds are growing faster than other birds and would be likely candidates for good layers. Consult the free Farmer’s & Consumers Market Bulletin for poultry ads for chicks and pullets. You can view the bulletin online at www.agr.georgia.gov.

If you have purchased pullets, you can put them in your henhouse with chick starter feed and they should be ready to go. Chicks require greater care since they are very young and delicate, requiring heat, and safety from weather and predators. It is a very intensive process but I would request reading this book. Since using it, my brooding system has become easier and more efficient with less dying in the brooding period. the book is called Success With Baby Chicks by Robert Plamondon. This book is available on Amazon or on www.nortoncreekpress.com. It gives great detail to the brooding process and is quite helpful in tough areas of brooding.

When your chicks are about 6 weeks old, they can venture into your henhouse and become its permanent residents. Feed them chick starter until they begin to lay and then switch to laying feed, available at Tait’s and Tractor Supply in either crumbled form or pellets. I prefer pellets since it has less likelihood of being wasted. Collect the eggs at least twice a day; I like to collect mine about three times a day to prevent egg eating. Make sure the feeders and waterers are full and raised at the height of the chickens’ backs. This will prevent messy water and less feed spillage.

Problems

            Not everything in poultry keeping is a bed of roses. During the course of my history of keeping poultry, not one flock has been trouble free. Let us discuss the issues of disease, predators, flock problems, and roosters.

Diseases are often very destructive to flocks, often wiping out whole flocks in a short amount of time. There are a few diseases and health issues that I will deal with in this bulletin. Coccidiosis is probably the worst poultry disease out there. Although it can occur at any time in a hen’s life, it is most likely to occur in the first few weeks of its life. the chick starter that is given to the chicks at this time is medicated and will help prevent the disease from occurring but more measures should be taken. The disease is caused by parasites in the bird’s digestive system. It damages their digestive systems killing some and severely injuring the others. It can be prevented by limiting the amount of feces that the chicks might ingest. It also involves making sure the litter is dry and warm. Wire floors also help prevent it. Thankfully, I have never had an outbreak of the disease.

Bumblefoot is something I have had in both chickens and quail and is debilitating and deadly. It is caused by a lack of riboflavin or vitamin B in the diet and causes the chicks to lose the use of their feet and legs preventing them from eating, drinking, and regulating their temperature. it can be prevented by sprinkling Brewer’s yeast on the feed. Brewer’s yeast works wonders with chickens; I have even set a rooster’s leg and fed him a supplemented diet of feed and brewer’s yeast and his leg mended very well. The chickens like it to and it increases their consumption and their growth.

Fowl pox is another deadly disease I have encountered in our area due to the enormous amount of mosquitoes. Its symptom is large black scabs on the face and wattles and even white foam around the eyes and throat. Keeping chickens away from standing water is the key to prevent this as well as destroying the sick birds to prevent the disease from spreading.

Glynn county is replete with predators that enjoy chicken dinners from raccoons, dogs, hawks, owls, foxes, opossums, and snakes. I have lost an entire flock to a large raccoon and many other birds to a hawk. The only remedy is to make sure the pen is very secure and all the doors and windows locked and the birds have sufficient cover to escape from aerial predators. Rodents can be quite obnoxious and can be prevented with traps and making sure there are no holes for them to enter and securing all feed storage bins.

Not all predators or enemies of the flock come from outside; some chicken can turn to cannibalism. You can treat this with increasing space, increasing leafy green feed, putting blinders on the chickens, squirting the cannibals with a small squirt gun, or eradicating them if nothing else works. Two other issues to address are egg eating and broodiness. Egg eating is almost unstoppable when it begins but can be prevented by collecting eggs often, and feeding them with feeds containing high protein. Broodiness is a natural instinct in chickens to hatch their own eggs. A broody hen is easy to recognize; she is very feisty in the nest (puffing her feathers up and biting) and stays in there for a time longer than usual. To remedy this, take the hen out of her nest with gloves (or use my favorite trick of covering her head with a baseball cap) and put her in a broody coop or cage for three days with food and water. This should break her up. To prevent this from occurring, don’t let eggs accumulate in the nest, remove her often, or cover the nest.

Roosters can be quite problematic in a flock, not only to neighbors but the hens as well. roosters are aggravating to the hens and chase them around. Unless you want a rooster for fertilizing eggs, keeping watch over the flock, or for pleasure of the eye; I wouldn’t get one. If you do, one rooster per 8-12 hens is good. They can be quite protective of their flocks and the only remedy for a mean rooster is the frying pan.

In Conclusion

            Keeping poultry is a great joy and very profitable to the eye and palate. I hope you enjoy raising backyard flocks as much as I have. For those who are interested, I will publish another bulletin with information regarding free-range egg production. That has been my greatest interest and is the best way to get the healthiest eggs. Nothing is greater than the joy of collecting fresh, warm eggs from your coop and is even greater when you eat them! If this bulletin is not informative enough, please let me know. It is my desire to help everyone with his or her poultry needs and questions. I would suggest purchasing Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens  by Gail Damerow. This book has been a great help to me and it greatly detailed in keeping chickens. If you have any questions, you can contact me at:

Address: 136 Mackay Drive, Brunswick, GA 31525

Phone: 912-265-0563

Email: wilkersonben89@yahoo.com

Blog: www.newinverness.wordpress.com

Ben D. B. Wilkerson

Poultry Specialist and Extension Agent (to be)

This winter (February 2009), my neighbor purchased 33 chicks to split up between myself, my neighbor, and a friend. We all wanted a lot of eggs so we ordered 15 Black Sex Links, 15 red Sex Links, a Silver Laced Wyandotte, and a Polish hen from Murray McMurray Hatchery. They were supposed to arrive on February 16, which happens to be President’s day. Of course the U.S. Postal Service does not do any mail on President’s Day and the order of chicks was delayed. My mother went to pick up the chicks at our local post office and the lady in the office met my mother with tears. When I returned from college that day, all but four had died! By the next morning all were dead. To say the least, I was shocked at this gross loss. The hatchery was very helpful and they sent them the next week. Providentially, i got out early from a Biology exam and my neighbor met me in the parking lot to tell me that the post office had just called and the chicks had come! We drove their and picked the chicks up. By the time I got home and looked in the box, 6 were dead and 2 others didn’t look so good. However, the rest looked fine and I began the brooding process. By the second day there were 12 dead, this was better than the first batch but still really bad, but the rest have done really well. as i write, the chicks are 2 and a half weeks old and look like quail! When they get that age they are really easy to care for. I will have to buy a dozen more chicks to split between myself and my neighbor from the local feed store. Providentially, they have some chicks this year. I will write later when the chicks are producing eggs.

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A key to success in any pastured poultry operation is to have a pen that is easy to move, lightweight, easy to build, and it has space for hens to lay their eggs and forage for bugs and greens. Recently I was confronted with a project to construct a movable chicken coop for our family flock of chickens. I had researched the subject many times before and I found a suitable design. The answer is a chicken ark. This is an A framed pen popular in Great Britain that has a tent shaped compartment in the top for the hens to sleep and lay their eggs, a ramp to provide access to the bottom where the hens forage on grass and insects. I found a pdf design on the internet: http://www.organicgardening.com/pdf/coop_plans.pdf.

It was a little difficult to construct the angled frame but after that was over is was very easy to build the rest. I used a lot of new lumber but it can be used with old stuff if you have two sheets of 8×4 plywood available. It’s a pen six feet long, five feet wide at the base, and four and a half feet tall. These are the materials I used.

1. Two sheets of 8×4 foot plywood 3/8 inch thick
2. Four 8 foot  2x4s which I split to make the legs and three short pieces to reinforce the A frames and to screw the plywood to
3. Four small pieces of old plywood measured and cut  to make plates which joined the A frames (1 plate for the 2 outer frames and 2 plates for the middle frame
4. screws- I used 1.25  inch screws and 3 inch screw to connect everything
5. 1 strap hinge for the ramp
6. a ramp made from old plywood (the pdf file calls for a 42 inch ramp but we guessed the length)
7. scrap plywood to make doors
8. 8 feet of thin cable
9. One 3×25 roll of 1 inch chicken wire

The A frames are made from ripped 2x4s each cut with a 30 degree cut at one end and a 45 degree cut at the other. These were joined by a plate (2 for the middle A frame). Next I cut a ripped 2×4 into three 3 foot angled lengths which were used to screw the floor to. A six foot piece of plywood was screwed to the A frames to make one wall and then the floor piece was split and screwed into place. I left large gaps or slits on the sides of the floor to make cleaning easier. After the floor was in place and a hole 8 inches by 12 inches was cut; I attached the other wall. Two pieces of plywood were cut to to close the ends which was different than in the original plan. The ramp was attached with a strap hinge. Two doors were cut into one side to provide access to the nesting area ( one piece of 2×4 separates this area) . One door is 8×8 and the other is 8×20.  I stapled chicken wire all the way around the bottom and completed the pen by attaching the cable to the ramp. I did this by drilling a hole into the ramp and running it through two fence staples on the bottom of the pen instead of inside the top compartment. I lift it up at night when the hens roost in the top at night. I spread wood shavings in the top. This pen is moved daily with the assistance of two people. I plan to put 10 chickens in this pen. It is the best  pastured poultry pen I have seen for the backyard producer and, which a little enlargement and the use of handles or wheels , it might be used for a larger operation.

This idea is not a new one as it was developed in the 1940′s to conserve resources during World War II. This is a method that is useful for the chickens and useful for their caretakers.  This system makes for healthier chickens as the rate of disease in this system is very low. This system also provides heat for the chickens and a way to obtain food. When the litter has been decomposing for many months, the litter actually accumulates hordes of good insects that the chickens eat. First of all, this system has relatively low maintenance after the height of the litter exceeds six inches. The more litter there is the better. To maintain all you have to do is to stir it up with a rake when it gets caked or stir corn into the litter. This gets the chickens stirring it up and any stuff they miss becomes sprouts that they will relish as green feed. After a few months the litter will become immune to Coccidia so don’t even bother about cleaning it up. You can remove a part of it and it makes the best compost for gardens.

The most common hybrid crosses of chickens for increased egg production are the Red Sex Links, a cross of a Delaware hen and a Rhode Island Red rooster; and a Black Sex Link, a cross between Barred Rock hen and a Rhode Island Red rooster. As the genetic material is not transferred by the hen, the cross uses a male from a breed with excellent egg production. Another benefit of this cross is that it is easy to decipher the sex of the chicks. Since the cockerels inherit the parent hen’s chromosomes, they would inherit the silver patterning like white plumage with dark hackles, wings, and tail feathers. For example if you bred a R.I.R. rooster and a Barred Rock hen, then the female offspring would be red and the male offspring would have a white patch on the back of the head. This is an excellent choice of breed for backyard flocks and there are many hatcheries that carry these sex linked breeds. Here are the various breeds of sex links:

Red Sex Link or Red Star

Black Sex Link or Black Star

Production Reds

Cinnamon Queen

Golden Comet

Delaware x New Hampshire

Hatcheries that carry Sex-Linked breeds

Murray McMurray hatchery: this hatchery carries Black and Red Sex Links (Black and Red Star)

Cackle Hatchery: this hatchery carries several different kinds of sex links

Randall Burkey Company: this hatchery carries several different kinds of sex link