New to just raising. Any must know tips

[UncleMike2k]

Hello fellow backyard chicken peeps. So me n my brothee got 8 chickens. 3 apiece, mine: welbar, Plymouth rock, golden sexlink and rhode island red. Excited to be on this journey as a vet this really helps my mental.

 

[NatJ]

Basic tips:

*predators are a big deal. They are stronger than most people expect, and can squeeze through spaces that look too small. Even if you think there are no predators in your area, you might be surprised by how many appear once they realize you have chickens.

*Chickens do best if they are kept dry. Disinfecting with wet things is usually counter-productive.

*If you give them a complete chicken food (chick starter for now) plus water, both available all the time, they do not need anything else. You do not need to add anything to the water, or give any treats, or add any supplements.

Exceptions to that would include:
--access to grit (not a problem, and sometimes a very good thing)
--a dish of oyster shell (calcium supplement) for laying hens or pullets getting close to laying age (they need this to make their own eggshells)
--medicine to treat actual known problems (such as amprolium to treat coccidiosis, or de-wormers if the chickens are known to have a worm infestation)
--It can be fun to give treats sometimes, but they are absolutely not necessary for good health, and too much can cause problems. "Too much" depends on the treat and the size of the chickens, but is usually less than most people expect. (Example: a level Tablespoon of scratch per hen per day is about as much as they can have if you are not willing to do nutritional research and adjust the rest of their diet to compensate for what the scratch contains.)

*Tiny chicks grow up to need quite a lot of space. A common recommendation is 4 square feet per chicken in the coop (sheltered place to sleep at night, and spend the day in bad weather) and 10 square feet per chicken in the run (fenced outdoor area to spend time in good weather.) More space is fine, and makes some problems much less likely. Less space will make them more likely to pick on each other (picking can lead to serious injuries and death, not just unhappy chickens), more likely to smell bad (too much poop in a small area), more susceptible to respiratory problems (smells from that poop), and sometimes other problems as well. They also need plenty of ventilation (common estimate: 1 square foot of ventilation space per chicken in the coop, even more in hot weather.)

 

[UncleMike2k]

Thank you i will come back to this. My coop is huge. I have a 8 foot and 4 foot roosting bar

 

[rosemarythyme]

You're going to need a much bigger brooder asap, or is the plan to move them out to the coop very soon? The feeder and waterer take up nearly all the floor space in there, and the heat plate(?) covers up 2/3rds of the space.

Is the heat plate supposed to be suspended like that? Is that what the directions specify? Ordinarily they work via direct contact but I'm not terribly familiar with plates.

 

[UncleMike2k]

You're going to need a much bigger brooder asap, or is the plan to move them out to the coop very soon? The feeder and waterer take up nearly all the floor space in there, and the heat plate(?) covers up 2/3rds of the space.

Is the heat plate supposed to be suspended like that? Is that what the directions specify? Ordinarily they work via direct contact but I'm not terribly familiar with plates.

Yea i moved them to the coop. My coop huge and safe they liking it. Today im letting them be out in the run(supervised of course). N i moved the plate directly on the floor

 

[UncleMike2k]