After the fun of adding chicks, now is the time!

[Mrs. K]

If you live in the northern hemisphere, now is the time to measure your coop, count your birds and determine who gets to stay. The thing is, you can cheat on the numbers in the summer, long days of daylight, and chicks are little. But as we head into fall, with long dark nights, space inside the coop becomes critical to a healthy, harmonious flock.

Shortly there will be numerous post on how chicks raised together, for the last 5-6 months are suddenly fighting with very ugly behaviors and it is almost alway due to too small of space once birds reach full size.

Do not think:

• they are best friends forever - being raised together has very little influence on chicken behavior
• they 'free range' for a couple of hours a day - they are not like a dog where a walk gets rid of energy
• they only sleep in the coop - mine will roost up by 4:15 in the winter and not come off until 7:30 -that is a long, long time to be over crowded

When you are lookin at your coop, check your ventilation. People want to close up the coop to keep it warm, which is really the worst thing you can do. It traps moisture. Again the number of birds you have increases the moisture they produce. There needs to be empty space around the birds in the coop. This allows moisture to move away from them keeping them drier. Dry chickens are warm chickens.

The subtraction of birds, is something most of us dread, and because of that tend to put off. But it is the responsible part of chicken raising.

Mrs K

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Great reminder.