Do you have chickens as pets? Want them to live a nice long healthy life? Here’s some tips to keep your chickens happy and feeling well:
- Feed a well rounded diet not just bagged scratch or pellets. Yes it is ‘balanced’ but it is still not fresh food so it is still missing important nutrients! Feed lots of greens, fruits/veggie scraps etc. and in the summer LOTS of pasture time.
- Don’t feed junk food…no animal no matter how much of a strong stomach they have should be given processed, GMO laden bad foods. We shouldn’t eat them and either should they.
- Chickens NEED to scratch and peck…if they don’t have it they get into trouble but picking up bad behaviors and attacking one another or self-mutilating. Even in the winter make sure chickens can go outside (I always shovel and area for them and put down hay or straw for them to scratch and peck through to keep them busy). Busy chickens are happy and get along.
- Make sure they have lots of space…the termed cooped up refers to chickens and yes they can handle it but they hate it. Like anything else space is very important. More than most websites on chicken keeping will tell you. I have a 1/4 or more of an acre for dozen or so hens so they never run out of grassy areas and room to roam. They have lots of trees, a pond, varied terrain and plants to eat.
- Let your hens have a break from laying. I know most of us get chickens for eggs but in the winter they are supposed to slow down. Don’t put up lights to stimulate egg laying you will shorten your hens lives.
- Allow for brooding! Yes if your hen wants to sit on eggs let her (just make sure take care of her at this time broody hens need to be fed and watered separately)…you can take the eggs away daily still but let her sit on the nest. She will stop laying eggs at some point and have a ‘rest’ from being mated (if you have roosters) or from laying. The break from laying eggs is important – this is why in the wild when hens have young they get a break for at least 3-4 months to raise their young! This is natural and a good thing for them so the hens don’t get spent too fast! If you only have chickens for eggs this won’t apply to you but if you care for their welfare and they are pets…encourage egg laying breaks.
- Chickens are omnivores which means they eat both vegetable matter and animal protein! Healthy chickens need to eat bugs, worms and the odd small animal (mice, snakes, frogs) to stay healthy. If you don’t have any to offer them…you can buy bugs in a reptile store…your chickens will love you for it.
- Do not vaccinate! Firstly chicken vaccines DO NOT work! Secondly it will shorten your chickens life-span.
- Use Homeopathy for chicken illnesses as they come up. Homeopathy works extremely well for healing up typical chicken maladies quickly and safely!
- Love your chickens…they can be quite affectionate animals when raised to be so…they love attention and affection…don’t forget to give them a hug today!