Chicken Rearing 101: How Not to Raise Chickens
Chick: A hatchling
Capon: A castrated male used for meat. (How much could that
yield?)
Pullet: A female chicken under one year old.
Hen: A female chicken over one year of age
Rooster: A male chicken over one year of age.
Raising Chickens for the first time can be intimidating. When I
first called the Feed Shop, I was trying to sound like a pro. I
asked, "Do you sell pullets?" "Yes", the man replied. "Are they
all females?" It's been an uphill battle ever since.
Pullet parenthood is an much of an adventure as child rearing,
only with more feces per pound of body weight. However, I've
been reading quite a bit on poultry matters. (Yes, my coolness
just turned over in its grave.) So if I am correct and I am
quite certain I am not, here is how chicken rearin' goes.
Go to your local feed store and purchase $10.00 worth of chicks
and $50 worth of food and supplies. Don't forget the water
dispensers. Buying the metal ones, never plastic is always
advised. I have yet to see a metal one.
Next, place the chicks somewhere sheltered, like a bedroom
closet. Toss in some highly flammable straw or wood shavings and
promptly dangle a glowing heat lamp just above them. Note to
self: Update homeowner's policy.
For the next several weeks feed them 3 lbs of food per day and
remove 4 lbs of sh*t per day from the closet. Despite all logic
the birds get bigger. As the adult feathers grow in be sure to
clip one of their wings. That is one per bird, not just one wing
total. If clipping is done late chicks will nest in your toilet.
This is a bad thing.
Clipping can be accomplished by tossing your scissors and your
body into the heaping mound of chicks, poop and straw. Grab a
wiggling screeching bird from the bile pile. Restrain it with
one hand. Stretch the wing out with your second hand. Clip off
50% of the wings outer ten feathers with your third hand.
As the birds grow adjust the heat light temperature down by one
degree per day. No, this is not actually possible. That's not my
point. You start at 100 degrees for hatchlings then continue
down by one degree per day until your bedroom is a minimum of 3
degrees cooler than the spring blizzard outside your window.
Once you have frozen your ear to your semi-cannibalistic down
pillow and the chicks have grown their adult feathers, they can
be moved outside to the coop. I estimate the initial closet
rearing stage to have taken five years.
Before the move, experience the Joy of Wing Clipping one more
time. Feather clipping never works the first time. No one knows
why. Still, after all the hassle you probably don't want them to
fly the coop in under sixty seconds. Of course, if you're like
me, by this time you may be inclined to pack them each a lunch
and leave a stack of Greyhound tickets by the open coop gate.
Regarding habitat construction: Hen houses and chicken coops are
a competitive art form. There are a myriad of web sites showing
off architectural designs from Chicken Chateaus to Bird
Bordellos. The meticulous craftsmanship makes my own home look
like - well - like a chicken coop.
Always fashionable, I went with a shabby chic motif for my coop.
The nesting boxes are an eclectic mix of stolen milk crates
affixed to the wall by anything in arms reach. As for the coop
itself, there is a gift for tight chicken wire, which eludes me.
Quite frankly, my first attempt at a coop looks like Dr. Seuss
dropped a hit of acid, blasted some Jefferson Starship and
rolled around on the wire with every Who in Whoville. I think
I'll keep it.
Inferior design aside, I ultimately learned a thing or two. The
nesting boxes are supposed to be up off the ground. That is
correct. For those of you keeping score you just spent two weeks
cutting back the birds flight feathers only to hang their houses
in the sky. It's just sick.
Higher than the nest boxes, you are to build a roost. This is
where the birds crap at night so they do not crap on your
breakfast eggs. Of course the roost is usually OVER the nesting
boxes, so whatever you do, don't use those perforated plastic
milk crates.
For young birds maintain a heat light in the hen house. Then on
cooler nights an animal with a brain the size of an bulimic toe
nail clipping will make the conscious decision to forgo your
nest boxes, bypass the instinctual roost and leap into a tanning
bed.
And finally there is the feed regime. I asked several experts
and read up on feeding as well. Make sure to give your chickens,
starter formula, mash, growth formula, start & grow, brood
formula, grit, no grit, scraps, no scraps, goat placenta,
nothing suggested on the internet, tetramyaicn, no antibiotics,
medicated starter, non-medicated starter and never ever switch
in-between.
I may not be Queen of the Coop yet, but I'm working on it.
Though I am still a zoologist and I still know Birds 101. Here
are two myths I can help with. First, you do not need a rooster
to get eggs. Most folk, especially those who have never owned
chickens, will advise you on chickens. Each will insist you need
a rooster for a while to do his manly duties, then you can slip
him in the pot. As appealing as this concept is, your pot is a
separate issue.
Roosters are only needed to make fertile eggs. Hens are all that
is needed to make breakfast eggs. Fertile eggs are just peachy
if raising chicks was such a joy the first time you want to
repeat the whole freakin' process. In addition there is always
the risk of breaking a fertilized egg open and finding a 50%
formed chick fetus hitting your hot skillet. Yum! Years of
therapy will follow.
To keep it straight in your mind consider this: You are going
about your life. Suddenly massive balls of calcium start
stacking up inside your abdomen. Are you going to hold on to
them just because you have not had sex lately?
The second bird myth is totally unrelated so I thought I would
mention it. Penguins occur in nature from the Equator on
Southward. That is down to the Antarctica, not the Arctic! No,
they do not hang out with Polar Bears who live in the Arctic.
No, you did not see them when you worked in Alaska, in the
Arctic. Those were puffins. No, I am not sorry you look stupid
to all those folks you told penguin tales to.
Yes, some penguin species even reside on the Galapagos Islands
at the equator (Cold weather would kill them), not floating
around on icebergs - and not in the Arctic! Yes, I realize my
eggs are not all in one basket. Delusional, close-minded people
who insist you need a rooster to fertilize your penguin eggs so
polar bears won't loose their food supply drove me crazy!