16 Mistakes Most People Make with Chickens

In this video, I'm pointing out 15 all-too-common mistakes new chicken tenders make while addressing a couple of mistakes myself. I'll give you tips on how to easily fix it. First, flow. People tend to put chickens way too far away from the house. Now, the only reason I have them 120 feet from the house right now is because that's where our high tunnel is. It's winter, it keeps them warm, so it's worth it. But still, it's not too terribly far away from the house. And this is where our chickens are most of the year, literally, I think, 15 feet from our front door. If the beautiful one would let me, I would put the chickens right here, put a hole, a window in the wall, nest boxes right here, reach out and grab the nest boxes, put the chickens as close to the house as socially acceptable. Another thing about— don't Think barn. Why are you gonna have a barn? Your house is right here, Zone 0. That's where you are most the time, the permaculture Zone 0. Barn? You're gonna walk across the street or drive across the street to the barn or wherever it is on your farm and then go out and about? No. Think of your house as the barn, and not everything has to be in the same place, like what I'm thinking today to streamline the flow of my chickens. Here's the problem. In the morning, I come out of the house with the soaked bucket of feed. The water is in there. I walk to the chickens, I feed the chickens, and then I have to come this way. I'm doing one thing right here because the barn is my house. For the longest time, it was in the garage. I get my grains and then I have to walk inside. Now at least it's a loop. That's better than back and forth. I go inside, I soak the grain, and then tomorrow do it again. It may not seem like much, but if it's snowy and windy and you're gonna do that 100 times, you know, if they're there 100 days of the winter in many places, much more. Let's streamline some things. Once I'm done feeding, instead of going back to where all the feed is, could I just come straight back towards the water source? And when it's warm, I can just soak it right there in the hydrant. And when it's cold, I can go right inside. Come on, get in. I get an operator to bring the chicken feet over. Where is the chicken feed? That— the feed area. Where's it going? It's going right there. Why? Well, that way I can walk straight from the high tunnel there instead of going all the way around. I'll drive yourself up. Flow. Can you say flow? Flow. Can you say flow? In this video, I'm going to share common mistakes in the coop, in the management, with the feed, and what else? We're covering it all, y'all. Let's see if I can cover the feed section while the boys are getting it. Okay, another common mistake: people get medicated feed. You don't need medicated feed. That stuff at Tractor Supply it's no use on the regenerative homestead. First, you don't need it if you've got your chickens on deep bedding or moving regularly. You're throwing them scraps, they got fresh air, they got the sunlight. You don't need medicated feed. And two, do you really want to be eating that in your food? Because what you— what you eat eats is what you eat, and it's what you are. Hey, I thought you were getting me the skid steer. Yeah, you saw us coming with it. Oh, okay, good. Also, don't be fooled by the non-GMO label. I was fooled early on, and one of you guys actually emailed me and said, you know, the feed you're getting— I won't name the brand— they said it may be non-GMO, but there's a lot of glyphosates in it. And I've since learned they can spray a whole lot of other things. It's just non-GMO. I mean, that's good, but the sprays that are still allowed are terrible. Here's the other thing. Now, this is alfalfa, but let's pretend that's Feed. And let's pretend— do I have any? Oh yeah, this is ground up grain. I buy this in bulk by the 1,000 or 2,000 pounds. It's okay. Here's the problem with it. What a lot of people do is they try to get this in bulk, but if you can't feed this within 120 days— within 3— 120 days or 3 months, I guess it's 90 days. Anyway, as soon as you grind a grain, it starts losing its nutrients. So the sooner you can feed that, the better. A good rule of thumb is to use all your loose— use your feed up within 3 months. Another solution, a solution to that, is what I've been doing with the layer chickens. And this is a feed that does not lose its nutrients whatsoever at all. Let me show you.

Wait, what type of feed is this?

Do you know?

Is it mixed already?

Do you even know? It is mixed. Who knew they made it mix?

What, not putting it in the blue thing?

I don't think so.

We should.

We don't need to, it's pre-mixed.

Yeah, but it's so easier to get out of.

He's got to get this out.

You got to get it with these.

We've got to get the blue thing out.

There's a bottom that you can cut open, right?

He's got to get the blue thing out and then he's got to lift this back up by its straps and then we gotta untie it. I mean, it might be kind of fun. Okay, I cannot wait to show you guys what is inside of this. What's cool about this, I can buy it by 2,000 pounds And this would be good for a year, 7 years, and still maintain its nutrients. I'll give you a hint, coffee works the same way. Oh shoot, we're gonna do a really cool setup here. Bear with us and we'll get back to the, uh, the mistakes. Bring the feed back. I don't know if I can recommend that blue bin, although it's awesome. It's a blue plastic crate bin. We found it in a dumpster. They are handy because they're plastic and they're right there. Gideon is right, it is easier to get feed out of them. Because once you start getting low down, the bag starts folding in on itself. Don't put it in it. Well, there's a cut in it. The rats! No stinking rats. That's fun. You untie the bottom, it just pours out. Uh-oh, I don't know if this can hold 2,000 pounds. Oh yeah, it can, it can, it can. It's got it. It can't, Papa. It can't. This is whole grain feed. It's not ground at all. I didn't know it. And thank you, New Country. I did not know it. I've been buying these grains all separate, having my own mix, mixing it together. It's been a real pain. And then I went to visit them and they said, you know, we have a pre-mix whole grains. Of course you do. Thank you. All right, we're gonna put that there. So I've been trusting New Country Organics for 20 years. I buy this feed myself. I've tried other feeds, other organic feeds, they just— the animals don't like it as much. What's the plan? He's gonna slowly drag it over. Okay. Yeah. Oh boy, go down, go down! Wow, that filled up really fast. So thank you, New Country Organic. I couldn't do what I do without you. I encourage everyone to check them out. I'm going to leave the link down in the description. And thank you, New Country, for sponsoring this video. So you think another barrel will do it? Why not? Really? Well, I did this before. It must have been a 1,000-pound tote. Is it gonna do it? Please tell me. Oh good. The cool thing about this premix from New Country is I know they're gonna get it right. I mean, I was just experimenting, but they've been mixing feed for decades, and it's— I guess it's the same one as their layer feed, it's just not ground up. Let's talk about coop and where people go wrong. This is a big, big big potential for a big, big mistake that could make chickens not even be worth it, especially if you're wanting to save money. There's not that much margin and money to be saved in egg-laying chickens, so don't blow that margin with a ridiculous coop. I see way too many big coops, coops that people want to walk into. Why you be wanting to walk into a coop with the chickens' fecal matter? Don't be going into the coop. They don't need that much space. Minimum space needed for a chicken 2 feet. 1 foot for them, 1 foot for jumping up on the nest box and going in. Another huge mistake in coops is they make a permanent coop. There's so many times you're going to want to move chickens around. Put that coop on wheels, put the chickens on skids, something. You want to at one point have your chickens in the high tunnel for the winter, another point have them up in the yard turning the compost pile. Maybe you want to have them, uh, stirring mulch, spreading mulch around some trees. Maybe you want to have them in the area preparing a garden. Maybe you want to— you see where I'm getting at? Maybe you want to move them around the yard to fertilize. Maybe you want to move them behind the pasture behind the cows. Put that coop on wheels. Even in permanent runs where you have them on deep bedding, move that coop around. They drop half their manure at night and the manure can fall onto the ground. That leads me to the third point: people be putting floors in their coops. Why are you putting floors? Don't put the floors in the coop, because then you have to clean out the coop. That is a huge pain in the butt. You will not last. You will not last, because chicken chores will suck, and it will not be worth it. It won't be worth it. You might as well quit if you're gonna have a floor in our coops. Not only they're mobile, they're, uh, they've got 1-inch wire mesh. So 1 inch, okay? You could do wooden slats or wire mesh, and the manure falls through I'm gonna show you how we clean one. The coops that I've designed over the years— all the builds are available on homesteadbuilds.com, or, uh, that's where you can get our book. The coops have the wire mesh floor, they have wheels, they have big wheels, 26-inch wheels, because you want the wheels big enough so they're easy to move and so that chickens could get underneath them and have shade and predator protection. And we make it easy to move, it's like a rickshaw, so the wheels are balanced midway, and we have an attachment post in case you want to pull it as a hitch. Let me show you what we got to do to— and these guys are in a permanent run right now in the winter. I actually got a sign that says beware of the guard goose. They squawk when I talk. See that? See that? I want to clean out the coop. This is all you do. 1-inch wire mesh. And in this case, the, the floor is also the perch, and that's it. They only need 2 feet of space. And that's the Chickshaw Mini Me, rated at 24 chickens. It doesn't need to be big, it's little, it's 4x4, minimal, inexpensive, ready to go. The Chickshaw 5.0, 5 foot by 5 foot, could easily hold 36, 48 chickens, probably 60 chickens in this thing. Uh, they don't mind being crowded, they like it. What What is it? Oh, it's grit. Heck yes! Uh, so another thing that people don't do— grit. This, this brings us into the management section. Look at that. Okay, thank you. Where'd you get that? Over by the creek. Okay, we just get creek sand from our creek. You can buy grit, but a lot of times people forget, you know, they remember that the chickens need food, water of course, but you forgot about grit. I call it rooster teeth because chickens don't have teeth. They, they get this rock in in here, and they have a muscle called the gizzard in their food. And the rocks go down into that gizzard, and the gizzard moves it around with that— moves those rocks around, breaking it down. See if I can knock out the rest of these while we wait on these boys for this pan for the grit. A big mistake people make is, well, they're not ready. But let's add one, Austin. Let's add a bonus one. You wait too long. You overanalyze. Analysis paralysis. Order the chicks. Now McMurray Hatchery, order the chicks for a, uh, to come after your last possible frost date, and then you'll be ready. Hopefully, if you're responsible and you don't do what a lot of people are and don't ready, but you don't get ready, but order them and that should force you to get ready. Now that is another common mistake, and it's almost been like this cool thing to do on Instagram is order these chicks and they show up and I don't know what I'm doing, I wasn't ready, I don't have feed, I don't have this and that. I've been caught with my pants down. The chicks have arrived a day early, but I did have the brooder. I think I wasn't— I think I had planned to get the heat lamps that day, so I did have to rush and get them. But it's just safe to say, when you order those chicks, go ahead and get the brooder ready. Don't be cool. It's not funny. It's not humorous. It's not good content. Be ready. Okay, you got the— well, wow, I did one thing while we talked. Okay, yeah, second Sure. All right, let's see what we can get done. We'll put the bucket of grit near so we don't have to go tracking it down. Deep bedding, you'll see I have it in there. We ought to water that down. Huge, huge mistake. Probably the biggest mistake and probably the most important is people keep their chickens in one spot without a diaper. Chickens are not potty trained, y'all, and y'all be putting them in one spot all the time and they be pooping And then they'd be walking around in it. Come on, not only is that disgusting, it's inhumane. And then there is a much easier, better way that's not only sanitary but gives you compost. Start with 4 inches or so of wood chips. There you go. That creek sand has got minerals in it. Turner's gonna wet this down. Get you some wood chips, get yourself on wood chip drop, or just buy some wood chips. If you have a small operation, you could use wood shavings. You could just buy some pine shavings at Tractor Supply. Listen, because then you could do the wood chips, then the water, then the chickens stir it, and then they add their manure, which is the nitrogen. In the end, you're gonna get compost. And not only do a lot of people— I dare say most people have the chickens in one spot on no deep bedding. They don't move them. So if they're going to be in one spot, put them on deep bedding. And if they're not, move them, move them regularly. If they're out in the pasture before they start tearing it up, or yard, usually about a week or so it would be time to move them. This keeps them from tearing up a spot. This keeps them from being in their own manure. This gives the ground time to sanitize with the sun. Sun is the great sanitizer, helps eliminate parasites and things like that, just keep people generally healthy. Remember I said I said you don't need medicated feed. This is why people be getting too many chickens. Why are you gonna be a crazy chicken lady like that? Too many. Sometimes the most— oh, I love them, I love them. Some— sometimes the most loving thing you can do is, because they're getting old, they're getting decrepit, put those chickens out of their misery. Eat those chickens. If you can't bear to do it, give them away and let some crazy chicken lady come and pick them up. But don't let them hold you back, because after 2 years, their, their egg production is dropping in half. Those geriatric hens are taking advantage of you and not giving more than they take. I mean, they're taking more than they're giving. Underestimate the predators. Don't have any more than 1-inch opening in your coops or your fences. You can use Premier One poultry net to help keep them— that gets electrified and that will help keep them safe. Even bears have been deterred by that. It's psychological, guys. It's— a big animal could figure it out and charge through, but they just don't. They just kind of come up on it slow and they smell it and sense it. They get shocked and they don't do it again. Good predator protection right here. Are you guys good for predators? Are you good for predators? Guard goose. They eat what the chickens eat. They eat a lot of grass. You don't have to buy a special food for them. They do not need a pond. And if you're a big-scale homestead— I would say only if you're a big-scale homestead— a guard dog. Otherwise they're not worth it because guard dog a pound, 2 pounds of meat a day, and that could be quite expensive. Is it actually worth it? Another thing, we made this mistake before, we feed the chicken too much. Remember putting this fat hen out of her misery? Okay, so this is crazy. I've never seen this. This is so much fat. I was rationing our feed. That's what you want to do instead, uh, feed that chickens 1/3 pound of feed a day. But you can feed the chickens too much to where their egg prediction— egg production actually gets hurt and hindered. One more thing to teach. It's very exciting when you first get your eggs. That's what it's all about. I mean, it took you 6, 8, 10 months before you started getting your first egg from those little chicks. Let's go, let's go! It wears off, the excitement wears off, and you don't get your eggs often enough. Get the eggs at least every day in the afternoon. And if you want to do all your chores at once, you could get your eggs once a day in the morning if it's not freezing. The reason we're getting our eggs in the afternoon right now is because it freezes. They freeze. If it's, it's a real hard freeze, they'll, uh, break. Your chickens start eating their own eggs, which can happen, you have to check. You're gonna have to get your eggs even more frequently. That's the only thing I've found to help them besides culling the culprit. See you in the next one. Happy day.