Chicken Chores So Easy Your 10-Year-Old Can Do It

Today I'm teaching my 10-year-old how to do the chores. By the end of this video, you're going to be doing it by yourself. Training you today, tomorrow you're on your own. Any words of wisdom for him, Beck?

Um, you can do it.

Tell you what to do today. I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna tell you what to do, and then tomorrow you're on your own. So, um, first things, get all the supplies, okay? Including the Henry cart. It'll make it easier for you. All right, you found the Henry cart. Open the gate right there. Roll your cart in close. Don't have any extra steps. Grab a bucket and fill it up with chicken feed. Look at this strong guy. Okay, don't fill it more than you can carry, okay? So maybe what, half a bucket? You know, people gravitate towards chickens because chickens are approachable. Yeah, you don't have to worry about them accidentally killing your kid. Like maybe a cow or a pig. Okay, can you handle that much in a bucket? Yeah. Dang. All right, now it looks like I'm gonna need to show you how to open a bag. So get the side with the brown tag up. The tag? Yeah, this, this tag, not that tag. Okay, that can be confusing. Tell me which side has double on it. That's a single thread.

This side.

That's a single thread.

Oh, this—

that's a double thread. Okay, so for Can't go stand on that side of the bag. Is the double on your right side?

Uh, this side it is.

So come stand over here. Is the double on the right side?

No.

No. So open it from that side. Okay, just unthread it and wind it. Yeah, just unthread it and pull the strand. Yep.

This one?

Yeah, we'll just pull it. Oh, just pull it. You got it. Okay. All right, now you're ready for the next load. Just a second. You've got You got your feed, your harvest, and now you need hay. Get the worst hay you can find, that way they won't eat it, okay, as badly. If you put in good hay, they're gonna go after it, eat their own bedding. The greener stuff is crappy. I wouldn't get any hay off this. It's good, maybe some of this yellow stuff. Why don't you get enough for two posses so we don't have to come back over here? Chicken chores are easy enough, but we do have nearly 100 chickens, two posses. It's a lot. You think you can remember it all, Gideon? We'll see. There you go, that's a good stash. I'm gonna be teaching him 5 words to try to memorize to give himself a checklist at the end. I'll do this with all the animals. Okay, you want to start working on it? Harvest, food, water, shelter, security. Do the closest posse first. This is our compost posse. We have our chickens not only laying our eggs in here but on top of compost, helping to turn it, adding their nitrogen to the pile with their manure. It's important to our farm because we're using this for gardens, we're using this to rebuild our pastures. Very important posse here. All right, did you turn your fence off? Well, I hope so. You touched it. Now wait, it's better if you can bring everything in at once. Come here. Look, I'm gonna let you have autonomy here. Wait, you don't have to bring everything at once if you don't want to. You do it the way you want to do it, but we're going to do harvest Food, water, shelter, and security. Okay, he's taking the food. We're not going to nitpick the workflow here. We're just gonna get it done and let him figure out his own workflow. Good job remembering the lid. Oh, good idea, good idea. Since you're going over there, you might as well take the hay. I'm gonna get half of it. You gotta have the half for the other posse. I'm not even having to tell you anything. So what you're gonna have to do here, you're gonna have to have a basket for your eggs, okay? So put your— put your hay out, okay? Here, you put your hay out on the roof. All right, now you have a basket for your eggs. Our next project is to work on not having dirty eggs. So that means this afternoon you come collect eggs, okay? We don't need to let them stay overnight. And you turn your nest box sideways. See this poop? Dump that out. Add a little hay. Oh, these are clean. Joel says we should have only 10% dirty. I feel like we have more than half dirty. Okay, any poop in there? Wait, did you check? A little bit of poop. You can hold. Let me show you how to do that. You can hold your clean hay and turn it upside down and the dirty stuff will fall out. See how that self-cleans? The fine dust and dirt is falling through, falling through the bottom. Oh yeah, see that poop? They're pooping in it at night. Okay, so we can solve that problem by turning the nest boxes at night. All right, hold right here and then dump it. There you go. Did it fall out? Oh wow, there's some more. Whatever you want to to do. It's your workflow, okay, bud? Just throw the leftover hay out. They'll eat it or compost it. Yeah, why do you think?

The chickens are just jumping on it and getting out.

Okay, proud of you for observing that. Listen, you want to move the shawl one link anyway, okay? Yeah, so get in. You might have to put your eggs over the fence. Now tomorrow I'm going to follow you along. I'm not going to say anything, okay? It's going to be like you're by yourself. We've done harvest, food, eggs. Wait, you've done shelter? You moved the shelter? You did the nest? You did the nest boxes? Water.

And it's not good. Okay.

Oh yeah, they're almost out. He's turning on the water. This could be where our chickens are getting out. That's, that's kind of wide. Yeah, let's put a hose end on that one and you can use it for the— actually, we could just connect it to this and we'll have an auto waterer. You want to do that?

Yeah.

Okay, let's do that.

Let's get— fill it up though. Okay, before we start.

Well, I was kind of hoping we'd test the water filler with it. All right, go ahead.

It won't be down.

Let you be the boss. Okay. I'm gonna go get the connection. You need a female. No, that's a shutoff. We might could do that if we don't have a female. No, that's a male. That's it. Wait, wait, no, that might be a connector. That's not a quick connect. Take it out of the male. Here's a female. Here's a female ready to go. Nope, you got to get it on there right. Something's not right. Hold this wrong way. Righty tighty. Clockwise. There you go. Oh, that doesn't seem right. I might have a broken thread. Yeah, it looks dented.

I can go get that.

There it is. It's a little finicky. There it is. Okay, open, open the valve. That's good, it's not leaking. Open that up. Yep, let's see if it's working. All right, this should be an auto-waterer now. Okay, well, it's not going because this bubble, when it gets full, it turns it off. Oh wait, it might still be going. It might not be working.

Hold this. Yeah, you need to straighten it out.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, it's still going.

Okay, turn it— turn the hose off. Okay, pour it out. Yeah, we gotta tighten up our bubble. The bubble floats up and you tie a string and adjust the bubble's height on how full you want it to go.

There's lots of worms on the rope.

Just pour it all out. Okay, it's wide open right now. As soon as this ball— show you how it does it. That should fill up. Hold the barrel down, Gideon. Hold the barrel down. See, when that floats up, turns it off. These are going to be my new auto waters all over the farm, I'm pretty sure.

Remember when we made this?

Yeah. Roll to that, Austin, and cut it down to a really short, less than a minute of us building this thing. It's dry. I've never used one of these things. Although I've heard people say great things about these. So water comes in down there. Stop that, stop that. Now when it floats that ball all the way to the top, it should stop. I guess that's our test there. Yeah, it should. Yeah, does that— did that stop it? Look. Okay, let's see if it does it. Excited, this is working. That means we only have one more thing. That's the chicken water nipple. The apron-wearing permaculture chicken ninja master. Has never ever used chicken nipples. Waterer chickens in nature are going to want to bend down and drink, but I'm starting to lean towards these down waters. I think that's worked. Action! Get in, I'm going for it. All right, test is to see if those leak and if the chickens all use them. Am I ready to test this thing? I'm ready to field test this thing. Zero leaks. Man, this is exciting! Well, let's see if the nipples work. Yep, yep, yep, yep. All right, chickens, come drink. Once it goes down to a certain level, the float sinks, and that engages the water, and the water just fills up. Oh my gosh, let's get a lid on that, keep dirt out of it. And super low maintenance. Let's see if it turns off. Move your hand. Up. We're gonna have to make it tighter. Let's lower it because it's just gonna overflow right here. This, this, this crack. Try it now. I made the line really short.

Wait, did it?

It did it! Yes, it did it! Yes, it stopped!

And it's a good size.

You won't have to do this water tomorrow. It wouldn't hurt you to check each nipple to make sure the nipples are— come here and check the nipples. We just made chicken chores so much easier. You should Never have to fill that up. Never have to haul any water. Food, water, shelter, shelter, security, security. See, we're doing our checklist. This is not good. I hear somebody laying an egg somewhere else. Let's go get them. Chasing chickens always works better with a camera.

There, Papa, catch it!

This is fun. Kind of reminds me of our very first vlog, chickens escaping. Okay guys, I need you to catch some chickens. Okay, catch those guys that are out. Oh, good catch! And now here we are, chickens still escaping. Some things never change.

Get right there!

I got you, I got you. Good. All right, run her around, then she'll, she'll go around. Here he comes! I don't know why we call them he's, they're all she's. Oh boy, there you go, got it! Gideon suspects they're jumping up and then over. I don't— I personally don't think so because we've moved it, we've moved it away from there before. Let's move this out of your way and you can move it right next to the compost pile. She's already on it. Oh, she, she, she— let's catch her! She's got full wings. I see her, I see her! Whoa, somehow she's escaped wing clippings. Here we go. Oh geez. Well, we did just the run after her until we catch her effect. She doesn't have full wings though, so that's not it.

The other one probably.

You only have to clip one side, get in.

Papa, look at that one though.

Yeah, but if she If you clip just one side, she'll fly in spirals.

That was a workout.

Okay, so put this in your food category. Get in. Grit. Okay, that needs to be food. We'll check it, clean it out of its mulch, and then every once in a while fill it up when it needs it. Let's secure that back here. Let's secure it down low. Although I don't think this is it either because I've— we've had this better. Hey, do your checklist.

Water, feed, Scaredy.

Shelter.

Shelter.

And hey, no, that's part of shelter. Harvest is eggs.

Harvest.

There was one more, we just did it. Security.

Security.

Yeah, so that means I said security. Oh, okay, so that means make sure the fence is back on and everybody's in and there's no breaches. Now refuel for the next posse.

Same thing.

You're on top of it. Same thing. Shouldn't need hay when you have such a full bag and can't lift it. Use a scoop. You want to use a Bucket with a handle? I guess not. And without a crack.

I'll totally do that.

You think you can do this all by yourself tomorrow? All 5 checkpoints? Not one mistake? How many mistakes? Let's say there will be 10 points. 5 points for each posse, okay? Food, water, shelter, security, and harvest. Think you can remember all those? Even if you just remember them in your heart. So I'm gonna grade him. He can— the best he can do is perfect, do all 5 of those in each posse. So he can score 5 points down there, and you can score 5 points to the breakfast posse. A 10 would be tough for a 10-year-old, wouldn't it? I'm thinking he's gonna at least get an 8. What do you guys think? Drop it in the comments. Vote for— I get it. Do it now, don't wait till the end. Don't be that person. Hey, let's try. That would be helpful, wouldn't it? And then you wouldn't have to set down your eggs. You wouldn't have to worry about them getting the eggs. He's got his own ideas. I love it. Be careful of the goose. What are you gonna do about the geese? Let's try feeding them some greens before we go in. An Abundance Plus member told me they had an ornery geese. And they just started feeding it greens. Mow the grass while we pacify the geese. Why don't you add that to the list? Feed the chickens some greens every day. Oh, there they go, there they go. Gideon, Jonah seeded pasture seed here. I see we got alfalfa growing. Chickens will love it. Hey, you know what, before you even enter here, drape your hose over. Drape your water hose over. This is the old way to water. It's easy but also a pain in the butt, especially compared to it.

Look at that, one chicken found it.

Oh good. Hey, always make sure this gate shuts behind you. I'm not gonna help you tomorrow, I'm just filming. I won't say a word. I'm gonna kind of let you do it, see how you do, okay? So I kind of guided you every step down there. Here I'm just gonna kind of let you do, and then we're gonna go over it, okay?

I guess this one's gonna be full.

That's good. That's a possibility. We've got it on this pallet so they have to jump up there and they can't scratch wood chips into it. While he's doing that, this is a very important— this is a— this is our front yard. This is our breakfast posse, we call it. Come get our breakfast eggs out of here.

Do I have to feed them before this full of water?

Yeah, that's only about a quarter away. I would say it has to be a half or more. Okay, this is an important posse because they're here on a permanent run in deep bedding. They've got wood chips down. And right next to the wood chips is our garden. So we throw— look, underneath the wood chips, compost develops, okay? And we feed our garden. And then from our garden, we harvest weeds. Weeding has never been so much fun when you weed and then you get to feed it to a chicken that turns it into a beautiful egg. Well, first of all, you see how happy the chicken is to have it, and then keeps them occupied. Then they turn that, that into an egg and delicious meat. It's amazing. You know, eggs are expensive right now and hard to come by, so this, this is a very important— the chickens are very important to this family. They're making compost for our garden, which feeds us, and they're feeding us directly with their eggs. You have to find the right, right in the middle. What do you say we make an auto waterer in here?

You want to make a good idea?

Yeah. Oh, and let's add an element to it. Let's make it gravity-fed. We'll get it off the farm. We won't even get it out of the well. Okay, so these are vacuum seal waterers. Definitely a great start. Just filled it up with this hose, put the lid— hey, always make sure you put this here in the storage and don't make the mistake. Sometimes you, you put this on to fill it up. Don't leave it on there. Always store it up here or they won't get water. Hey, maybe you pacified them with that. The greens. Here, let's put it out for them. What they don't eat can compost. Hey, put that on your food list, okay? To feed both posse some greens. They're enjoying that so much.

These heads are almost perfectly clean.

You know why these may be cleaner? Because they're not on compost.

That's true.

There might be nothing we can do about those eggs down there. Now, why are these dirty?

I don't know, maybe an egg broke.

Yeah, somebody crushed an egg.

Oh, we patted eggs.

So let's turn these nest boxes sideways too. Okay, this afternoon, get eggs, turn the nest box sideways. This works very early in the morning, first thing you come out and turn the boxes around.

Okay, done. I think—

is that in there secure? Okay, we'll go over your checklist.

Water's secure. Um, feed, shelter, and harvest.

All right, good. There's one more thing to do with your shelter.

Move it.

Move it. Say it. Spread that manure love. Look at that! That's what breaks down this wood chips, that nitrogen on the carbon, and the chicken scratching it, giving the air and the rain that's about to come. I think you did it, buddy. Harvest, food, water, shelter, security. Let's just make sure we shut the door on our way out.

It's the smart one too.

It's that one we just clipped wings for.

Oh my gosh, a collection of clean eggs.

Wow, come see. Get it, Henry. Okay, how are we gonna find her escape? Let's go herd her back in and then you do a stakeout. All right, let's get that chicken in. Get them all 3 back in. Chances are we'll catch somebody. It's not the coop, it's not this corner, it's something else. What? Okay, here. Okay, you got 2 in. Go get that other one. Hey, watch out, that He-Man might—

He's out!

Wait, it happened while I was putting them up right here.

Uh, right here.

I was tying this back right here and you saw him get out?

Yeah, right there.

Oh, okay, look.

Okay, I watched it.

Yeah.

All right, you owe me $10.

All right, here you go, bud. Good job. We think we figured it out. Just catch her, she's trapped. Catch her. Good. Oh look, okay, you can only stake the bottom, okay, because that's metal. The white one conducts electricity. And if you put it on metal, it'll ground out. You understand? Yeah. Okay, that should work. Yeah, that'll work. Walk around and make sure there's not another way. This is probably another way right here.

If I get 10 points, I can get a toy.

Yeah, for perfect score. Yeah. Okay. Are you ready to do chores this afternoon?

Yeah, that chicken has been out all morning.

Oh my gosh.

The gap.

We gotta give him my $10 back. No, we didn't find the hole.

Yeah, I did. I fixed it. It could still get through that.

Okay, once you figure out how to get these chickens in, it's all yours, buddy.

I think I already did. No more chickens are out except that one.

Oh really?

Out on this morning. That's why none of them—

Okay, well then here you go. All right, let's get him back in so they— so he's— so, so he'll be in.

Look at that, mostly clean. All right, this one's not clean at all.

Okay, those are mostly clean. I would say only 10% of them are dirty, huh? Well, somebody crashed— clashed into those.

All right, an egg breaks and then it gets all gooey.

Yeah, let's get the remnants of the broken egg.

Why do you just fluff it up?

Well, I'm getting a— I'm getting a gook out. Now turn them sideways. Okay, and then first light, you got to come turn them around because would you rather clean eggs or would you rather come I'd rather turn nest boxes. I've cleaned eggs. I'd rather turn this. A whole lot of poop in there at night. Was there a lot of poop?

There was a lot of poop in the morning.

If we catch it in the morning, we clean it out in the morning, you know. Let's turn our— let's turn them back around to get our eggs. Since we got our eggs this afternoon, there won't be any eggs in there if they poop tonight, and we can just pour that out in the morning. Okay, before we get a lot of eggs. Sound good? In the afternoon— well, this is how the nest box sits. The chicken can get in there as it is right now. We're just turning it here so then the chicken can't get in this nest box at night. What's happening is sometimes they sit there, they perch, and they poop down in here. So what we're doing is talking about turning this sideways. The problem is that's one more chore, and not so much one more chore, it's one more visit. I mean, you could do it when you go collect the eggs in the afternoon, but in the morning you need to turn this around pretty soon. And you could do it when you come collect the eggs and it not be an extra visit, but that needs to be really early and we need our sleep. So because there's only just one or two if we catch it early in the morning when we do come out, we're gonna have minimal poopage.

Lift the nest boxes in the morning.

Yep.

And then—

well, we don't have to flip the nest box, just clean them out in the morning and then just get the eggs in the afternoon. We've probably— we've probably solved our problem. We'll see tomorrow morning. Okay. Hey, are you ready for this test? I'm just gonna follow you, zero guidance. All right, don't even look at me for a question. Okay, 10 is a perfect score. There's 5 checkpoints at each posse. All right, you think you got it? Review with you guys the 5 points. Help us with this sometimes with graphics, Austin, and text. Food, water, shelter, security, and harvest. Wow, I want to help, help him. Him so badly, but the helpingest thing I can do is just let him do. I can see your brain thinking, well, that one's actually clean. Food harvest on this one. The water. He didn't really check the nipples, but he did check the water level. Hey, what are you thinking about over there?

If I finished or not.

Hmm, do you have that feeling like you're forgetting something?

Yeah.

But you don't know what? Is that what you're going through? Wow, you saw the grit. Remembered the grit, which is part of food, but I could see how you might forget that. He's missing shelter and security, but he could do security by just walking away and turning on the fence and maybe not even knowing he did it. Wow, you remembered that. That's part of shelter. I think I was forgetting that, but of course when I leave That's why I have the checkpoints. I don't really go through it while I'm doing it. It's more of a did I do everything before I leave. Should I answer questions? Is that cheating? Should I answer questions? Well, no, because I want—

I want to be able to answer questions alone.

That's right. I told him yesterday. Look at him. Me one bug. I told him yesterday he's got to move it one length, didn't I, Aliston? Listen, you want to move the shawl one length anyway, okay? Yeah, I told him, I told him. Nice. A lot to remember. I were him, I just would, because what would that hurt? What would it hurt? Think I'm finished.

Okay, there we go. The other—

okay, now we go to the other part. I'm trying to do this where you can't look. You got your other stuff? Okay, you go ahead of me. Don't listen because I'm gonna put up fingers. He didn't complete shelter. He put in hay. He did not move the shelter, so I guess we'll give him a half a point. I've noticed this has been really good for him. He's getting the attention from me showing him how to do these, these chores. I feel like he's having a sense of pride, having me watching him and me filming him. I think he's really enjoying the attention and the responsibility. Oh, bonus points for remembering that. I'm not going to count this against you because I didn't train this on you this yesterday, but since they've spilled so much Let's move the— if you notice they've spilled so much, let's move the pallet and they'll, they'll eat that too. Yep. Okay, back to normal programming. I was just gonna say, you'll probably learn on your own not to have to fill a full bucket, just carry multiple buckets instead. And you figured it out on your own. I try and let life teach them as much as possible with real life consequences. I don't need to tell him the bucket's too full. He figured that out on his own. Why do I got to be a dream crusher? Because it may have worked out, or he may have figured something else out.

One egg. One clean egg.

Yeah, so what we worked— what we did was good. Okay, so remember to go and get the eggs in the afternoon, okay? Even if you know without a shadow of a doubt it's not going to work out, as long as it's not going to hurt them or hinder them, you don't want to be the parent that's telling them they can't. Don't be the can't parent, be the good one. Because can't never could, and could did it all.

There's much less eggs than there was yesterday.

That's because we collected them yesterday afternoon. I won't count this against you because you're technically doing this, but I would have this tray cleaned out a little more. Okay, and watch out, it's turned off. And maybe before you put water in it because it's gonna dump out. Okay, I won't count it against you because I didn't tell you this yesterday. He's asking if he should leave it. I want to say so bad. I want him to get 100% so bad. It wouldn't be 100% if I was helping, and I won't be here with him tomorrow. Remember to take the cap off, stop cap, and store it up here. He's moving. Dang, strong guy.

Jeez, I think that's good. Water, security, shelter, and harvest, and water.

Okay.

Did I already say water?

You said— remember, I'm not here.

Is there even 5 steps in here?

There is. I told you not to look at me. I was about to say I think he's done, and then he remembered the grit. I think even after doing this for 20 years, if you don't go through that checklist at the end, even I'm like, I hadn't yet, I forgot the grit. I'm pretty sure he's in line for a perfect score up here.

Security, I forgot.

So what do you do for security here?

Make sure you close the gate.

Okay, all right. Okay, are you done?

I think.

Okay, okay, when you When you park that down at the bottom and say, "I've done it," that's the end. I'm shutting it. Shouldn't have shut that door for him, but he did— he didn't mention it right there, so he remembered it. Okay, tell me when you think you're done.

After I put these eggs away, clean them, put them away.

Okay. Natural. How'd you learn to shoot?

That myself.

These kids, if you just give them the free time, they'll figure out things themselves.

That's what you didn't teach me yesterday.

Okay, all right, you, you tell me when you're officially done, I'll give you the score.

Let's do it upstairs.

Okay. Why?

Might be better lighting.

Okay, I like it. He's thinking about the movie. Better lighting upstairs. You ready for your score?

Yeah.

9.5.

What?

You got so close. That's like a 95. That's a good job. Good job. Just disappointed.

What did I do wrong?

Because you had to get that 10 to get the toy, huh? You didn't move the coop in the compost.

But you said that was every week.

Roll it, Austin. Listen, you want to move the Shaw one link anyway, okay? I said move the coop every day. You moved the coop— you moved it over there. Hey, in the meantime, what's your favorite egg dish?

What's that mean?

What, what's your favorite egg food?

Sausage and egg.

Well, looky here, buddy, got you some sausage and egg. Even little bonuses in it. What? Peppers, green onions. Good job, buddy. I'm proud of you. Well, there's a technicality. You get a 9.5. He did not move the chickshaw in the compost posse, but he seems to say I said every week. What do you think I should do? Should I give him that? Should I give him that point for a perfect score? Sure.

I was a hamster.

No, hamster is not a toy. Listen, you're pushing it. You're pushing it. I tell you what, you do it for a month, we'll get you a hamster.

I already did it for a month.

No, like turkeys. You get a 9, 9.5 every day for a month, 10, you get a hamster. Happy day. La la la la la, let me be free.