this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2023
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Backyard Chickens (and Other Birds)

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[Were you a mod of backyard chickens on Reddit? Message me if you're interested in modding here.]

This is a community for people who keep chickens in their back yard. This includes pets, layers, and meaties at levels that are sub-industrial. Family farms and homesteads are included.

EDIT

The Fediverse is small. There probably aren't enough people here to make up a community for every type of bird that someone might keep so for now, everyone is welcome. Bring us your ducks and geese, turkeys and quail, Guineas and Peacocks, emus and parrots. The community will be focused on chickens but until there are enough of each bird community for their own community they will find care and comfort here.

/EDIT

There may be discussions of animal processing. This is part of chicken keeping. If you don't like it leave and block the community.

You may also be interested in:

Homestead

Parrots

Cockatiel

RULES:

  1. All Lemmy.ca rules apply here.

  2. Everyone (see rules 4 and 98) is welcome.

  3. If you've seen a question 100 times answer it the 101st time or ignore it. Even better, write a complete, detailed answer and suggest that the mod(s) pin it to the community.

  4. There will be ZERO tolerance for shaming, brigading, harassment, or other nonsense of those who keep and process chickens. You will be permanently banned the first time.

  5. No, it's not a calcium deficiency. Wrinkled eggs are the result of insufficient or insufficiently viscous albumen. Tiny eggs and missing shells are misfires. They happen.

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[Did you actually think there were 98 rules?]

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Fuck yeah. Just found this sub (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by Mojojojo1993@lemmy.world to c/backyardchickens@lemmy.ca
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Just casually came across this. We are getting chickens next week. Never had them before. So anything I should know going in ?

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[โ€“] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Congratulations! Chickens are awesome and more people should keep them.

I have answered this question a few times in the past over at the place with the subs. Bellow is a pretty long wall of text, of what I can remember, in a somewhat prioritized order.

  • Chicken math! Always build for twice the bird you're planning on getting.
  • Find a reliable source of bird health info before it's needed. Vetting something you've googled, while in a bit of a panic, and your bird is suffering, sucks.
  • Have a plan for treating an injured bird. Most vets won't treat a chicken, so treating may include culling. Figure out how you will be doing that, and have your method of choice ready. Personally we will hold the chicken with the non-dominant arm and whack it in the back of the head with a piece of steel pipe, before applying a designated, and very sharp, ax to the neck.
  • You may be planning on feeding your birds kitchen scrap. At least we were. But scraps will seldom be enough feed, and it will never be the right composition of nutrients. So shop around for feed. There may be a difference in quality, quantity and price. Quality is hard to evaluate, but euros/kg is easy and so is the desired quantity. Shopping around meant that we shaved 6% of the feed cost, 15km off of the round trip, and got the feed in 15kg bags, which fit our 15kg feeder, compared to the 20kg bags we used to buy which didn't fit and then had to be stored open.
  • By now you should have the coop ready, but how about feed storage? It needs to be stored dry and preferably close to where it's needed.
  • Do you have a source of bedding material? If not, then the same thing applies as for feed vis-a-vis both acquisition and storage.
  • In my hemisphere winter is coming presently, and thus darkness. Darkness means fewer eggs. We counter this by having battery powered christmas lights (white LEDs that doesn't blink, they're not party birds) strung around inside the coop.
  • Speaking of winter, it appears that chickens can't drink solid water - if that's a possibility where you're at, then plan ahead. We have dug a hole in the run, where we put a long burning grave candle with an old pot on top. That way the water doesn't freeze over and also doesn't heat up to unsanitary temperatures.
[โ€“] Mojojojo1993@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

That's fantastic advice. Hadn't thought about illness. Will need to look into that. Also do birds not lay when it's dark ? I can string up some solar lights. Similar on brightness to fairy lights. Will need to check on water. We have troughs for cattle so can probably rig something for them. Depending on how intelligent they are. We have running water but don't want them floating away. The less amount of fencing the better.

Previously my partner had them free roaming so I'm hoping to have them similar. Plenty of water around the property.