 Have you been wanting your own chickens but didn’t know where to start? I recently interviewed Haley Oliver, owner and chief farmer at Fertile Crescent Farms, to get her perspective on starting to raise chickens…wait for it…from scratch.This will be a two-part interview, so look for the rest of her answers next week. You can connect with Haley, and learn more about her farm on the Fertile Crescent Facebook page and Shaome’s Farming Co-op group on Signal. |
| What should a chicken coop include? There are two parts to a chicken “coop.” You have the actual coop/chicken house and then the run. A chicken run is a fenced in outdoor area where the chickens can explore during the daytime and have more room to walk around. When building your coop, you first must decide if you plan to keep you chickens enclosed or free-ranged. Many people who choose to free-range their birds choose to only build a chicken coop with no run and allow their chickens to roam around their property. This can help bring feed bills down since the chickens will be getting a lot of their food from their environment (grass/bugs) but it puts the chickens at a higher risk of being targeted by predators since they are not protected by the fencing that a run would provide. A coop itself should contain roosting posts about 4 feet off the ground. These are where the chickens will sleep at night. 2x4s work great for this with the 4″ part horizontal so the birds can rest their feet flat instead of leaving their toes curled. They prefer sleeping flatfooted. This also will help prevent frostbite on their toes in winter. Another coop must have is a nesting box. Chickens are very funny when it comes to a nesting box, they prefer to use the same box as all the other hens. Example: if you make 10 nesting boxes for 10 hens, all ten hens will choose to collectively lay their eggs in maybe 1 or 2 boxes and that’s it. So the best thing to do is to only have a few boxes. The cheapest and easiest thing to use is a milk crate on the ground lined with straw or wood shavings. Windows and ventilation are super important too. When building your coop, make sure it gets plenty of air flow to cut down on dust. This helps keep the chickens healthy and prevents respiratory illnesses. They can either be actual windows or just window cut outs covered by chicken wire. Door-wise, it doesn’t really matter. My chicken coops don’t even have doors. Chickens will put their selves too bed in the afternoon when to sun starts to set. You can purchase a small automatic chicken door that is set on a timer. These open and close a small chicken-sized door to regulate when the birds have access to their run or free-ranged yard. This is not needed but some people like them. Bedding substrate is the last thing to note. It helps to cut down on dust and mud in your chick coop and run. If your new coop has grass in it, it won’t for long. Chickens will eat everything down to the root and make the land bare. Some good beddings to use are sand or wood chips. Not all sand is good for chickens, however. Medium to coarse grained sand is best, such as construction sand. Sand can help with water drainage and it doesn’t hold mold. Just remember that chickens poop a lot and will need their coops cleaned out regularly. Wood chips will get mixed in with the poop and thrown out when the coop is cleaned meaning it will need to be replaced more frequently. With sand you can use a pitch fork like a cat litter scoop and scoop out the poop leaving the sand behind so it won’t need replacing as often. Which chicken breeds thrive best in our climate in Middle Georgia?  Our climate in middle Georgia is absolutely perfect for raising chickens. As long as you provide constant water, lots of shade, and weather protection, any breed will do great. Our winters here are very mild but we do have intense summers. Larger breeds such as Brahmas may have a harder time in the summer due to their size and extra feathers but they can still do fine here as long as they are provided adequate care. Georgia is actually known by many as the “Poultry Capital of the World”. I would recommend finding a good dual-purpose breed of chicken that lays lot of eggs but could also be used as meat if needed. Sussex, Orpingtons, Rhode Island Reds, Australorps, and Leghorns are all great chicken breeds that are beautiful, lay a ton of eggs, and are a good size for eating. Before picking a breed of chicken, look at their personalities and traits. All breeds have different qualities so take your time researching which one is best for you. (Tip: chickens will lay the same amount of eggs without a rooster being present. The eggs will just be unfertilized and will not be able to hatch into chicks. So a rooster is not needed if you are only wanting to eat your eggs). How do you manage pest and disease control specifically in this region? Common pests and diseases that plague chickens in our area include mites, intestinal worms, fowl pox, avian influenza, respiratory illnesses, Marek’s disease, and bumblefoot. The best way to prevent diseases within your flock is to maintain good biosecurity. What this means is to quarantine all new chickens for at least 7-10 days before introducing them into your flock to screen them for any signs of illness. Always buy your chickens/chicks from an accredited breeder and be wary of auction barns. Do not let other people who own poultry enter into your chicken coops. If their birds have any diseases, they will carry it on their shoes and transfer it to your chickens. Deworm your chickens twice a year and give them a healthy, balanced diet to maintain a strong immune system. Some diseases like fowl pox and Marek’s have a vaccine that can be administered to chickens as a preventative but that is to the discretion of the owners. If you plan to eat your birds, you may not want to vaccinate them. Other illnesses such as respiratory infections, bumblefoot, and avian flu will require antibiotics to help the chicken recover. Antibiotics are no longer available over-the-counter at stores without a veterinarian prescription as of June 11, 2023. If you believe your chicken is sick, quarantine it immediately and call your local livestock veterinarian. You can also call the Georgia Poultry Laboratory Network. They are a free organization that helps Georgia poultry owners provide care for their chickens through disease prevention. They provide lab diagnostics, disease testing, and veterinarian care for free. (Our closest lab is in Forsyth Georgia. Their contact number is 478-994-1219). |
