More Resources

The importance of finding resources, as a chicken keeper, is invaluable. These resources can help you lear everything from how to raise day-old chicks, to how to build a chicken coop from scratch, to how to treat your chickens when they become ill. Over the last year I have developed a large library of resources that I am hereby passing on to you.

Here is my Diigo feed, where you can find an ever evolving and growing list of bookmarks that I use to learn and build my library of sources:
https://www.diigo.com/user/feathers13

And here is my Digg feed, where you can follow the same blogs that I follow. These blogs are great, and I love reading what they have to say. http://digg.com/user/6e31f58875a04751a04419de166aaa6e/diggs.rss

Hopefully you can find these sources as useful as I do, and if you have any sources that you find useful that I don't have listed, please let me know, and I'll add them to my lists!

The Importance of Experts

Experts and long time owners of chickens are the best source of knowledge when it comes to raising chickens. In all of my research, I have come to find a few poignant people who stand out when it comes to chicken knowledge. Terry Golson at HenCam.com (has kept chickens for 20 years) who writes a blog called HenBlog, is one of these people. I managed to find a podcast of an interview that Terry had with a radio show host about keeping chickens, and found it to be a great thing to listen to before getting chicks, or even to learn once you have your chickens. Please click here to listen to the podcast!

This picture is borrowed from www.hencam.com. 

 In the interview she discusses the challenges associated with keeping chickens in a cold climate, such as ours here in Colorado, where there is often snow on the ground, cold wind, and below 0 degree nights. She states that having a properly insulated coop from day one is much easier than retrofitting a not-so-great coop to be winter hardy for your birds. We have a thermometer in both of our coops, which relays to a display in our house. This way we can monitor the temperature on extremely cold nights, to help us decide whether to use supplemental heat or not, and tells us how well insulated our coop is. We had a week of consistently well below 0 degree nights. Because our coops were built draft free, they maintained an above 0 degree temperature (close to 15 degrees warmer) on those cold nights. I would definitely agree that in places like Colorado, it is vital to have a draft free, but well ventilated coop. On the other hand, Terry brought up the fact that summer heat is more dangerous to chickens than the cold. Giving your chickens extra water, shade, and somewhere to dust bathe will help to keep them cool. Last summer I witnessed how hot my chickens got on 90+ degree days especially, and gave them water with ice cubes in it and a cool pool for them to stand in, which seemed to help as well.

She also discusses the life cycle of a chicken, and how chickens only produce eggs productively for the first 2 years of their life. However, chickens live to be 6-8 years on average. Something that city-dwellers should keep in mind is whether they plan on keeping their chickens for their entire life, or are the chickens kept for eggs only (not pets). If you plan on keeping your chickens as pets (like me), keep in mind that keeping chickens is a 6-8 year commitment. If not, what do you plan on doing with the birds once their productive years are over. Terry discusses that regardless of your plans, you need to do right by the animal and keep them healthy and happy for the length of their life. Once the animal’s quality of life is over, you may need to euthanize your birds. This can be an extremely difficult choice once you have gotten attached to the animals, but it is something you sign up for when you keep any pet. Unfortunately, we didn't know that anything was wrong with my sweet Basil until it was too late. She only lived 8 months, but she was the sweetest bird. We believe she died from a genetic defect or brain tumor. She had been sick with one thing or another her whole life, and was kept in our house for most of her life. She passed away in my arms. I cried for days. These little critters sure melt your heart. The picture below is of Basil about a month before she passed away suddenly. We feel that she had a great life and will always be remembered for her inquisitive nature.

Another thing that Terry discussed in the interview was the importance of feeding your chickens good food. It’s extremely important to give them a good commercial feed, as well as vegetables and fruits. We give our chickens food made locally in Fort Collins at Ranch-Way Feeds, and feel that it's been a great food for our birds. I have also discovered that my chickens’ favorite foods are tomatoes and squash, and an occasional treat of plain yogurt. Below is a picture of my birds eating yogurt. They love the stuff, but all dairy should be given in moderation.

In summation, the interview with Terry Golson is extremely informative and good for both new and experienced chicken keepers to listen to. She is a kind person who loves her animals and knows how to properly care for them. Be sure to head to her website at www.hencam.com to read her blog, watch the streaming webcams, and more.

Finding Inspiration Around Me

Inspiration for this blog stems from the pets that I have raised and come to love more than ever imagined: chickens. I tend to be a mega-researcher, and have learned so much in the last year about these little birds, by reading books, reading websites, meeting people who have owned chickens before, and using social media. Little did I know, when I picked up day-old chicks from the feed store, that there was an enormous community of people just like me, learning the best ways to care for their birds. In all of my learning, however, the major factor that seemed to be missing from what I was reading about was the element of keeping chickens in the city. Most things I read about were talking about keeping a large number of birds, or a large amount of land, large amount of room in your home to keep chicks or sick birds, or a large amount of storage, none of which was something we had. I have had to figure out ways to adapt what I learned to my own situation, as someone living in a condo with a medium sized backyard. I have to give my wonderful husband all of the credit, and thank-yous, in the world, for building our first coop from my drawings. This is one place that, if you are just starting out, you certainly don't need to start out with something like this. But a nice coop with at least 3 sq. feet per bird (the minimum recommended space per bird) is a great place to start. I read numerous posts about people's frustrations with their handed down coops purchased off of Craigslist, and felt that I should take advantage of being married to a double major in civil engineering/construction management.

The most important thing that I cannot stress enough is to use hardware cloth and not chicken wire. This keeps your birds much safer from predators at night. We also built the whole structure on buried cinder blocks to further deter predators. Inside the hen house we have been using pine shavings as litter, with straw in the nest boxes, and dirt on the coop floor. But recently I read a very convincing and informative article written by The Chicken Chick about the benefits of using sand as floor substrate instead, and we will be switching everything out when the weather cooperates. Be sure to check out the article here.

Chicken Math

So as some of you know, I own chickens. I bought some as day-old chicks in April 2013, and cannot believe how much they have changed my life since then. But let me take a few steps back. My whole life I have owned a plethora of animals. Everything from geckos to mice, to dogs and cats. But I have always dreamt of living on a farm, where I could have land with horses and goats, and chickens roaming the property foraging and scurrying about, waking to the sound of roosters. Coming from a girl who was born and raised in the heart of Denver, two blocks from I-25, that has always sounded a little far fetched. But when I bought my home, got married, and graduated college, I began to look at my life differently. Maybe I was more in control of it than I thought. Maybe I didn't have to be a "city kid" after all. After doing extensive research on raising baby chicks, the care of chickens, etc. my husband, Joe, and I decided we would get a few chickens. Now, we thought that we would start out with a couple, and that way we could get more the following year so that we could raise chicks again. That's when chicken math came into the picture. Anyone who raises chickens knows that once you have chickens, you begin to feel the want, nay the need for more. There was no way we'd be able to wait a year... So, we've added a couple, tragically lost one, raised a couple of chicks, re-homed a couple of cockerals, rescued a rooster and his girlfriend and found them a new home, and finally things have settled down. These little birds have grown to become egg laying ladies with beautiful plumage, each with her own very unique personality and name. My husband built a large beautiful coop on the side of our house for them that has been wonderful to keep them safe. I have also attended two poultry shows and entered one with a couple of other chickens that I have since gotten, and won two blue ribbons at the National Western Stock Show! Needless to say, chickens have become a new lifestyle for me. They have gotten me involved with new clubs, I've met some great people, and every day I get to care for a cast of very interesting characters, that also happen to make us food! Chickens are a win-win for everyone... but beware of the chicken math, it's easy to fall for their fuzzy butts!