Feeding your chickens might not be something which you pay too much attention to, but did you know that seventy percent of the cost of raising chickens goes toward feed? Therefore it stands to reason that you need to pay attention to what you feed your birds.
No one chicken is the same as each breed all require slightly different mixes of nutrition, as do laying birds or meat birds.
Let’s start at the beginning and… [Read More]
A common question many first time chicken keepers ask is: “can I feed my chickens table scraps/leftovers”? In fact we have recently had several people email and ask us this, so today we are going to delve down and take a look.
We have touched upon what to feed (or not feed) chickens in our previous blog post: why you are feeding your chickens to death, however we didn’t specifically mention table scraps within this.
Sounds simple doesn’t it? When I first started out with chickens and had a handful of ladies it was simple. They all knew and trusted me – so I could easily scoop them up and do whatever was needed.
When I was done, I would plop them down and give them a treat so they would always trust me and come to me.
This plan of attack worked well for most of the ladies, but… [Read More]
Todays’ article tackles one of the least endearing qualities of our beloved hens – bullying.
It is more than establishing the ‘pecking order’- it is systematically picking on one or two hens for no apparent reason.
Bullying can be limited to feather plucking or it can escalate into full blown warfare with the receiving hen being severely injured or possibly killed.
In this article we will cover what the usual causes of bullying are, how… [Read More]
We’ve all heard the phrase ‘the pecking order’. In our minds eye, we likely see colleagues and co-workers neatly arranged in order of ‘merit’. From the CEO down to the janitor, everyone has a place in the ‘pecking order’.
The term ‘pecking order’ was first coined in 1921 by Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe to describe the hierarchy of flock dynamics and it came into popular usage in the 1930s.
At times the pecking order can make life… [Read More]