This might surprise you but… taking care of chickens is not hard at all. I’m confident that by the time you’re done with this article, you will be acquiring some backyard birds of your own! Let’s talk about it…
We’ve had our chickens for almost a year and we get a lot of the same questions about them. Mostly about the day-to-day responsibilities. People want to know if they would be able to maintain chickens for themselves.
Where did you get your chickens?
Is it hard to care for them?
What about all the poop?
When will they lay eggs?
How do you keep them safe?
The Baby Chick Phase (the hardest part)
This post is not going to go into crazy detail about raising baby chickens. I will absolutely be writing about that in the near future. But I felt it was worth mentioning one of the hardest chicken chores, and that is during the baby chick phase.
You can absolutely skip this part, and just get some fully grown chickens straight from a farm somewhere of course. And yes, we literally ordered chickens via mail and they arrived in this tiny box (shown above). I’ll admit I was shocked when I first saw this.
In short, baby chickens are fragile, they grow extremely fast, and require a lot of food, warmth, and fresh bedding to keep up with all the poop! You will need to clean their brooder AT LEAST once a day sometimes twice a day. But no worries, this phase only lasts for a season (about 12 weeks) until they are fully feathered and ready to move into an outdoor coop.
Another thing to consider is the amount of work required to take care of your chickens will directly correlate to the number of chickens you have. In our case, we ordered 22 baby chicks. 17 survived and are still going strong today. I should also mention our chickens are all hens. No rooster. We primarily have our chickens for the delicious free-range eggs.
The Everyday Chicken Chore: Collecting the Eggs
Honestly, the most rewarding part is collecting the eggs. Chickens can lay eggs almost every day. It’s like Christmas opening the nesting boxes and finding an assortment of eggs waiting for you. I usually take this time to inspect the hen house and the rest of the coop for random eggs that may have been laid outside of the nesting boxes.
Sometimes an egg is accidentally broken and the yolk is spilled all over the place. Just make sure to remove any soiled bedding and replace it with new wood shavings or hay. I inspect each egg for cracks or issues then take them inside.
I quickly glance over their food and water supply and make sure it is topped off. We fill a large 5-gallon food-grade bucket with water and attached some poultry nipples to it. We keep the bucket inside the coop so the chickens will have access to water inside. We also like to fill up a couple of feeding pans with water outside their coop. The chickens love drinking and hanging out near them!
That’s it y’all. I’m serious.
The nice thing about egg collecting is it’s not hard to convince a neighbor to watch over your chickens while you are out of town. We have our neighbors help themselves to as many eggs as they want to make it a win-win for everybody.
The Weekly Chicken Chore: Cleaning the Coop
Your chicken coop will likely have a roosting area or “hen house” where your chickens will sleep, climb, lay eggs, or simply hang out. They will spend a lot of time in here and wherever chickens are, poop will be also!
We have a simple way of dealing with this. Jeff made the hen house floor big enough to fit two large rubber pet trays on the floor. We cover it in wood shavings to absorb the waste. Once a week we slide the trays out of the hen house and dump the wood shavings and waste straight into our compost pile. We put the trays back in the coop and cover them back up with fresh bedding sprinkled with diatomaceous earth.
As for the rest of the coop, I use an old putty knife and a plastic bucket to get any poop that has dried up on the roosting bars/branches. I dump all of that in our compost pile as well. Too easy.
Don’t forget to check the nesting boxes. If you want to keep any part of your chicken coop pristine, it is the nesting box. Your chickens want to lay their eggs in a nice dry clean warm spot! We usually replace the bedding in these boxes once a week.
Chicken Chores- The Bottom Line
If you can keep your chicken coop clean, dry, safe from predators, and topped off with quality food and water, there is not much more you really need to do. Consider an automatic chicken coop door to ensure your chickens are safe at night.
Another thing to remember about chickens is they are all unique. They have distinct personalities and they like to be entertained. Consider fencing in an area of your yard where they can free range for bugs during the day. They love it! I realize this will not be possible for everyone. There are other ways to entertain your chickens. You can install a little swing, different levels of perches for them to jump on, or even get chicken toys from a local farm supply store! The possibilities are endless.
Wanna see what it is really like to do weekly chicken chores? Check out my YouTube video below!
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What about you?
Do you have any tips about how to take care of free-range chickens? Leave a comment below!
You set a good example. We are not nearly as conscientious about cleaning our coop. I love that you are encouraging others to keep chickens. That’s really the only way we are going to really change the way farming and food is done, by taking control of our own supply. Thanks!
Thank you so much! Yes I find the cleaner the coop is the happier the chickens!! So glad to encourage others;)