Category Archives: Chickens

More urban chickens popping up across Canada

Posted on by
Reply

We thought this was a great article addressing chicken keeping.

Chicken comes first – Prepare for some hard work

By Samantha Butler The Whig-Standard

Updated 10 days ago

Keeping hens isn’t rocket science, but it does involve work, the co-ordinator of Urban Agriculture Kingston says.

Now that hens are legally allowed on residential Kingston properties, Mike Payne said there are practical places for home-based henners to start.

“It’s about informing yourself and being conscientious,” he said. “They’re like a pet — you need to understand that before getting into it. But it’s certainly an accessible undertaking for most people.”

Urban Agriculture Kingston has had a backyard chicken sub-committee for two years, he said, consulting with residents and city council about the feasibility of city chickens.

Thirty people, ready to start henning, have emerged to form the Kingston Henners Network. They scored a big win Tuesday night when council agreed to pilot their proposed bylaw for two years.

Contacting neighbours and designing a coop are the first two things to do, Payne said.

MORE…

our Backyard Chicken course was a cackling good time!

Posted on by
Reply

This past Sunday, a dozen eager participants and a minor rainstorm (!) arrived for our Backyard Chickens workshop. Fortunately the rain only stayed for introductions and a quick cup of coffee, and we were able to get out and see the chickens do their thing without getting soaked.

The brooder coop was a big hit. We have a few broody Silkie hens who hatched out eggs for us, and we hatched a batch in our incubator as well. Jennifer cunningly snuck the incubated chicks out to the Silkies, who continued to adopt them in turn. This year we are raising meat chickens as well as layers. We purchased 25 “Bonnie’s Heavy Red” chicks, which are a somewhat slower growing meat chicken.

As Jennifer talked about in a previous post, we opted not to raise standard Cornish Rock cross meat birds, and we’re hoping that the Heavy Reds look a little less freaky as they grow. Even at a week old, there are noticeable differences in behaviour between the layer chicks and the meat chicks. The meat chicks are already much larger and slower moving, and this led to a short discussion on the difference between meat and layer breeds.

We took a walk down to the barn to see the hens and roosters, and talked about housing requirements for healthy happy chickens. As the weather has suddenly become very warm, ventilation and air exchange are on our mind. We have fans running throughout our barn to ensure air flow, and the chickens seem pleased about it. The hens were also very happy to demonstrate how to have a dust bath.

I think that the next time we run this class we should stretch it to three hours, as most everyone wound up being here for nearly an extra hour asking questions and talking. It was so much fun to spend an afternoon with a bunch of like minded folks. I can’t wait until the next time that we run this course!

Chick Season

Posted on by
1

broilerchicks.jpg No doubt, this is chick season. This past week, and for the next few weeks, we will be consumed with chicks. Today we picked up our first broiler chicks. These chicks will end up as meat birds. they grow fast and taste good. (Sorry to all the vegetarians out there). Doing meat birds was a big thing for us. we have heard horror stories about the White Rock crosses, the standard meat bird, that made us shudder slightly. Everything from they drop dead (which they do) to they appear almost featherless when they are older. These birds grow FAST. Too fast for their poor little organs to handle. They don’t make adulthood. Because of all this we decided to go for the slightly slower growing birds that seemed just a bit more normal and less franken bird like.

threechicks.jpg They other chick thing we have been monitoring is that we have a number of our own eggs under broody chickens and in the incubator. they started hatching out yesterday and we will be monitoring the process for the next few days. We currently have three broody hens with perhaps 15 or so eggs. the rest are in the incubator due to start hatching tomorrow. With any luck we should have almost 50 new chicks to grow out for laying. So far we have five new chicks and counting!

They are sooo cute!

 

 

newchick.jpg

 

Backyard Chicken Course coming up

Posted on by
Reply

Some of the backyard chickens at All Sorts Acre

If you have ever thought about getting chickens for your yard then you need to take this workshop. It will cover all relevant aspects of keeping backyard chickens as well as a chance to handle, observe, and learn about chickens in their own home. This course goes further than a regular classroom course. Seeing, watching and observing the chickens in their natural habitat shows you far more than reading about it in books, although books are still great to read! There are a few spots left. To find out more about the course please click here.

In Memoriam

Posted on by
3
Scrufflechook after her first egg after her first go round in the house.

Scrufflechook after her first egg after her first go round in the house.

The other day was very sad. We lost our dear friend Scrufflechook. Scrufflechook was a very special chicken. She was part of our original flock of Chanteclers. There was nothing special about her until one day last fall when we noticed she was cowering in the corner of the pen, and that her neck seemed twisted. We took her in, (something we should really never do if we want to be “real” farmers) first into the basement then she slowly made her way upstairs into the office, my office. SHe spent most of the winter in a large dog crate, being fed a diet of broccoli and kale. Her bent neck never quite was right again but other than that she seemed fine. One of the sheep, we thought, had knocked her down badly when coming out of their barn. She did after all like to hang out and lay eggs in their side of the barn.

Over the time she was indoors Scrufflechook became very friendly. She would say hello and talk to us, take food from out hands, and generally seemed to enjoy human company. She got used to the cats hanging around, and even Beauty our large dog. Scrufflechook had become very much a pet and friend. She was slowly reintroduced into the outside world. First in with the silkies, which didn’t go very well, and then out into the chicken coop. She made trips into school to teach the Urban Chicken course and was a hit with everyone who met her, she was the chicken that liked to be held.

Although she was still low on the chicken totem pole she made the best of it. Slowly she was accepted again and she seemed very much to enjoy herself. At one point this summer she had even seemed to NOT want to be friends with us anymore. More chickens came and went and was just fine. There was a point where she was being picked on again and thought she would go for a walk about. So we set her up in the Aark so she wouldn’t be harassed, kept checking her crop to make sure she had been eating. After a few days of that and letting her in a different part of the garden she settled down and seemed happy and active again.

Last Thursday, October 14, a day after the second urban chicken course in Guelph she took poorly. Nothing really serious, she was just acting a bit strangely. It is the time of year that our chickens are molting so she looked pretty scruffy. She also seemed to have a good time at the urban chicken class on Wednesday. She was alert, eating, calm, moving around a bit but generally more interested in preening herself than just about anything.

On Thursday during the day she seemed fine, walking around and eating. It wasn’t until closer to evening that she changed. She wasn’t moving and had stopped eating. She had that hunched up look that chickens get when they are not well. I put her into the Aark as she knows it and has seemed comfortable in there. We went out a little later to check on her and weren’t happy with how she was doing. She was sitting inside the Aark and just ill.

Out came a small dog cage, tarp, feeder, waterer, and anything else that we thought would have made her comfortable. She settled into the cage on the Thursday evening just fine. On Friday morning she had forgotten no better. We knew his was not good. Scrufflechook was put down by our vet last Monday, the 18th of October. Neither of us could face chopping her head off. She had been too good a friend to do that. Our vet is a wonderful lady, and understood that chicken or not, Scrufflechook was a pet and should be treated with dignity.

We’ll miss you Scrufflechook, you won’t be able to be replaced.

Posted via email from All SortsAcre