All About Chickens

Chickens are naturally curious animals. They tend to investigate everything they can, not just with sight but also with their beaks which is why they peck at everything. They also have a very strong sense of who's part of the flock and who is not which is why bullying can happen, especially when a new bird is introduced.

Chickens scratch and peck at the ground to investigate what is there. So, they scratch to see what massive grain deposits may or may not lie just beneath that newly planted vegetable garden and then peck to see if it is edible. This is why wonderfully grassy runs are soon reduced to bare earth and vegetable patches and chickens cannot live together. It is not so much the pecking action that is the problem as the scratching problem. There are several ways to combat the bare earth syndrome.
1. Give the chickens a large area to range over and move their coop regularly so that they do not have a chance to kill all the grass. Whist they are away the grass can recover.
2. Get a chicken ark (called a tractor in the US) and move it around regularly so that they do not have a chance to kill all the grass.
3. Confine them to a smallish space and know that that bit of ground will end up as bare earth but the rest of your lawn will remain perfect. If you choose this option then you will still have to move the run every year or so so that parasites such as worms and other nasties do not build up in the soil and make your chickens ill.

A hen has a natural instinct to raise a family of chicks. There is a hormonal change in her so that when she wants to raise chicks she will loose some feathers from her breast so that more heat gets to the eggs, sit on some eggs (although in reality these eggs may be fake, infertile, or she may just sit on air), not get off that nest other than once a day for half an hour so the eggs do not get cold, and peck hard at anyone who tries to reach underneath her or get her off the nest. If you do want her to raise chicks then you should put the eggs that you want her to hatch and leave her for 21 days to incubate. She should be away from the rest of the flock and in a nice dark and cosy place with some straw or woodshavings to make a nest with and her normal food and water. After she has raised the family and they have left her at six to eight weeks of age she will no longer be broody.

However, if you do not want her to hatch out chicks then it is necessary to break her up - to stop her from being broody. If you just let her carry on doing this then she may sit on the eggs for 6 weeks or more depending on how determined she is. Therefore, if we want her to lay any eggs (hens do not lay eggs whilst they are broody) we must intervene. To do this, we must cool her down and make it uncomfortable for her to sit on the nest. I do this by putting her on wire mesh about 10cm above the ground so that air can circulate beneath her and the wire makes it uncomfortable for her to lie down. The top and sides are also open but I put an open umbrella over the top so that she has shade and protection from the rain. She must also have normal food and water. She will take about 1-3 days to stop being broody, depending on how determined she is. Another method I have heard of but have never tried is to stick a bag of frozen peas underneath her.

Dustbathing is when a chicken basically rolls around in the dry, dusty dirt. The purpose of this is to get all the dust inbetween their feathers and suffocate the mites that may or may not be living there. However, this is not entirely sufficient and it is a good idea to add some powder insecticide meant for chickens, such as Derris powder to the dustbathe. Chickens also really seem to enjoy it, and they have a horrible tendency to make dustbathes in flowerbeds and veggie patches! Some people have been known to see their new chickens having a dustbathe and believe that they are having convulsions leading up to death . . .