chicken lesson 101

I had a client who had chickens and ducks. She was located a bit out of my driving range and had a menagerie of animals but I decided to take the job because she had chickens. I figured I was up for challenge.
Chickens are cute little creatures with funny distinct personalities. Regretfully, this woman decided after I finished a weeks worth of cleaning all of her many bird cages, shoveling hay in the rain and picking up after an incontinent cat that she wasn't going to pay me for my services so I had to take her small claims court.
What a pain.
It was too bad, really, because I liked the chickens.
I buy my eggs from a small local chicken farmer in Newbury for about $3.00 for a dozen eggs. When you pull up to this residence you can see the chickens walking around in the back yard happily pecking at the ground for bugs. You bring your own egg cartons to get filled with eggs. Sometimes you get colored eggs depending on what kind of chicken is laying. Rhode Island red hens lay brown eggs. White longhorn hens lay white eggs. Usually I get eggs that have poop or feathers stuck on the shell. At least you know where the eggs are coming from.
I started buying my eggs from local farmers after reading an article about how horrible chickens are treated in factory farming. They do not get level of 'humane" (I use this term loosely) treatment as cows. I will not go into how horrible they are cruelly treated because it makes me sick to even think about it. All I can say is I can not with a clear conscience buy 'cheap' eggs in a grocery store.
I've even thought about raising my own chickens as pets and for fresh eggs. Maybe some day I will.
The town of Newburyport and Newbury have been urging folks to join in a vegetable garden coop. The New Eden Collaborative co-op has been sponsoring various courses on gardening and organic farming. This group has recently started a co-op for raising chickens. I decided to sign up for one of their class on raising chickens for my own interest.
The course instructor "Mary" started off with the basics describing various chicken breeds and their personalities. She said the "gold comets" were the friendliest. (I thought so too after picking this cute little chicken up, holding her and scratching her little head)
"Mary"then started the talk with how to care for a new born chick up to adulthood describing what types of food and heating requirements they need at each stage of their life. Newborn chicks need an ambient air temperature to grow at 90F by using a a red infrared heat lamp. They are given "chick crumble" until they are 6 weeks old then "grower feed" until they are 8-10 weeks old then they get "layer feed" and grit (for digestion). Chickens don't just eat grain but they also like greens, grubs, slugs and even spaghetti!
She advised to buy chicks from a reputable dealer such as Agway since they inoculate the chicks from diseases. She added little tips about caring for little chicks such as adding pebbles in their water dish to help prevent these little ones from drowning. She advised to keep chicken species the same size to avoid bullying on the smaller ones. She emphasized checking the birds routinely for cleanliness making sure their bums were clean to avoid impaction.
The co-op was in the process of building a chicken coop and and constructing a fenced off area for the chickens to walk around. She mentioned the importance of burying the fence at least 8 inches in the ground so to deter burrowing predators.
I found the lecture quite interesting, and who knows? Maybe some day you'll see me wearing overalls chasing chickens around in my yard