Keeping your chickens happy and healthy
Tablelands Telegraph – May 2022
Backyard chickens are a great way to produce food, recycle food scraps and introduce kids to farming. Keeping your chickens happy and healthy means you can feel safe and happy eating their eggs.
Happy chickens need a safe and comfortable place to live. Protection from cold, heat, rain and predators is essential. The coop should have at least 1m2 of floor space per 3 birds. Chickens should also have access to perches and nesting boxes – find all the recommended dimensions . Like all animals, chickens need access to clean, fresh water at all times.
Chickens can be fed a commercial layer pellet diet, or a home formulated diet. Laying chickens use a lot of nutrients via the production of eggs, so a correctly balanced diet is essential. In most cases commercial diets are easier as they are already complete and balanced. If you want to mix your own ration, a great handout on formulating diets for different classes of chickens can be found Ensure food is stored so that it cannot be accessed by mice or rats. Also ensure that chicken feed is labelled so that it is not accidently fed to other domestic species as chicken feed can sometimes contain meat meals that must not be fed to mammals.
