Chicken Coop Maintenance

Chickens don't need many things to make them happy. They are easily frightened, so they take comfort in feeling safe inside their coop. Chickens also like to eat, so they expect to find food. In the old farming days, chickens were allowed to roam free so they could find their own food, and then they returned to the coop before dark.

One of the nicer parts of chicken coop maintenance is gathering the eggs. Because this is the primary objective for having chickens in the first place, it's not hard to remember to do this chore. Eggs should not be left in the chicken coop for long because they attract wild creatures, and they will go bad if not cooled in the refrigerator. Hence, when you collect your eggs daily, you can do a routine inspection.

A daily inspection of the coop is important. You want to check for any loose boards, holes in the chicken wire or openings that allow the chickens to get out or the predators to get in. Something may be amiss, that indicates something is wrong. Counting heads is always a good idea to be sure everyone is accounted for.

There was a time when chickens mainly used to be left to roam free. Because chickens are kept in pens, or coops, these days, they have to depend on their owners to feed and water them. Therefore, the first rule of chicken coop maintenance is to be sure that the chickens are fed each day.

The quality of the feed has a bearing on the quality of the eggs the hens lay and their overall general health. If they are fed the cheapest feeds that have little nutritional value, you can expect lesser quality eggs and chickens not as healthy as they could be.

Most farmers prefer to put the food in a contained area because the chickens will lose a lot of feed if it is tossed on the ground as you often see in the movies.

Part of chicken coop maintenance is keeping the water dishes, feeding trays, and similar items clean because chickens really make a mess. Picking up behind hens is not a fun job, but it is a necessary part of the work.

With all the chicken manure that accumulates in the hen house, an important part of chicken coop maintenance is the cleaning. The regularity of cleaning is based on the number of chickens you have and how much time the chickens spend in the coop.

You can expect to perform this part of chicken coop maintenance more regularly in colder climates because the chickens will stay inside more. A good rule of thumb is about once every three months. It is much simpler to clean if you have a floor in the coop, but people have been scooping poop off the ground for centuries.

Chicken manure makes a wonderful fertilizer for the garden or it can be used in compost. You can broadcast it over the garden and plow it under, or pile it where you can access it when you are breaking up your garden area. Most people choose to go directly to the garden with it, and they time their cleanings to coincide with the preparation of their fields.

As mentioned above, make sure you check routinely for things in your coop that need to be repaired. Holes in the chicken wire are common, as are loose boards. You want to repair these deficiencies as soon as possible to keep your chickens safe.