Important Things To Know About Baby Chicks

Chickens can make for some pretty amazing pets that have great personalities and will offer endless amusement and shockingly funny entertainment.

However there are some things that you must know about chickens before you actually own them. This goes for any type of pet that you plan on raising.

Understanding these things will help you to keep your chicken friends healthy and happy. One great thing about having chickens for pets is that they require very minimal attention, unlike a pet dog that can be very demanding.

The little attention that your pet chicken does need however is extremely important, such as keeping the coops clean, daily playtime, feeding and water. Chickens have many hidden dangers, and many of them can be prevented as long as you offer them a clean coop, proper food and daily water. Let's take a look at how to raise chickens when they are just baby chicks.

Chicks are absolutely adorable and generally during Easter time you will find that they are sold in many stores. These little baby chicks are nearly irresistible. Their fluffy fuzzy yellow fur is so soft and cuddly and definitely increases the desire to own one. But there are some things that you must understand to offer them the proper care.

These little baby chickens will need to be kept in a warm area. The sufficient temperature will need to be between 90 and 100 degrees, and this should decrease 5 degrees each week.

You need to house the chick in a box that they cannot hop out of and put a 100-watt bulb at one end of the box. You will not need to heat the entire box but they need an area to warm themselves.

Chicks require time to play with you and also need to have time outside to play. When your chick goes outside you will need to be sure that they are in a secure area because they do like to explore and can find their way into a bit of trouble.

It's not easy to catch them and if they have a large area to run it will be much harder to catch them. So the smaller the place the easier it will be.

It's absolutely amazing to watch these little baby chicks grow up into adult chickens. You'll find that as babies they begin the pecking order. This is how they determine who the boss is. It's funny to watch as they flap their little wings and circle around one another.

Chickens are not only great pets that will offer you endless amounts of fun, but they will benefit your organic garden as well. You can use their manure in your compost pile and it will definitely improve the growth of your garden naturally.

I would suggest if you make the decision to purchase a chick this Easter holiday that you buy more than one of them. Chickens are social animals and enjoy playing with other people and also more chickens. Playing with other chickens will help to keep the chickens occupied and offer them warmth during the colder months.

You can find books right near the chicks in the store when you purchase them. It's a good idea to pick one up, or you can learn more about raising them by researching it on the internet. These baby animals need to be taken care of properly in order to make it a full grown healthy adult chicken.

BlueWaterArticles.com: - Important Things To Know About Baby Chicks


About the Author

Duncan Carver is the author of the free Chicken Keeping Secrets newsletter that teaches you how to keep happy, healthy, egg laying chickens in your own backyard chicken coop or hen house. If you are interested in keeping chickens at home subscribe free at... http://www.chickenkeepingsecrets.com


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Different Breeds of Chickens You Can Keep at Home

There are many different types and breeds of chickens (over 60 in fact). And you would certainly want to research the breed of dog you plan on buying before you actually go out and buy it, right?

You wouldn't want a dog breed that generally doesn't like children if you have children, or a breed that's aggressive towards other dogs or animals if you already have a dog. This is just as important when you are buying chickens.

Please don't miss understand what I am trying to say, generally chickens are great pets and are very sociable animals, but there are certain breeds that have specific purposes such as producing more eggs, or offer you more meat and many have different behavioral tendencies.

This isn't to say that they won't make for a great pet in your backyard.

As you learn more about the various chicken breeds you will find that some will produce more eggs, lay certain color eggs, some will be more suitable for your backyard and have very specific personalities. What will need to be determined is which breed will best suit your lifestyle.

Choosing the right breed of chicken will depend on what you want to get out of raising chickens. So you will need to ask yourself some questions when trying to determine which chicken breed will suit your needs or lifestyle the best.

Let's take a look at some of the different chicken breeds.

The Brahma Chicken is originally from India, and is a great bird for meat. This breed is also a great pet because they can handle confinement and also have a great playful personality. Some people keep Brahmas for their eggs too.

The Australorp Chicken are one of the best breeds for pets. They are sweet, peaceful, shy, calm and very friendly. These amazing birds are from Australia and grow to be between 7lbs and 8lbs, producing large brown eggs.

The New Hampshire Red Hen is a new breed that is known as a meat producer. But there are people who have them as pets also. Their personality varies depending on the individual chicken, so this breed is not going to be the best breed to select if you have small children.

These are just a few of the many different breeds that are available for you to raise for whatever purpose you want them for. The best way to uncover which chicken breed will best suit your needs is first by determining what you expect out of your chicken raising experience.

Do you want to use them for producing eggs, meat (both) or just keep for a pet?

You can use one of the breed finding tools that are available to you for free online. It will give you a list of the breeds that will best suit what you are looking for by simply answering a series of questions.

It's also important that once you find the breed that you think you want, that you do a little bit of research in order to learn more about them. You will want to learn if there are any special requirements or certain diseases that might affect that specific breed over others.

Take your time doing your research and it will most certainly pay off in the end. There are some beautiful birds out there that will make for a great pet.

BlueWaterArticles.com: - Different Breeds of Chickens You Can Keep at Home


About the Author

Duncan Carver is the author of the free Chicken Keeping Secrets newsletter that teaches you how to keep happy, healthy, egg laying chickens in your own backyard chicken coop or hen house. If you are interested in keeping chickens at home subscribe free at... http://www.chickenkeepingsecrets.com


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What Everybody Ought to Know About Portable Chicken Coop Plans

There is nothing better than waking up each morning knowing that you have a fresh bunch of eggs to harvest. This is the importance of a good chicken coop plan. It improves the health and fitness of the chickens so that they can produce bigger quantities of eggs.
But what if you do not have much land area? How can you implement a chicken coop plan with such a limit?

We all know that good chicken coop plans require a certain space and most are usually built fixed on location. This is not applicable to people who have small land areas, some settle for inappropriate chicken coop plans, because of this they are not able to maximize the egg-laying potential of their chickens.
If you are looking for a solution to this problem, you may want to consider implementing a portable chicken coop plan.

Portable chicken coop plans are ideal for those who would like to raise a small chicken flock and those who do not have large spaces. It is highly recommended for those who are just starting up with minimal budget. Here are some reasons why a portable chicken coop plans work

Portable Chicken Coop Plans are more convenient

Portable chicken coop plans offer more convenience because they can be easily erected and disassembled with ease. It is light and does not require to be fastened so you can easily move it one place to another. Unlike when having permanent coops, you can easily transfer the entire construction when you find a more suitable location. This is very convenient especially if you need to frequently relocate your chicken coop.

Having portable chicken coops also reduces your work because it can be easily removed when performing maintenance. Portable chicken coops are flexible and will suit any yard.

Portable chicken coops can provide better protection
Because it is portable and lightweight, it can be easily moved from place to place depending on what the situation calls for. You can prevent nighttime predators from attacking your chickens by moving the coops to a safer location. There are a lot of losses reported due to snake and coyote attacks. Portable chicken coop plans can also protect your fowl from extreme bad weather conditions and certain calamities like storms, flood, etc. When these threats appear you can transfer your chicken coops to an area with better protection such as sheds or garage.

Protecting your fowl from danger and sickness is important if you want them to produce better outputs.
Portable chicken coops allow easy cleaning

Unlike the conventional chicken coops, portable chicken coops are very much easier to maintain and clean. Standard coops are fixed; this makes them harder to clean and may cause you to miss some spots. With portable chicken coops, if you need to clean an area, you can simply move it into a different location so that you can clean without much obstruction. Cleaning the coop itself is a breeze because it is compact and lightweight.

Deciding on what chicken coop plan to take depends on your needs. Portable chicken coops are advantageous on many ways, but they also have their limitations. Portable chicken coops can only give room to a very limited number of fowl. If you would like to enlarge your coop you will need to buy a bigger one. But then portable chicken coops are really worth the dollar especially if you are still starting up with a small number of chickens. It is a lot cheaper than the premium sized ones.

In choosing the perfect chicken coop plan, you have to consider what suits your needs best.

Author Resource:- Discover How to Build A Chicken Coop In Your Own Backyard Faster And Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible... You can find the plan at http://chickencoopplan.org
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The Most Amazing Mobile Chicken Coops

If you live in an area where a permanent chicken coop is not suitable, you can innovate by creating a mobile chicken coop. A mobile chicken coup plan is really a good way to create chicken houses that are versatile. With this, you can move your chicken coops wherever you want, whenever you want!

This feature of this chicken coop plan is very useful especially in situations when outside threats are posed upon your chickens. An example of this are bad weather conditions like excessive raining which eventually leads to flooding. If you have implemented a mobile chicken coop plan, you can easily transport the structure to a safer place.

If you have decided to follow a mobile chicken coop plan, there are additional factors you need to consider. Unlike the regular chicken coop, the mobile chicken houses are more likely to be moved from place to place so it has to be durable and lightweight at the same time. If not properly built, the chicken coop may crumble resulting to larger expenses due to repairs.

Prevent this and build sturdy and light mobile chicken coops by keeping these ideas in mind:

Make sure to use the right materials

Materials should be a primary concern, since it is a mobile chicken coop there is a “transportation factor”. This means that materials that are heavy and unreliable are impractical to be used.

You should use materials that are lightweight yet durable. Avoid the mistake of buying cheap lightweight materials that do possess enough strength to support the structure/chickens. If the quality of materials is compromised, the whole thing may fall apart in a short amount of time. This will cause you more troubles and money in rebuilding the chicken coop.

Research on what are the best materials for a mobile chicken coop. Make sure that your chicken coop plan utilizes materials that will not cause harm to your chickens. Investing in high grade materials is strongly recommended, they may be a bit more expensive but it will surely pay out in the future. Make sure that you have the proper tools to deal with the materials.

Attach or create a Closure Latch for the doors

Most mobile chicken coop plans require a closure latch. This is to secure the door while in transport. You don’t want the door swinging open while you are moving the chicken coop, this can lead to problems, accidents and the risk of it being damaged.
Search for a good chicken coop plan that includes detailed instructions about attaching a latch. With this you can be sure that it will be secure enough to withstand abuses. If you already bought one and it doesn’t have this set of instructions you can buy a new one or better yet, you can improvise with the design.

The Size of the Building

The third thing you should be concerned about is the size of the chicken coop itself. If you build an oversized chicken coop you will have a larger risk of it falling apart during transport. In addition to that, building a chicken coop that is excessively large will require more resources. Instead of making a big one, you can resort into making several medium sized ones.

The chicken coop plan should have a specific description on how much area the building will occupy. You should be also able to determine on how long it will take for the whole project to complete.

Be sure that your chickens will have sufficient room in the chicken coop. Studies show that a chicken that is raised in an overcrowded chicken coop is less healthy than the ones raised in a roomy environment.

Author Resource:- Discover how to build a chicken coop in your own backyard using a simple, easy chicken coop plan that’s proven to be faster and easier to build than you ever thought possible. You can find the plan at http://chickencoopplan.org
Article From New Ezine Articles
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