We have set the date for our 2nd Annual Brazos Valley Pulletpalooza! Mark your calendars for December 4, 2011, from 2-5 pm, for a tour of chicken coops of Bryan/College Station!
This year, we hope to attract more families to participate. We had over 30 visitors last time, many of whom expressed interest in building a coop of their own.
If you are in the B/CS area and interested in starting your own flock, please peruse the following helpful "getting started" information. Contact the city code office, or email the folks at Big Myrtle's place for more information. We'll be glad to help you get started!
Legality
Most communities in the U.S. allow some variation of “yarded” chickens (coop with an attached ‘run’); some allow free-ranging. Virtually all incorporated areas disallow roosters.
Check with your local government about rules and regulations in your area.
College Station allows hens in an enclosure which is no closer than 100’ from the nearest inhabited building (not counting the home of the owner of the poultry enclosure). Rates for annual permits in College Station are set by the City Council; check with the Code Enforcement office for more information. The City of Bryan allows hens in an enclosure no closer than 50’ from the nearest inhabited building.
Recommended Breeds
There are a variety of breeds which do well in the Brazos Valley. Each has its own unique character, and which you wish to raise will depend on personal preference as much as it will on practical considerations. Following are some common breeds (not anywhere close to a complete list):
Leghorn – the most common breed in commercial egg production. Most are white, though there are also black-tailed red, light brown, dark brown, black, blue, buff, etc. Larger than bantams, but smaller than most other breeds. Extremely noisy and not usually recommended for backyards, unless you have a lot of space between you and your neighbors. White eggs.
Ameraucana – either large or bantam; poultry shows recognize blue, black, blue wheaten, brown red, buff, silver, wheaten and white varieties. Prized by many backyard growers for their bluish-green eggs. “Easter Eggers” are a variety of chickens of indeterminate breed who have the blue-green egg gene, and were probable ancestors of the Ameraucana, though they are not technically part of this – or frequently any – specific breed.
Barred Rock – large, long-lived breed of Plymouth Rock chicken bred for both meat and eggs. Though many backyarders swear by the aesthetics of the Barred Rock hen, this breed was principally created for utility; the ancestral Dominiques, and then the Barred Rocks after them, were ubiquitous pioneer chickens, with more tolerance to cold than bantams, and more than usual tolerance to hot, dry summers for birds of their size. Big pink-brown eggs.
Rhode Island Red – another ‘utility’ chicken, the state bird of Rhode Island is a friendly bird often depicted in children’s stories about chickens (e.g. “The Little Red Hen”). Many modern hybrid hens have Rhode Island Red fathers, due to the prolific egg laying characteristics of Rhode Island Reds, which is passed down from the male line. Eggs can be white, brown, or occasionally green, depending on ancestry.
How to House Your Birds
See other reference materials for how to care for baby chicks; once they have become old enough to thrive without a constant source of heat, and you are ready to put them outside, you will need a permanent structure to house your chickens.
Coop
Bryan and College Station have very specific requirements regarding housing poultry. There are numerous commercially available alternatives which do not meet these requirements. ‘Eglu’ or other mobile coops found on the internet or in pricier pet supply stores are insufficient, as are ‘chicken tractors’.
A better alternative, which will meet the legal requirements for poultry raising in our communities, is to build a permanent coop with a ‘run’.
Organic and health food stores rave on ‘free range’ poultry, and they are correct in doing so. The healthiest eggs come from chickens who are allowed to roam free, feasting on insects, grubs, and weeds. Sadly, this is not legal within city limits.
However, a sufficiently roomy ‘run’ around your nesting boxes will allow you to simulate the benefits of free ranging. In fact, many governments around the world have begun to recognize some variation of ‘cage-free’ or ‘barn raised’ poultry, with definitions as seemingly unrestrictive as providing as little as one-half yard squared ( ½ yd2) for each bird. For a small backyard flock, a reasonable enclosure of roughly 10’ by 10’ for around 8-10 birds would give a ratio of anywhere from 1 through 1.3 square yards per bird, well over the requirements for commercial growers. In essence, your cage can be large enough to qualify as ‘cage free’.
Laying Boxes
Ideally, you will want at least one laying box for every two birds. This is not a hard-and-fast rule, but it does reduce conflict in the coop, and provides maximum comfort for the birds, and ease of egg collection.
Boxes should be sturdy enough to hold the weight of several birds at one time, should have a ‘lip’ on each side to prevent eggs from rolling out, and should be shaded or dark. Traditionally, laying boxes are in an enclosure (‘Coop’) with a ‘run’ around the enclosure – this means you essentially have a cage with a building inside of it.
The boxes should be filled with a soft natural material – hay or leaves are easiest, though anything your birds feel okay about laying their eggs in is perfectly fine.
Run
Your birds should have sufficient area outside the laying box enclosure to scratch all day long without being overcrowded. They will require clearly differentiated areas for the three big chicken activities: eating and drinking, laying eggs, and sleeping. Laying eggs takes place in the laying boxes; eating and drinking take place in the run. You will need a roost either above the run, or above the laying boxes. A truly creative configuration will find a way to segue between these three areas smoothly in a minimum of space – feel free to go ‘vertical’, but remember that not all chicken breeds are alike. Some are comfortable with a roost as much as 10-12 feet up in the air; others have difficulty getting even three feet off the ground.
Bedding
For poultry, ‘bedding’ is a bit of a misnomer, since they do not actually sleep in it. The traditional barnyard picture is of chickens scratching in the dirt, and they do enjoy this activity, but for a more natural approach, backyarders would do well to remember that the chicken is originally descended from a forest creature.
As such, the best possible litter for your chicken coop is a deep layer of leaves.
Deep bedding your coop with leaves has numerous advantages:
Chickens are very comfortable with scratching in leaves for bugs and grubs, which are more plentiful when they have leaf litter in which to hide. (There’s irony for you – the bugs think they are ‘safe’… just how you want them to feel!) New leaf day is the most exciting day of the month for backyard chickens.
Deep leaves virtually eliminate the odor of chicken manure. We have not found any studies explaining why this is so, but from four years of personal experience, we can confirm that this is true – as chicken poop breaks down in a deep pile of leaves, it does not smell noticeably. This is very definitely not true of chicken poop decaying on practically any other surface.
Roughly two to three months after being placed in a chicken coop, a pile of leaves will have been reduced to some of the richest compost available to any gardener anywhere. The chickens, in addition to adding nutrient-rich poop to the compost mixture, turn the compost for you. As they scratch and hunt for bugs, they are also turning the mixture.
Properly maintained, deep leaves regulate the temperature in the coop. A loose pile of leaves, being less dense than the surrounding soil, and pocketed with plenty of air, is less heat-intensive in summer; wetted down and allowed to decompose in winter, the leaf mixture ‘cooks’ so that it is warmer than the surrounding soil during the cold months.
A deep bedded chicken coop only has to be mucked out once every other month or so. Droppings on ladders, stoops, etc., will have to be washed off more regularly, but a deep-cleaning won’t be required because there is no intense smell, and the coop will not be as attractive to flies or other pests.
Deep leaves mitigate any potential problems with runoff from the coop – any water flowing into the coop is far less likely to run off into surrounding areas such as your neighbor’s yards or into storm sewers, etc.
What to Feed your Chickens
Chickens are essentially omnivorous. In order to qualify as ‘organic’ eggs must come from chickens who have been fed exclusively with certified organic feeds; these can prove difficult to find – at present, we are unaware of any organic certified feed stores in the Brazos Valley.
However, the health benefits from well-fed chickens may be realized even without getting the organic certification. Some considerations:
Numerous studies indicate that cholesterol is lower and in some cases Omega-3 content is higher in chickens who have been allowed to eat plenty of greens and insects. It is definitely known that Omega-3 content in animals is entirely dependent upon that animal’s diet, so chickens fed on greens, olives, and fish will naturally have healthier eggs than will chickens fed on factory-farm gruel.
Chickens love weeds from your yard. It is a bad idea to use pesticides and herbicides in your yard anyway, but if you have backyard chickens, you can replace the use of lawn chemicals entirely and increase your animals’ and (by extension) your own health by feeding your chickens on weeds and bugs.
Chickens will eat virtually any table scraps. They are not always fond of citrus products (though we have known exceptions!), but they will eat everything from Asparagus to Zucchini. Chickens will also eat meat – this does include chicken and other poultry, but we caution against allowing your chickens to engage in cannibalism. Little hard data exists for cannibalistic poultry, but there is strong reason to suspect the incidence of prion disease in any species which is allowed to consume others of its own kind.
Feed should be contained and generally kept off the ground. It is okay to pour feed on the ground, but generally speaking it is a good idea to monitor how much the birds consume, and only put out as much at one time as they are likely to eat. Mice, opossum, and other scavengers will visit your coop looking for free handouts if too much food is lying around.
