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Welcome to Around the Homestead podcast, where we share information on topics from gardens to get our aim is to provide small

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farmers and landowners valuable education on projects that may arise around the homestead.

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Whether you have been on the homestead all your life or you have just began the farm lifestyle.

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We hope you garner helpful tips to make your life so most rewarding.

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Now here are host Brad McGinley and Shaun Rhoades. Well, hello and welcome to the Around the Homestead podcast co-host Brad McGinley.

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I've got my counterpart, Shaun Rhodes, over in Stark County here today.

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And this is the first in a two part series that we'll be talking about, backyard poultry.

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I'm excited about this topic. We've got a special guest for us to hear today and John and get everybody over there.

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And Scott County doing backyard poultry. Oh, we've had people doing backyard poultry over here since there was people over here.

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Oh, yeah, that's true. That's true. Well, it's really grown in popularity in the last few years.

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And we've got a really excited about our guests. We have today with us today we have a doctor.

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Dustin Clark is our extension poultry veterinarian with us today.

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And Dr Clark, we're certainly glad that you've joined us for the day.

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Well, thank you. I'm glad to be here. Well, good deal.

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Well, let's get right into it today when we talk and like you said, about backyard poultry and some issues that go along with that.

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And and Dr Clark, like I said earlier, you know,

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backyard poultry or having chickens in your backyard is really become popular in the last couple of years.

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That is true,

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what we've seen from a veterinary standpoint is that more and more veterinarians are getting interested in the treatment of backyard hobby flocks.

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Some of this has been driven by the FDA ruling.

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Were that drugs that used to be available without a prescription that you could buy at the feed store, those are no longer available.

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So if you have birds that are ill in any stretch of the imagination there,

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you have to take them in to have them looked at by practicing veterinarian so they can get some treatment.

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But we have seen this about the last twenty, twenty five years.

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It has been increasing in popularity the hobby of keeping small flocks and especially true with this pandemic.

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I mean, that's just been a phenomenal boost to keeping of small flocks.

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More and more people are wanting to have a few chickens in their backyard. Yeah, it certainly has become really popular.

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And to me, I guess the first thing that I always, if we get questions and Shaun, chime in here.

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As for county extension agents, you know, sometimes we get questions about people that come in.

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They want to start a backyard hobby flock or just have a few birds.

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And one of the first questions they always ask is what kind of facility do I need?

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How much space do I need for for my birds?

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And so what would be a good recommendation on equipment, facilities, space requirements for somebody is going to start a backyard flock.

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Well, one of the main things you need is a way to keep the birds secure.

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Now, there are all kinds of facilities out there.

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There's books about how to build facilities. There's all kinds of things on the Internet with You Tube and all kinds of videos, books in the library.

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You can purchase all kinds of books with plans for building chicken coops.

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The main thing is that you're going to have to decide how many birds that you want.

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What type of bird you're going to have as far as if you want smaller birds like, say, bantams,

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those have a little different space requirement than the larger the adult, the standardbred,

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if you want to have something like pheasants or if you want to have turkeys or ducks,

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so you can have to decide on what type of poultry that you want to have and then you want to build the facility accordingly.

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The main thing on the facility is to keep those birds protected. Keeping them penned up will protect them from predators.

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Now, many individuals will have a pen and they will let those birds out during the day and then pick them back up at night.

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And they're really fairly easy to train to do that with just a little chicken scratch.

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You can get them easily to go back in that pen and lock them up.

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But you want to be secure because everything out there, we've got hawks, we've got owls, we've got coyotes, fox,

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all kinds of things in rural areas and even just the neighborhood,

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your neighbor's dog or even possibly your own dog or cat that will get in there to get those birds.

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Baby chicks are very vulnerable to things like snakes. And then we have eggs.

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Snakes will get an egg. So you've got to have a way to keep all those things out.

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I would always recommend that when you build a facility, you build it tall enough so that you can walk into it.

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I think that's critical because a lot of these that you see for sale at these farm and ranch places and feed stores,

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I mean, they're like four feet tall and that's OK if you want to duck, waddle in there, but it gets rough on you.

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I just knew that when you walk into hit your head on a 2x4 while trying to get in there, that's always fun.

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That's right. You want to have something where you can just you can just walk upright and get in there and look around.

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Layers. If you're going to have to have a place where they can lay eggs, a secure spot for that.

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You want to keep that uhm, put your hand where you can stay basically high and dry so you can keep it dry.

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If it's downward, we get a lot of water build up in it and we have some concerns with certain diseases and

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some other prevalences in there don't have mold and mildew and things like in there.

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A lot of people like to build them out of some of this rough cut cedar and that works really good.

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But you've still got to have some ventilation. If you're going to set up a facility for brooding and you use rough cut cedar,

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that cedar oil is going to come out of there when you heat that up and it's

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going to be an irritant to those birds and to yourself when you walk in there.

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But I would recommend that you look, there's all kinds of fancy ones,

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I think Neiman Marcus sells a chicken house for about one hundred and ten thousand dollars that you can buy for a backyard small flock.

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Consider what type of poultry you're going to get. Consider how many you're going to get and what you're going to use this facility for.

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And then I would look at various plans and decide how you want to just go from there.

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We talk about these chicken tractors that you can move around. You've got to be able to move them and lift them.

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I know we had one built one time for a flower and garden

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show Built out of 2x6's. It was almost impossible to try to move that in, -- you needed a tractor to move that didn't yah?--yeah, he needed the locomotive.

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Yeah, but yeah, you got to you got to look into all those things and then you're going to need some type of substrate on there.

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Some people build them for that. They're a permanent facility built on that concrete ledge.

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You'll need some type of substrate like gravel or better yet, you can have a wood shavings over sand.

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So those are all kinds of considerations you want to look at. Yeah. In the end, of course,

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there are all kinds of regulations that may be present in the town as far as

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building a facility that you need to look into on that as well before you start.

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Sure. And every town and city has different ordinances.

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I know I get questions. Shaun, you may get questions as well from people about can I have birds in town?

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And, you know, I just I usually direct those to the city mayor's office so they can answer those questions.

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So if what about space requirements? If you're going to have, you know,

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let's say is there a certain amount of square footage per bird that people need to think about as they're thinking about their facilities there?

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There is. In fact, there some charts I've got?

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I don't have the numbers here handy right now, but I do. I can get those now what you need.

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There's an old rule of thumb that everyone says figure twice the wind space.

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If the bird's got its wings extended in roughly twice that space,

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but there are space requirements that you figure for an outdoor area as well as an indoor area,

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and then the type of bird that you're going to have, bantams versus egg layers versus heavy breeds, meat breeds dual purpose.

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So there are some specifics. The extension service that we've got, those I know published in something, I just have to to look that up.

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They may be in the backyard hobby or the backyard poultry course.

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I think we cover that in there. Originally, this was put together by a group either in West Virginia or in Virginia.

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I'd have to just look to be specific on that. But I can't get those requirements for you.

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Sure, sure. What about so let's say we've got a facility where we're getting set up.

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What's the advantage or disadvantage cost versus, you know, maybe buying an adult birds versus buying chicks?

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And where do you purchase them at? And how long does it take to if we're buying chicks?

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How long does it take to get into production? All those kinds of things that we need to think about?

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Well, I'll tell you what. When you start thinking about that, you will find that there are some regulations when you go to purchase the bird's

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most cities have a regulation that says you can have so many adult birds.

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Typically, they don't want you to have a rooster because of crowing when you go to buy

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baby chicks and say like one of the farm and ranch stores and the feed store,

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you'll find there's an Arkansas law that says you have to buy six as baby chicks.

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You know, if your city requires that you can only have four. I'm pretty sure I broke the law before then and you buy six.

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That creates some problems with it. But it is always best, in my opinion.

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It is best to buy baby chicks. And you want to pick out what breed you want to get, get those birds and then keep them isolated.

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Now, baby chicks have naturally they're only just a few days old, less chance for certain diseases to bring them in.

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Whereas when you bring in an adult bird, there's always that possibility it could be a carrier of something.

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And there are some tests that can be utilized to test for certain diseases.

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But we don't have a test for all the diseases. So you've got to decide how you how you want to get into this.

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Now, many people buy adult birds and do just fine.

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I am a firm believer that you want to have a closed flock as soon as you can be the same thing with a closed herd,

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if you're using cattle or swine or anything like that, have those animals buy what you want and then don't add to it.

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Because you can always add problems if you get baby chicks, depending on the time of the year,

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you're probably looking at at least 16 to 20 weeks before they start laying eggs.

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And there's going to be some variance there. If you buy birds, like right now, they are baby chicks.

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They're probably not going to be laying any eggs for you if they're under this natural daylight until about end of March, first part of April.

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So you've got quite a few months. You got to wait. You buy adult birds, they will most likely stop laying eggs,

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they may lay for a day or two and then stop just due to the stress of moving them, but then they should start back within just a few weeks.

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Adult birds are always the greatest risk, but you want to buy from a reputable source.

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There are lots of online mail order type hatcheries. The Postal Service will deliver them.

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You can pick them up right at the Postal Service area at the states, the postal center there and bringing a box of chicks.

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Various hatcheries will sell numbers. Some of them sell only say a minimum of twenty five others.

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You can get a fewer than at, say, five or six. You can always go to places like feed stores, farm and ranch stores and buy chicks there.

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Those chicks are usually kept pretty secure. You'll notice most places now that they will not allow you to touch them or allow anyone to touch them.

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They'll get them out there for you. So. So that is a help.

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If you go out to places like flea markets and auctions and on the side of the road and all those kinds of places,

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just remember caveat emptor or buyer beware because you never know what's going to be sold there.

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So one thing I recommend is that if a person wants to get adult birds or even if they just if they don't want

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to buy adult birds just for their own sake of their own birds learn to recognize the symptoms of disease.

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What are they doing? Has this bird look for things if you're going out looking at birds or are they coughing or sneezing, you know,

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they got eye discharge, nasal discharge or what's the feather condition look like those are things considered.

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Basically give that bird a physical exam. If you buy an adult bird or if you are exhibiting birds and bringing them back home,

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always have an area where you can isolate them from your regular flock. That should be at least a hundred feet away from your regular flock.

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Farther is better. The farthest away you can get it, the better off you are and then isolate them for at least 30 days.

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Most diseases will break in about a three week period,

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so you want to isolate at least one hundred feet away for 30 days and you feed and water and look at

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those birds first and then go in the house and change clothes before you go visit your own flock.

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If you buy adult birds and a lot of people do, exhibition birds will buy like a trio or a pair, you know, just just look them over really good.

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Look for look for something that that's an abnormality, some some sort of problem.

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Now, most people that are doing exhibitions in these poultry shows, they're going to show their best birds.

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And so you're not going to see a lot of these problems, flea markets, auctions, places like that.

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You never know what they're trying to sell.

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I mean, they may have just bought these birds from some other flea market two or three days before, and they're trying to sell it.

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So you've really got to beware of what you buy. The safest method is to buy baby chicks and grow them up from there.

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Of course, the problem with that is in many instances you may if you buy twenty five baby chicks, you could have twenty four roosters.

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Yeah, I have a story about that one time I thought I was going to have some baby chicks left over from a project we were doing here,

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and I was going to bring a few chicks home from that. From from work and turns out I was short instead of had too many,

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so I'd already promised my kids that I would give them some baby chicks, you know, well, trying to be a good dad.

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They were pretty disappointed that I didn't get to bring my chicks home.

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We went down to the farm store and I let them pick out two birds apiece at that time, had three kids, so they picked out two birds apiece.

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So that was six birds. Turns out we picked out five roosters in one hen.

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And that's a common thing. That's right. So that's that's something to also think about.

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You know, you talked about mail order. You might talk a little bit about the difference.

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You know, when somebody orders straight run, chicks may be different, maybe a little cheaper to get straight run.

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But in the long run, you might be buying more roosters than you are hens. It averages out 50 50.

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Exactly. But you might be on that part that gets out of 100 birds.

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You got ninety nine roosters. Exactly mean ninety nine hens.

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You know, when you look at that Brad you need to be prepared to eat half the ones you order.

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And that's something to consider when you, when you order birds. You know what, why are you getting these birds? now.

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There's a lot of reasons to have your own small flock. Some people will have them to raise up for meat.

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Others want them for the eggs. Others dual purpose for both meat and eggs.

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You may have exhibition birds and you're trying to get good genetic stock and develop those up.

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So you kind of have to have a plan as to what is your end goal here getting these birds.

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Now, there are lots of breeds of chickens out there. You can pretty much get any color or kind that you want.

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You're not going to find very many solid green chickens, OK, but you got a pretty good range of various colors.

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You can have green eggs, though. You can have green eggs. You sure can. Purchase them from a reputable source.

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If you're going to get into exhibition birds,

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then definitely I would consider investing the money to buy from some of these exhibitors that are proven winners.

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They've got good stock and they especially for little kids, they're usually nearly any exhibitor that's been in it for a number of years,

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wants to help someone else get into it and little kids and they'll give them a break.

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Now, they're not going to sell you their grand champion stock,

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but they'll say some good stock. Buying them from the hatcheries that we have that are mail order.

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You can get some good quality birds there. There'll always be some that grow up to not quite exactly look like maybe what the picture looks like.

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But that's just you would see that anyway.

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You can ask them to sex the birds, vent sex them so that you can order more pullets and males, they do cost more.

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There are some breeds that there are color markings on them and hatch where you can pick them out.

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You know, you get so many hens, so many males. One thing that I recommend if you buy these day-pld chicks from hatchery is do get them vaccinated.

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I would make sure they're vaccinated against Merrick's disease. That's one of the few things that they can vaccinate for at that hatchery.

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And it will help you in the long run. We don't want that in there.

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But the thing to remember is if you're going to get these birds for eggs,

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the time of the year has a lot to do with when you're going to get production and how much production you get.

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Even now as we're going into shorter day lengths, if you've got a flock of hens that are laying eggs for you, you're going to have to supplement.

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They're going to need about fifteen, fifteen and a half hours of daylight every day to stay in production.

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So you're going to have to start supplementing. If you already haven't done that now, they will still produce eggs without supplementation of light.

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But it's going to be you might get an egg today and one, two or three days later.

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Now, some breeds have been selected where they're better at producing eggs in the wintertime and others.

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But eventually they they they're going to stop laying eggs as they reach a certain age, their their production is going to start tailing off.

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But a chicken, that's another thing to think about. And what you're going to get, you know, they can go 10, 12, 15 years.

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They may not like many eggs, but, you know, they can they can be great pets and you'll you'll have them for a number of years.

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That is a good question. So what is the normal?

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You know, production age for just I know it varies from breed to breed, but, you know, just a standard layer layer breed.

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What can somebody kind of expect to get? Usually somewhere around 20 to twenty four weeks of age?

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They should start into production. Some will be a little before that.

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So you figure roughly figure about six months, just as a rule of thumb.

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And then how long will they how long will they stay in production?

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How many years should we expect? Oh, you can have some good production on those birds for at least two or three years before you see much decline.

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And with that said, it takes twenty five hours for an egg to be produced.

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So they're not going to produce an egg every day.

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I mean, they will for a period of time, but eventually that clock's got to rewind because it's a 24 hour day.

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And so they may skip a day or two. Now, in many of what we call heritage breeds or pure breeds-- a lot of times.

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They will just lay a clutch of eggs they haven't been selected for, like the commercial birds to lay large numbers of it.

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I got it. So they'll lay a clutch of eggs of, say, maybe eighteen to thirty six eggs just roughly, and the hen will get broody,

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which means she wants to sit on those eggs and incubate them so she'll quit producing eggs and she'll want to incubate those eggs.

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Now if you remove the eggs from the nest, that does help as far as them not getting broody, but eventually they're going to get broody,

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want to incubate those eggs that the breeds of birds that have been selected for egg production.

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They're not as apt to get broody.

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They're geared, we've selected them over the years for egg production, but most others, you know, they'll want to know what I know.

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And I'll put a plug in here for our 4-H poultry project. You know, we we do.

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If you have a child that is in 4-H age five to 19, we do have a great 4-H poultry chain project.

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We would encourage you to talk to your extension agent about that. Plus.

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Some of those birds will be for sale there, commercial brown egg layers, great, great layers,

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and some of those birds will be for sale and probably at your county fairs this fall.

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So might be a good way to kind of get it started. If you're looking for that kind of bird, get some good birds and they are egg laying machines.

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Yeah, I mean, they will produce lots of it. Yeah. They they typically lay I know from personal experience, you know, without much supplemental light,

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they'll, you know, they'll continue to lay, you know, so and just as a side.

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So I know I've experienced this Dr. Clark,

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if you've got a bird that's kind of getting a little broody or a hen that's kind of getting a little broody.

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Is there anything that you can do to kind of help prevent, not prevent that, but to solve that issue with her, to get them unbroody?

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Well, I tell you this. When I was a kid, my dad and I, we had exhibition birds.

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And when we'd have hen that would get broody,

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we would just throw her into a pen with about six or eight young roosters that usually didn't it didn't take long and usually not broody anymore.

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But you would have to take them out where there's no nest box,

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keep that out of there and then put them in an area where they've got good feed and water and they will or,

223
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it may take a week or so, but they'll get un broody. But with that said, some hens we see this, for example, with the silky breed of chicken.

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You know, they'll incubate a nest of rocks. I mean, this they just kind of stay broody.

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And a lot of people that have some of the specific breeds will use like Silkies to incubate,

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hatch their hatch their eggs because they are good mothers.

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Yeah, I still think I got scars on my hands yesterday from getting from getting eggs out of our bani pen.

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They get pretty aggressive. Only males try to get them eggs out of there.

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Yeah, they're feisty little birds. Aren't they? They are. Oh, now we talk about eggs.

230
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One thing to consider on getting into this.

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What is your what is your goal? If you've got a family of four and you want to have enough eggs for them, you don't need 60 hens.

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I mean, if you really have to think about that figure, an egg a day, if you've got six or eight hens,

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you're going to have more than enough eggs for a family of four, you know, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, boiled eggs.

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How many cakes can you cook? Yeah, you better find a source to market them.

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Uh, Dr. Clark, before we leave that, especially talking about the the breeds are you know,

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I guess one thing too on own goals is if you really want eggs out of a few number of birds,

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is it the hybrid type commercial egg layer is your best choice?

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Probably instead of a pure breed. Yes, it is.

239
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You want specifically get those birds now there you can get a heritage breed that is an egg type breed.

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And those have all been selected over the generations to produce eggs.

241
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But one of the better ones in that would be some. They're like the Leganes now.

242
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You know, everybody, when you think of Leganes and think of white leganes.  There are other colors that you can get and you can get at Rhode Island

243
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Reds are good for brown eggs. You know, there's a there's a selection there of what you can get.

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But, yeah, those that we use to see the commercial industry typically uses leganes type birds for egg production so that that class of birds,

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that group.

246
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Those will give you a egg production, you know, big heavy breeds like the Cornish, they'll still lay eggs, but you just don't get near as many.

247
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So you want to get some of those some of those breeds that have been selected that we categorize as egg type breeds.

248
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They'll give you the best number of eggs. And many of the hatcheries will sell, well they'll do like, for example, a frying pan special,

249
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which is baby chicks of breeds that are going to get heavy enough, easy enough to eat,

250
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they'll also do an egg production package and you may get twenty five birds.

251
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There may be three or four of several different kinds, and they'll still produce eggs for you, but a good number of eggs.

252
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So that's something you want to look into.

253
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Yeah, what always goes wow, I always go back to that is because as Brad mentioned, our 4-H chickens, they're just a hybrid layer, aren't they?

254
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Yes, they are. A lot of hatcheries sell them under different names, but they're not a true breed.

255
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A lot of people want to think they're a true breed, but they're really not. Yeah, they're not.

256
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They've been selected and hybridized. Some of them are like the red stars and comets and Bovon Browns and production browns,

257
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and they're all egg type birds that have had that have been hybridized over the years.

258
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Multiple breeds can go into that. Yeah, they are.

259
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They are very good at what they do, though. They do.

260
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Now, if you really, really want eggs, some of the duck breeds do a little better than than the chickens for producing eggs.

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like uhm, khaki cambells, for example, do real well. Now, I notice a lot of people at farmers markets duck eggs sell quickly.

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There are some rules that have to be followed on selling eggs, even like when we have,

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like, you know, roadside stands and yard eggs and things like that. Livestock and Poultry Commission has got those rules.

264
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The county agent can usually get those for you. Typically, it has to do with refrigerating eggs and an inspection.

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There is a clause in there. I think if you have less than one hundred and ninety nine --hundred ninety nine hands or less,

266
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I believe it is, and then there's not--you don't have to have them inspected and those eggs graded.

267
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So you sell them is ungraded eggs. But there's still still some rules in there about refrigeration.

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You can't just use the egg carton that you bought eggs in and put them in. You got to mark out all the identifying characteristics on it.

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But Ducks' like, say, Kalki Campbell's the Indian runner ducks.

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They lay lots of eggs too. They're egg laying machines, too.

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And then we talk about the quail, the Pharoh quail, Japanese quail, whatever you want to call them, their egg laying machines.

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They lay an egg every day. They've got to have about 12 hours of light or better to do it.

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And they eat lots of food and waste twice as much as they need.

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So what are the size of the eggs on some of those breeds: ducks and quails and things like that?

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Well, ducks are going to be a good size egg, a little bigger than a normal chicken egg, those quail, their eggs or specialty.

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And they're about a third to quarter of the size of a chicken egg, a bantam, which is a miniature variety of most standard breeds.

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It's a smaller egg. And a lot of people like that, you know, they they talk about them being less cholesterol.

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Well, that's because it's a smaller egg. It's not because it has to do with the breed.

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It's just the smaller egg. As you mentioned, they're quite feisty.

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They don't like to give up those eggs very well. You know, I know that. I don't like to give them up.

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I don't even like you to reach in there and feed them about half the time. I don't think.

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But they can it's kind of you know, there's a lot of exploration that an individual can do before they get into a small flock.

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You know, with that said, you know, a hen likes to lay those eggs in a subdued light area where it's darker.

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There's always the risk of a snake being in there. Something to think about.

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That's why you want to keep keep your feed when that you feed him.

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And I know we have a set here to talk about some feed,

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but keep all your feed in a secure container so we don't get rodents because if you have rodents,

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you going to have snakes and they'll eat the eggs and you sure don't want to reach that nest to gather

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Eggs and it's all scaly. I have I've I've personally experienced that.

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I've gone out there, you know, we got home late after a ball game.

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You go out there, check, check eggs, and you take that flashlight, you shine in there and there's a snake curled up in that nest.

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It'll make you think twice about reaching in there again without a light. I promise you.

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Absolutely. I know I mentioned feeding him.

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It's hard to be a good commercial feed. Many individuals want to make their own feed.

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But you really, unless you're making a large amount of it, like a couple of tons

296
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it's really, really hard to be just going to the feed store and getting a good poultry diet.

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And that's not just chicken scratch. That's a good treat for them. But we have most birds are put on a on a starter, a chick starter.

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They stay on that for a number of weeks and they change to a grower.

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And then for those birds that we're having for production, they go to a maintenance diet.

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There's a little difference in the protein level there. On a maintenance diet

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We're at about sixteen, seventeen percent protein and that has calcium in it has phosphors vitamins to give them good egg production.

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You can give supplements. A lot of people put out a supplemental vitamin, either powdered or sprinkled on some of the diet or put it in the water.

303
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They may use oyster shells. If you've got these on the ground, they're going to pick up all kinds of little rocks and pebbles and things like that.

304
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Yep, grind up that food.

305
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The commercial diets really do not they don't need all that because they're they're milled so that everything is put to a ground up. Scratch grain.

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I've always recommended using that just as a treat, just to help train your chickens.

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You know, call them up, throw it out there, get them to go the pen so you can lock them up and you'll be surprised how tame these birds will get.

308
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I mean, they'll they'll just be pets. Yeah, there's a lot of diets.

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You don't want some of these super diet, shall we say.

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There's game bird diets, there's diets for turkeys, there's diets for chickens.

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And the difference in those is usually the protein level to affect the growth.

312
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We don't want to grow these birds too fast. We want to have them build up like for egg

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Production, we won't rebuild that frame, they're going to need that calcium,

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a little supplemental calcium is not going to hurt them, oyster shells and things like that.

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But most of the diet, you can buy a commercially prepared diet from various feed mills.

316
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That's much better than what you can put together.

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You can't you know, they're not going to make it on whole kernel corn and breadcrumbs and not very long.

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They'll produce a few eggs. But, you know, you get the better start.

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Now, with that said, if you let them out so they can eat green grass and things like that, a lot of people have small flocks.

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Describe how the egg yolk is much more rich yellow in color.

321
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And that's because of some of the things that get in the diet that they may not get if they're penned up.

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You know, I usually tell them, I said, just think about it.

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When you when you're driving down out on those country roads and you hit those bugs, what color does it leave on your windshield?

324
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It's usually yellow. So that's where they're getting those nutrients.

325
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But they will eat a lot of things. And one of the problems we see is if especially in hot weather like we've been having.

326
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If we have something that's decomposing, we get fly larvae, maggots in it,

327
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those chickens would go over there and eat those maggots and they can get botulism because of that decaying material.

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So something to think about. So you want to make sure that you let them out in a reasonably clean environment.

329
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You know, you don't want to be out there just as scavengers that years ago the flocks were kept.

330
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They were scavengers on the early homesteads and the homesteaders would go out and just catch a chicken or two and that was supper.

331
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Yeah, sounds like a good time, but a good a good commercial diet that you can get it to feed store.

332
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And I'm not pushing any specific brand. There's all kinds out there.

333
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Yeah. Just just look and make sure it's a good diet. You know,

334
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if you have questions you can contact the county agent and they can contact one

335
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of our nutritionists here and we can we can talk about and see what's in it. But most of them really the commercially prepared diets are really good.

336
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So what about the amounts of feed, like what can somebody expect?

337
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You know, like if they have just enough chickens for them, for their family, you know,

338
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three or four chickens and how much how much feed are they going to go through?

339
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Well, depending on the number of birds, what I like is I'm a big fan of free choice feeding.

340
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Put a feeder out there and I like pelletized feed because they will waste less of it.

341
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With that said,

342
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there's always going to be a chicken that wastes feed regardless of what it's shaped like or if it's a crumble or wet mash or whatever.

343
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But in any given day, I'd had I just had to sit down and calculate how much feed they would eat in a given day.

344
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A 50 pound bags usually going to last you for a couple of weeks.

345
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If you got like, say, about six birds, you've got to get by on more than it might even go out to three weeks.

346
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Yeah, they will. Free choice. I like free choice because that way they eat what what they want now don't free choice

347
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grain because they will pick that over the over the pelletized feed or even the crumble.

348
00:34:44,370 --> 00:34:53,610
Yeah, I agree with you on that, we do free choice feeding at our house, we have about between 15 and 20 hens.

349
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But how long with a 50 pound bag for about a week.

350
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About a week? Mm hmm. Yeah. You got 15 birds.

351
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:06,750
Yeah. You figure if you had six to eight birds, you try to get by about two to one.

352
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and we have really been selective on the type of feeder that we use because we really try to cut down on the waste.

353
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And I actually saw a plan online where I took a plastic tote and put a three inch PVC elbow in the side of that plastic tote.

354
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So they just reached down in there and get it. And we've trained them to do that because before, you know, they were stratching,

355
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we were losing a lot of feed, know, stratching it out and stuff like that.

356
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So I think that would be, you know,

357
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my recommendation for somebody that's kind of getting started is very selective on the feeder that you use to try to avoid waste, because absolutely.

358
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These, you know, like you're talking about just general fee, I mean, it's going to cost you,

359
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you know, anywhere from 15 to 20 dollars a bag for feed laying ration right now.

360
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And then especially if you if you're getting a starter, a grower ration for these chicks,

361
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you know, you're looking at, you know, twenty five to thirty dollars a bag right now, probably.

362
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And so just be real specific about, you know,

363
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be be thoughtful about that and try to avoid waste if you can make sure you've got an

364
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area on it that so they can peck and get the feed but they can't scratch it out again,

365
00:36:31,770 --> 00:36:38,460
they'll find a way to bill it out of there easily enough, peck it out of there, but just pitch it out on the ground.

366
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You know, they're going to waste most of it because they'll get to scratching in it and they'll lose part of it.

367
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Same thing with water, a good clean source of water. Now, to me, one of the best things is these nipple drinker's.

368
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You put it in like a five gallon bucket, hang it up.

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But even with those, there's always a possibility of a little grain of sand getting in there and clogging it up.

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So you want to check those a five gallon bucket would like for the nipple drinker's ed five gives enough water space for small flock of,

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say, six, eight, 10, 12 birds. But just check them when in fresh water every day.

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Oh, you can't stress enough fresh water clean. Clean that water out because in this heat humidity, it's going to get slimy in there.

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And, you know, the chickens don't want to drink that. And that ultimately affects egg production.

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It will, because if they're not drinking water, they're sure not going to eat feed.

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Typically, they will eat, you know, in accordance if they don't have if they've got water, then they'll eat if they're out of water they're not gonna eat feed.

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Well, I think that's a good place to stop right there for this episode about backyard poultry.

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Next time we'll have Dr. Clark back with this and we'll be discussing some poultry health issues relating to backyard hobby plots.

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But in the meantime, you can check out our website.

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We have a ton of information about backyard poultry and a lot of other stuff that you'll find very interesting about the farm lifestyle.

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You can visit our website. It is uaex.uada.edu. And I encourage you to look on there.

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There's a lot of great information and until next time we'll catch you around the farm.

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We hope you have enjoyed this episode of Around the Homestead podcast. To learn more about today's topic, be sure to visit our website at uaex.uada.edu

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Be sure to join us next month on Around the Homestead Podcast.