Archive for November, 2009
Organic chickens
Organic chickens are often also referred to as free range chickens. Raising chickens the organic way is considered as raising them in a more humane way. Organic chickens get a special organic feed, often having to find their own food in their pastures. Herbal (natural) methods are also used in the place of medicine, with regards to the prevention and curing of illnesses.
Organic chickens do not consist of any specific breed, they just have to be raised organically from the first day that you have them.
Organic chickens should be raised in a yard, rather than a pen. The yard should have lots of grass. If you do decide to raise your chickens in a pen then make sure that they have ample space to move around in. Chickens do not have to roam around wild to be classified as organic, but they should have access to the outdoors whenever they want. It is common practice amongst organic chicken farmers to provide their chickens with a coop, but the chickens should not be restricted to it. They need as much exposure to direct sunlight as possible. The coop is basically just there to provide the chickens with a place to breed, if they wish to breed there, as well as to provide security against possible predators.
The problem with allowing the chickens to nest wherever they see fit, especially if they have no coop, is that if you keep the chickens for their eggs, then you will end up spending most of your time searching the grass for eggs often ending up crushing a few underfoot. If no coop is provided, then it is acceptable practice to provide organic chickens with nest boxes. Try to use natural materials for your nest boxes, such as wood, and fill these boxes with straws. There is, however, no guarantee that the chickens will choose to use these boxes.
Organic chickens mainly feed on insect as well as wild seeds that they find in the grass. During the winter months your chickens might need to be given some food supplements due to the general lack of wild seeds and insects. Their diets can be supplemented with seeds and grains that you can purchase at any feed store. When you buy the feed, make sure to ask for feed that has not been treated with growth hormones or pesticides as the lack of these chemicals is one of the cornerstones of organic farming.
Organic chickens are not allowed to receive any form of antibiotics or growth hormones. Instead, preventative measures are used to keep them healthy. Such measures include keeping them in a clean environment as well as providing them with organic feed supplements when necessary. If your chickens do fall ill then you can treat them with medicine, but you will no longer be able to sell them as organic chickens.
As a part of providing your chickens with a clean environment, you should try and clean up their manure as regularly as possible.
How to Care for Chickens
For self employment, you have so many choices and raising chickens is one of them. But there is a question arises How to care for chickens?
There are many reasons why people want to raise poultry farms like raising chicken for eggs, for meat and also some people raising chickens for showing them on exhibitions. Taking care of the chickens is very important for their growth.You should take proper care of them to get best result and solve the question How to care for chickens?
Give your chickens the appropriate and adequate food and it is very important. The different food for the chicken help in different purpose as for egg layer they eat different food and for meat they consume different food.
According to age of the chicken, they also eat different food like pullets eat different food than chicks. You should notice that they get nutrient food as per their requirement.
For their safety, you should build the coop for them as it protects them from warm and cold. Chicken coops are varying as per their design, color and lay out. But the basic aim is to keep the chickens safe and healthy.
Before start of the building process, you should make a blueprint that how much you ground breathing space that you have given to chickens, where you build you ventilator system and what type of nest you have to build for your chickens for their convenience.
Most of the chicken lovers fall in love with the chicks when first time they put a chick in their hand. They are very much interested towards chickens and they are also raise chickens, take good care of them.
As per the research information, one chicken can live up to the age of 30 years and a healthy chicken also laid eggs for 18 years. But you cannot see any chicken that have the above distinction. The main cause of that chickens are suffering from multiple diseases, stress and predation. So there is need for taking proper care of chickens so that they live a long and happy life.
There may be mite infestation in your chicken and you should treat them as per their severity. If there has any minor problem then treatment of this problem can be done by spraying and dusting the bird in every three days. There is also a requirement of replacing the bedding of the chickens for their treatment and also use dust below their bedding.
You must keep your chicken away from stress by keeping them happy and healthy. Save your birds from harm by poultry biosecurity. Cocccidiosis is a very danger mass killer which can destroy your whole chicken flock.
So you should contact a veterinary doctor for its treatment and take necessary measures as per their advice. Marek’s is also another disease, which can wipe out your whole coop of chickens, for its treatment. You should learn how to stop your chickens from its destruction.
These are few things which should be taken care by you for solving the question How to care for chickens?