Concerning light/laying hens/ and doing this all on a relatively short
shoe string. Our set up, which I will describe, has allowed us to get
into small scale chicken production before we really had 'all the pieces
in place' which I do think is an important value to many people who would
like to raise chickens but think they don't yet have the all the 'right'
facilities yet.
We constructed a hoop house-type greenhouse, 18 x 20 feet, for our 25
laying hens and 1 rooster. This size greenhouse could handle quite a few
more birds and still be comfortable. We bed the greenhouse with
discarded hay, straw, and particularly with 'bees wings' or the red
lightweight corncob fragments that accumulate each fall around the corn
dryer - which makes very nice, soft, absorbant bedding that the hens peck
in to find little pieces of corn. Ground corn cobs would make nice
bedding also. We've gotten the essential chicken equipment - laying
boxes, feeders etc. - for virtually nothing from others in the area who
no longer wish to keep chickens.
Since we live in upstate New York, I had initially had some serious
concerns about birds freezing during the winter, but we have never had
problems with that for the past 3 years. The water buckets do freeze
solid during the coldest part of the winter, but then I just refill them
with a little water several times during the day and that seems to take
care of their water needs pretty well. Otherwise, only the top of the
bucket usually skims with ice, we bury the buckets into the bedding for
insulation, and the hens can peck through the ice to get water most of
the time.
We started out with the greenhouse covered with plastic on all sides, but
the air grew humid and nasty, so I partially covered both ends with
orange plastic fence netting (about 3 foot square on both ends) and cut
the greenhouse plastic away to give constant passive ventilation. Except
during the hottest part of the summer, this seems adequate to keep air
quality at a reasonable level. I also fence an area outside the
greenhouse, about 50 x 80 foot, with 4 foot mesh wire fencing and have
cut a hole in the greenhouse side so the hens can go in and out at will.
This is really not enough pasture, and by mid summer they will have eaten
all the preferable plants, but at least they can free access to the
outside and they spend most of each day pecking around in the yard and
playing tag. The Rhode Island Reds we had 2 years ago easily hopped over
the 4 foot fence (not making the neighbors very happy), but the 1 year
old Red Sex Link hens we have this year have much less ambition and are
staying in well. Predators were only a problem once when the neighbor's
dog got into the the fence one night - there has been no evidence of any
wild predators, but it is right behind the house so that may be a
discouragement.
The constant natural light, from dawn to dusk, in a greenhouse, seems
adequate to stimulate laying without additional light even during the
short New York January days. For 2 years, I had put a 100 watt lightbulb
on a timer in there to increase day length to 16 hours, but last year I
forgot to get the light out there and we have had nearly 100% egg
production from last September until about a month ago when they started
to molt - and still we're getting nearly 75% production, these are pretty
ambitious hens.
The hoop house greenhouse makes for an economical hen house. We acquired
discarded greenhouse plastic from a friend who runs a larger greenhouse
operation and covered it with that, repairing occasional holes with clear
silo cover tape. We've now gotten 3 years out of used plastic that would
have been 'landfill food', though it will need to be replaced before next
winter because of some rather large new holes. We figure if we ever get
tired of keeping hens, we will still have a very functional medium sized
greenhouse - so this is a versatile long term investment. We also figure
that eventually we will pick it up or drag it to a different location to
increase pasture and to allow a thorough cleanout of the accumulated
bedding - this is an option that we wouldn't have if we had built a more
traditional wooden framed chicken house. Obviously this doesn't allow
the true rotational grazing, a la Andy Lee and Joel Salatin and others in
the pastured poultry network, which eventually we would like to try, but
for only 25 hens, very limited time and little nearby pasture land, it
works well for us.
We also are careful with the feed the chickens receive. We grind our own
feed, using mostly our own organic ingredients, but since we use some
transitional roasted soybeans in the feed occasionally, the hens are not
certified. The feed recipe is one formulated by Jeff Mattocks of the
Fertrell Co in Pennsylvania, and consists of corn, roasted soybeans,
wheat, oyster shell, aragonite, limestone, a mineral/vitamin mix called
Fertrell Poultry Nutribalancer. We also add crabmeal for an amino acid
source - and since crustaceans are similar biologically to the insects
that chickens naturally evolved eating, this seems to be a particularly
valuable addition to layer mash, especially during the winter when they
would be getting no insects outside. We feel this feed mix is one key to
our very healthy, productive birds. We use a slightly different mix,
also formulated by Jeff, for the our pastured Cornish Rocks, and have
also had excellent success with top quality healthy birds. Of course, as
the last Sanet indicated, there is much discussion in the organic
community about whether 'wild catch', can be considered 'organic' and
there are some who don't allow 'wild catch' to be used in certified
organic animal or crop production. While I agree with some of the points
raised, I feel we need to look at all the variables in the case of
crabmeal in chicken feed. If the other feed alternative is to use
synthetic amino acids, which must be assumed to be derived from GM corn
or soybeans unless documented otherwise, maybe we need to consider which
is the better of 2 imperfect solutions. Maybe crabmeal also needs to be
tested to see if there are indeed unacceptable chemical residues before
we assume that there must be.
Hope this helps someone out there.
Mary-Howell Martens
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