If you are ordering chicks from a hatchery, there are
a few other bits of information that you will need to know. First,
if you purchase straight-run chicks be advised that most of these chicks
are cockerels (young roosters). Therefore, if you want mainly hens
it would be wiser to purchase pullets and then purchase only a small
number of young cockerels. Too many roosters lead to miserable hens
and a lot of chicken-fights. However, if you would like to raise
butcher chickens as well as egg production hens, then the straight-run
order might be a better deal for you. Free-range chickens have lean,
firm meat compared to the soft, mushy kind that is usually commercially
produced.
The next thing you need to keep in mind when ordering
chicks is the equipment you will need to grow them into producing
chickens. Young chicks need to be kept in a brooder-type environment until
they are old enough not to need extra heat and special attention. A
cheap practical way to make your own brooder is a child’s plastic wading
pool with two-foot tall chicken-wire around the edges and a heat lamp hung
about two feet over the middle of the pool. Fill the pool with wood
shavings, or your preferred litter type, and place at least two feed and
water dishes in for the chicks. It is best to feed the young chicks
with a commercial chick-starter feed purchased at local feed store.
This feed is best for young chicks because it is a finely ground, gently
medicated grain that will prevent the all-too-common diseases in young
chicks. As the chicks grow, you can change the starter feed over to
the corn feed previously mentioned and eventually begin to transition them
to free-range.
Transitioning chickens from the cage to free-range
will take about one week. This is important, so that chickens
on-the-loose will know where their home is so they will lay in that
vicinity (rather than out in the wild – or the garage) and come back to
that location to roost at night. This is accomplished by keeping
your chickens caged in or near the place you will want them to roost.
You will need to feed and water them in the cages for approximately a week
before turning them out. Also, if you are planning to use a guardian
dog, make sure that they are kept close to the chicks from the very
beginning. This way, they are more accustomed to their personal
charges and less likely to see them as meals on legs - helping to avoid
that hen-in-mouth scenario.
By now you should not only have a good understanding
of the benefits of free-range chickens, but also a fair grasp of how to
proceed setting up your own equipment for them. You will also find
your free-range chickens to be a wonderful source of entertainment on warm
summer days. A single insect can cause mass hysteria among a flock
of free-range chickens. Where one goes, they all go at a run and a
massive chase scene can ensue over one juicy bug. They can also
perform amazing duck and cover routines if something so much as an
airplane shadow should appear overhead. You will learn just what a
free-range chicken will eat, and you will also become adept at
construction of chicken barricades to protect everything that you don’t
want them to destroy - such as your garden - while they are in one of
their feeding-frenzies. Free-range chickens are definitely worth the
effort needed to take care of them, as the fresh eggs and meat are by far
the best that you can obtain anywhere. There is also the
satisfaction in knowing that you raised and cared for it all on your own –
not counting the entertainment value as you learn just where the nickname
“birdbrain” came from!
