Today we are going to share with you the essentials of our chicken tool kit. These are some of the important things we have readily available in order to take care of our chickens.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 Caring for Your Chickens
0:42 Essential Tools
2:37 Medicine
5:31 Nutrient Dense Food
6:47 Nesting
7:39 Healthy Chicken Coop
TRANSCRIPT FROM VIDEO:
Hi, my name’s Lindsey and I’m here at the Urban Farm and today I’m gonna be sharing with you our essentials of our chicken toolkit. So by this I mean the things that we always have on the farm in order to take care of our chickens. We’re inside of our coop right now. You can see our chickens are very interested and the video we’re doing today. So let’s get started.
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One of the most important things to remember even here in Arizona is that when the weather cools down, your chickens are gonna need adequate protection from the cooler weather. So for us here, that means using heat lamps. We hang these from the bars up here and this is just a heat bulb that we use. And also when you have baby chicks or baby quail and they’re small, we use this heating pad.
The heat comes from a top here and then you can change the height of it. We use this in their cage when we’re raising chicks. We’ll put it in this area when we’re raising quail just to give them a little extra warmth and they like to huddle underneath it. It’s important to also give them space to keep warm and huddle. They use dirt and straw and material like that to warm up. So just having those things on hand to keep your chickens warm in the winter. The next really important thing to have is different kinds of feeding tools. So this is a water jug and this is a small feeding basin and the food just gets stored in here. So we use these for our chicks and quail and small birds, and then also having different sizes. So in the coop we have this big feeder.
This can store about four or five days worth of food for them of dry food. We also do the fermented feed in their bowls, just making sure that we always have different kinds of food basins and things for the chickens to get water like these jugs, always having access to food and water, no matter what their stage in growth is.
One of the most important things to have on the farm because time is of the essence often is medicine. These are the types of medicine that we keep here on the farm. So this is a general dewormer and we just get this at a stock shop or a pet store and it just comes out as like a cream. And we put this directly into their fermented feed. And depending on what kind of animals you have, what kind of livestock and birds you have, you just have to read the directions for the amount that you should be adding to their water. But a dewormer is really important, especially if their soil or their bedding, whatever they’re living on gets wet. Sometimes you get a lot of instances of worms and that’s something that can really just deplete a chicken’s health very quickly. Another thing we also keep on the farm is VetRx. This one is for poultry. This one just helps with healthy respiratory function. So we add this as a preventative when it gets cooler or when it has rained, as well as when we notice any sneezing or any like runny-ness in the chickens. This is just really an important healthy way to support respiratory function. And just make sure that our chickens are breathing and that is just like a gel that we add right to the chickens beak area.
So right on the top of their beak, you can just add it or by their eyes if they’re having any eye gunk. Blu-Kote is also something that we like to keep. It’s an antiseptic and it helps with any fungus or germs that they might have. So it just helps with healing. I’ll show you <Laugh>. Bobby here is one of the chickens that needs blue coat the most. She gets picked on by the other chickens. You can see her little balding right here and you can see how it’s getting red, so they’re irritating it. We just put blue coat, we just dab some right on her head and that’ll make it just heal a little bit better. And then blue coat also makes the other chickens not as likely to peck at her. More. Along with that, we also keep just some Vetericyn. This is just an antimicrobial gel. This is just for any cuts or scrapes or general wound healing. And then cotton swabs are also important. This just helps. We just use cotton pads or cotton swabs to clean up any gunk around their eyes. When you have baby chicks, sometimes they have trouble getting rid of the waste. That gets stuck to the bottom, so you just use that to clean it up. So just having things like this on hand are really helpful.
Other chicken essentials are calcium, so chickens need an extra source of calcium and they can get this from oyster shells. So you can buy big bags of oyster shells. Also, we here at the farm, we just feed them back their eggs. They love eating their eggs, so we’ll just crack it for them. And that’s a great way for them to get that calcium, which is essential for helping them have healthy bones and feathers and then have stronger shells. So we want their egg shells to to be really strong. And calcium is the nutrient that does that. You can also focus on feeding them nutrient dense food. So we give them a lot of vegetables here at the farm. Cucumber leaves, broccoli leaves, squash, turnip greens are all really high in calciums, so those are great additions if you have those to feed your chickens. And just make sure when you’re feeding your chickens any kind of vegetables that nothing’s moldy. We want everything to still be fresh. And also no raw beans, avocado skins, tomato leaves are toxic. So just keep those things and do a little bit of research from what you can and can’t feed your chickens.
Other essentials somewhere for them to nest. So this is one of their nesting boxes they like laying in here. Chickens like a private space to lay. We also have bigger nesting little boxes inside that for them to go into, but this one is definitely their favorite. They like to be confined while they lay, feed them back their eggs. We just do that sometimes just to give them a special treat. And again, it helps with their calcium. And the final thing would be perches. So chickens like to perch when they sleep. So just giving them lots of areas like this tree stump here where they can perch and sleep and it helps them feel safe and protected.
These are just some of the essentials that we always have on hand for our chickens. It helps us have a healthy coop and make sure that we’re giving our chickens the proper care and be prepped for emergencies. Having these things on hand, especially the medicine is essential. You never know when you’re going to need it. So I hope this helps you determine what you can add to your coop to have healthier, safer chickens.
SOURCES:
Safe-Guard Dewormer: https://www.pinkstons.com/safe-guard-dewormer-syringe/
VetRx Poultry Aid: https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/vetrx-poultry-remedy
Blu-Kote: https://www.drnaylor.com/product/blu-kote/
Veterycin Antimicrobial Hydrogel: https://vetericyn.com/product/vetericyn-plus-antimicrobial-hydrogel/
Hanging Chicken Feeder: https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/harris-farms-30-lb-hanging-feeder
Heat lamps
Water Jugs
Cotton Swabs
