When you first get chickens, you have all the time in the world to devote to your adorable little feathered friends. You constantly run to the coop to give them leftovers, refresh their water, check for eggs. Then, inevitably, life sets in. Things get a little hectic, and going to the coop becomes more and more of a chore, especially in the winter. Soon you might be wondering if this whole chicken thing is really worth it.
Unlike farmers or homesteaders, you are most likely doing chickens “on the side.” And that can relegate raising chickens to the status of one more item in an overcrowded to-do list. However, raising chickens doesn’t need to be a cause of stress.
Chickens are, in fact, a stress reliever for me. I get a sense of calm looking out my kitchen window at my little piece of a farm. My life could be falling apart, but hey—there are the chickens, scratching, pecking, perching, and digging little holes to snuggle in.
I can’t explain it, other than it just brings peace to my soul. My sister calls it chicken therapy.
To raise chickens without causing yourself stress, you need to minimize your time required to do chicken tasks. This could be titled, “Raising Chickens the Lazy Way,” just because it can really feel effortless.
One Trip to the Coop per Day
I plan on going out to my coop no more than once a day. I have things set up for myself to easily do this. For example, I keep a chicken cookie jar on my window sill just above my sink for food scraps. It is just as easy to throw food scraps in the cookie jar as it is to scrape them in my sink. And the lid prevents fruit flies.
When the cookie jar of scraps is full, I throw that in a large plastic bowl right outside my back door.
I also throw in the chicken’s fodder (wheat grass I grow for them). When I am ready to collect eggs, I take my egg collecting basket and the bowl of scraps and fodder with me. I might stop at the garden to pick some kale or cabbage leaves for the chickens on the way. While I am at the coop, I collect eggs and do a quick visual on the food, water, and oyster shells. If I have the time and want to visit the ladies more than once per day, great. But that one trip took care of everything.
Food and Water
The feeder and waterer should be large containers so that you don’t need to fill them more than once a week.
My feeder looks small but holds six gallons (34 lbs of pellets or 37 lbs of mash). I rarely need to fill it—maybe once every 3-4 weeks for six chickens. My waterer is a five-gallon cooler. That thing also lasts forever. If it is in the summer, it needs refilling every 10 days. In cool weather, it can last for 20 days before refilling. Of course, I don’t actually let it run out or even get close. So I fill it about once a week in the summer and once every other week through the rest of the year. I also keep an eye on the oyster shells. I keep a supply handy near the coop, so I can just quickly add a scoop as needed–usually about once a week.
Automatic Door Opener
You may have read that you need to close the coop door every night and re-open it every morning. If you do not have an automatic chicken door opener, this is unfortunately necessary. It would have been a deal-breaker for me, because I never would have been able to consistently handle this responsibility. No way. That’s why the first thing I did when I got chickens was design an automatic coop door opener. Do yourself a favor and buy an automatic door opener, or make one using my DIY plans. It’s stressful to have to come out to the coop morning and night to open and shut a door. It’s also stressful to find a beheaded chicken.
Cleaning the Coop
Many people think cleaning the coop is some dreaded, overwhelming chore. But nothing could be farther from the truth! As long as you have large front doors to your coop, you can pull all of the bedding out with a flat head shovel into a large container pretty quickly. And I usually only do this every other month.
Or, you can simply turn the soiled bedding and add more fresh bedding on top. And if you compost in your run, you can literally dump all the dirty shavings from the coop straight into the run, where the chickens mix it in with the rest of the compost. I realize this will shock many of you and seem unsanitary. However, I have had no problems with chickens getting mites, respiratory issues, or illness. The bedding gets mixed in with grass clippings and leaves and everything else. If you feel worried about it, you can compost your soiled chicken bedding somewhere else. However, I feel like the chicken manure does add helpful bacteria to the mix. I do try to make sure soiled bedding stays several months in the run/compost pile before spreading it it on my lawn and garden.
Easy Peasy
Besides my daily trip to the coop to collect eggs, I feel like I do pretty much nothing. I rarely have to fill anything, and if I do, I keep the food, oyster shells, and straw in bins right underneath my coop. I don’t even get anyone to tend them when I’m out of town. That’s right—I go on vacation without getting a chicken sitter. (I do invite a neighbor to come get free eggs while I’m gone).
This might sound crazy, but I raise chickens not for their eggs, but because I absolutely love having chickens. Some of you out there are like me—you know who you are. You thrive outdoors, planting and tending, but you also have many demands on your time that make you wonder if you can do this. I’m here to say it’s doable. You don’t have to spend farmer-kind-of-time to enjoy your own little piece of a farm. And it just might bring peace to your soul too.
