Chicken Wisdom

Chains on the door, magnets, & clean eggs: tips and tricks for the savvy flockster

When I complained about having to open and close the chicken coop every morning and night to a local in the neighborhood watering hole, he leaned in real close, and in a lowered voice, like it was some kind of ancient wisdom passed down thousands of years, said, “Hang some chains on the door.”

He explained that the chickens can learn to go through the chains, like a curtain, but if a predator shows up, they think it’s a solid fence and don’t bother.

I was doubtful. So what did I do? Well, what would you do? I went home and scoured the internet, searching for confirmation. I turned up nothing

This was back when we only had about fifteen chickens. So, I thought, might as well give it a try. Five years later and we’ve never had a fox or marten in the coop, though I see them around sometimes.¹

We train new chickens by taking out 6 chains the first day, 5 the next, then 4 and so on until they know they can come and go through the curtain as they please.

There are automatic openers out there, I know, but I like this no-tech solution - no batteries or electric needed, no chance of malfunctioning.

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I wrote that over a year ago. We now have an automated door straight from the Republic of China that runs on three AA batteries. I can set a timer for when it opens and closes. It’s great, until it’s not. Luckily, my wife and I just so happened to be taking eggs in the late afternoon when the door suddenly closed the other day. I checked it, and it appeared that the extreme cold zapped the relatively new batteries, causing it to reset. No warning light, no alert. It was now, according to the timer, midnight. If we would have taken the eggs only a few minutes earlier, the door would have been shut for the night without us seeing it and there is a good chance we could have lost the whole flock. The automated door is great, until it fails. And given enough time, it will.

The reason we installed the automated door was because a fox learned how to scale our fence. With the chains, the chickens come and go as they please, and given the chance, they are out the door at dawn. Here in Bohemia, it’s fully light at 4:30 A.M. in June, so the chickens were out while everyone was sound asleep. As long as we had the chains on the door, we never had an predator get into the coop, but we started loosing hens to early morning raids from hawks and foxes simply because we were sleeping when they raised the alarm. If I want to sleep well, I still have to check each night that the door is down. The automated door means I can sleep in. But I know I shouldn’t. Any good farmer is out the door at dawn. That’s the best part of the day.

Keeping a flock, being a flockster, if you will, teaches one a lot. It sure has me. Sometimes I’ve even learned the same lessons twice. So I’d like to impart a few tips, tricks and pieces of wisdom on keeping a flock of healthy hens, which have saved us time and money, bettered the living for the flock, and kept them safer.

Take eggs from outside the coop

Build egg laying boxes that allow you to take eggs from outside the coop. This might not seem like a big deal, but it is. I remember thinking that first year while taking eggs each evening, “Wow! Could this ever get old?” It does. Especially after a long, hard, day, when it’s cold, and muddy, you haven’t cleaned out the coop in awhile, it’s already dark, and you forgot a headlamp. The last thing you want to do is go on a blind egg hunt while stepping on chickens and chicken shit in the coop. I built a simple shelf with doors that open to the outside so we can comfortably stand outside while taking eggs. Our chickshaw has a similar design. I highly recommend you do the same when building a new coop.

What an upgrade! And yes, I support child labor.

Clean eggs?

“How do you have such clean eggs?” I’ve gotten this question from a handfull of other flocksters. The answer has a few parts. I pick up the wood-shavings and sawdust we use as our from a nearby carpenter’s shop. Mr. Olda calls me up and says, “I heard the chickens have dirty feet.” That’s the code for, “Get the hell over here and pick up these bags of shavings.”