Backyard Chicken Raising ? 10 Vital Steps Before You Start
Like many people, you probably love the idea of keeping free range poultry in your backyard or garden. You will enjoy delicious, fresh eggs almost daily. If you intend to raise your hens as pets you might not wish to think of them as a nutritious source of food, but it is something to at least consider as a good source of income perhaps.
None of this can be done without looking after your chickens properly. So here are the 10 vital steps for raising and keeping your poultry happily and in great condition.
Step 1, choose the breed. It is vital to choose the right breed for your area and requirements. Tolerance to hot or cold weather, good layers or for the pot, good pets or backyard scratchers – there are many aspects you need to consider carefully at the outset. You can get good advice from your local hen supplier and from poultry farmers in your area.
Step 2, select the right number of birds. Hens must have enough room to forage and nest. At least 10 square feet per bird is a good rule of thumb. Measure out the area in which you intend to keep the hens, to determine the maximum number you can keep comfortably. For social reasons (the chickens, not you!) three is considered the minimum number of birds for a flock.
Step 3, decide how much time you will have available. Poultry needs daily care and attention for feeding, cleaning, watering and other tasks such as checking the security of perimeter fencing. Allow 10 or 15 minutes for a small flock, and expect them to follow you closely as you walk around their pen.
Step 4, build shelter and housing. Hens need somewhere to roost safely at night, with perches and nesting boxes. They should have a place to shelter from the sun and a source of fresh water. A good chicken coop will have easy access for cleaning and a way to collect eggs without disturbing the hens too much.
Step 5, provide protection. Safety from predators is vital, and threats come from many creatures including rats, dogs, raccoons, weasels, birds of prey such as eagles and hawks, foxes, perhaps snakes. Do not underestimate the ability of predators to gain access to your hens through or under fences over time. The chicken house must be properly secured and the fence around the hen run good enough to prevent your local predator types from getting through. The chicken run will need a top as well, if there are birds of prey around or the run is close to trees – to prevent your chickens taking flight!
Step 6, consider health precautions. Poultry can suffer from quite a few diseases, so do some research into the common ones in your area. Speak to the vet, other chicken keepers and online forums – you will get a lot of help from the chicken-keeping community.
Step 7, identify applicable regulations. Be sure to identify and follow all relevant rules and regulations about hen keeping in your area, although these are not usually very taxing. Your local town hall or government offices should be able to give you all the guidance and information you need.
Step 8, provide a good diet. Hens need a diet of greens, grains, protein and fresh water. Protein is particularly important – talk to your local feed supplier for advice on this. Protein supplements and grit are sometimes needed, but most likely free range hens will get enough from their own foraging. Fresh, clean water must be available at all times. If you are away during the day or on vacation, you should investigate automatic water dispensers for your hens. The rest of your hens’ diet should be met by foraging around their pen area.
Step 9, consider weather and climate. Most chicken varieties are fairly tolerant of harsh climactic conditions, provided that you give them access to shade when the sun is overhead. Make sure, however, that they are able to keep their feet dry.
Step 10, consider the local environment. Most often people like hens in their neighborhood, so you are unlikely to have any problems. Perhaps talk to any neighbors who might have concerns about possible noise or smells, to reassure them. You could suggest the occasional box of fresh, free range eggs to get their vote!
You will note that none of these vital steps is anything other than common sense. Follow them and you will enjoy happy, healthy chickens for years to come. Oh, one last thing – each of those happy hens should provide you with 6 fresh, free range eggs per week for most of the year!
Please visit us if you would like more information about keeping hens, such as how to build a chicken coop and where to get the best chicken house plans. Now go and enjoy those chickens!
Kieran Gracie is a professional engineer and DIY enthusiast. His website, BuildThingsDirect.com,provides many ideas and interesting projects for beginners and experienced do-it-yourself people alike.
5 Stress Reduction Tips For Moms! (Read This Before You Run Away From Home!) Part 1 Of 3
Part 1 of 3 of the Stressed Mommies to Successful Mommies Series
I recently read multiple postings by mothers that are so stressed out, that they would likely sell off one or both kidneys to be able to create more time and have more money to devote to themselves and their family.
These were just a handful of the situations:
“I’m a single mother, I work full time, I have a 7 and 4 year old, I’m exhausted when I get home, but then I have to do school work, laundry, make dinner, clean the house and then get ready to do it all over again! I have no time for myself!”
“I have three kids, I work full time, go to Grad school and still feel like I can never get ahead!”
“My husband is in the military and gone half the year, my son has lost all ability to potty train, and my daughter does exactly opposite of what I tell her to do!”
My heart just ached when I read all of these stressed out Mom’s postings. They were screaming for help onto a random forum posting, not knowing where to go, just hoping that someone would listen to their cries for help!
Are you this mom? Are you burning the candle at both ends? Are you crying for help and thinking that no one can help you?
1. Listen to the flight attendant:
The first rule here is just to be aware that if you are at this point in your life where you are hanging on by a thread, do what every good flight attendant suggests in the event of cabin pressure failure: “Put the Oxygen Mask on yourself first before you put them on small children.” Easier said than done?
If you consider the reasons, you are like the HUB of the WHEEL of your family. You are what keeps the family together, ungreased, the wheel doesn’t turn well, it’s squeaky and sticky. With a well greased HUB, the wheel turns smoothly, effortlessly and can do more rotations than an ungreased hub. Consider your goal to be as smooth as a greased hub.
Taking care of yourself means doing what you need to do to stay healthy. Eat well, take time for yourself, exercise, meditate etc… Imagine what your family would do without you? If you are not taking care of yourself, you may continue down the road to sickness due to stress. So first things first –You are first!
2. Slow down to ½ speed!
It is easy to feel that because we have more to do, we need to do it faster, more hurried, and feel rushed. Yet, when we deliberately slow down the speed of our life, we are able to think more clearly and specifically about the task at hand. It really is a funny paradox! You may not actually be doing less tasks when you slow your reaction speed down, it just feels like it! What happens often is you feel more deliberate, your awareness comes into the present, and you can concentrate on the NOW task and not the FUTURE task.
3.Notice How Your Vibrations are Felt Through your Household Like ShockWaves:
Do you notice that when you have a bad day, and you are stressed, the moment you walk in the house, all of a sudden the kids are fighting and arguing, the dog is barking, there is chaos spreading like wildfire? Believe it or not, our energy levels have certain vibrational frequencies. Children are very sensitive to these frequencies and react in strange and curious ways, and usually ways that tend to sound like nails screeching across the chalk boards. Notice when you walk into your house calm, centered and peaceful? The house can sense your “centeredness”, and mimics this energy level. Its one of those mysterious universal principles.
4.Use your transitional Times and Take Mental Health Minutes:
When time is a precious commodity for you at this time in your life, it is imperative that you use small portions of time to re-center, recharge and rejuvenate. You probably know this, but don’t mindfully practice this. So, now I challenge you to mindfully practice this. When you are driving home from work, put in peaceful calming music (I like to call it yoga music, easily downloadable from i-Tunes). When you take a bathroom break, take 5 minutes, close your eyes and do some deep breathing exercises and positive thinking.
5. Design Your Day:
This was a new concept recently introduced to me. At the beginning of the day, spend 2 minutes, grab your journal and decide consciously HOW you want the day to go, and HOW you want to feel. For example, “I choose to happily drive to work, I will use the free time in the car to relax. I choose to have joyous interactions with my coworkers. My meetings will go easily and I will have easy resolutions to my challenges today. When I leave work, I will happily use that time to transition and be prepared and centered for my family. I consciously choose to be present with my family in the evening, turning off my email and my phones.” This only takes a couple of minutes, but you can see the impact that this has on your conscious and subconscious mind. One of the beauties of this exercise is that you will not script your day to say “I wish work is difficult, I wish the kids will be bad, and I want to be angry and stressed!” It just doesn’t work like that!
Do not expect that you will immediately practice all five steps right away. Take one step a day and practice. A mommy’s job is so important and vital to the health of the family. So mind your thoughts, mind your health and have fun!
Stay tuned to Part 2 Tips for Stress Management – Moving into Action to Reduce Your Stress
Let me know what’s going on with your stress!
Makenzie
http://freedomventureproject.com
read more about me here
http://freedomventureproject.com
Things to Consider Before You Go for a Dog Training Career
While a lot of people will become dog training careers because it’s something that a lot of people do, there are others who actually do it because they love dogs and feel that this is a career that they want to pursue.
Are you one of those people that go for a dog training career because they heard someone saying that it’s a good career, or are you someone that actually loves dogs and wants to be around them more?
Basic principles to follow
Loving dogs isn’t the only motivation you should have to pursue dog training; you will also need the skills and knowledge to discipline dogs, to handle them and to understand what motivates their behavior. In most cases, people that become dog trainers have previous experience with dogs, and an understanding on how they usually handle pets.
What is your “dog division”?
If you want a career that revolves around dogs, there are two options at your disposal: dog training or pet service training. They’re both highly looked after jobs, but a pet dog training career can bring you more opportunities.
Pet dog training is usually done on pet dogs, just like the name suggests. Its purpose is to help dogs become better companions for humans, both at house and in outdoor activities. Basic training includes agility training, obedience training, potty training and even training to prevent the dog from biting or barking.
If we’re talking about service training, you should know that it’s made specifically to prepare a dog for helping someone that has a disability or is going through some form of therapy. Other service dogs are trained to sniff bombs, drugs or to chase criminals, hunt or rescue people.
This type of training is very intensive, and the trainer needs to be well prepared in teaching the dog how to do his functions.
Canine psychology understanding
What do you want to know about a dog? How they behave, think or how they react to outside stimulus? What training actually does is making a dog modify his behavior, so they respond in certain ways. Associative conditioning is one of the fundamentals of dog training, so you should know this as well.
What about dog training education?
Like any other career, dog training needs you to have some basic skills, in this case in the area of handling and dog training. But, this isn’t a career that you can learn at a university or college, so a degree is out of the question. There are schools however, and some academies, which you can go to in order to learn dog training. In most cases though, dog trainers have a natural inclination for their job.
While some have a natural feeling on how to train dogs, other have been apprentices with great dog trainers. And if you want some extra information, you should contact a dog training organization, which can offer it to you.
Comparison of working attitude with people and dogs
When you train dogs you also have to teach the dog handlers how to use them. Besides training dogs, if you plan to make a career out of it, you will also need to have some people skills, to teach the handlers.
Some dog owners don’t have the patience to wait for their dogs to learn, expecting for it to be a fast and simple process. You need to be able to deal with this type of dog owners, and to let them know how the process works. That’s why you need people skills as well, not just experience with dogs.
Miscellaneous
Besides the normal aspects of training, other things you need to know are nutrition, dog hygiene and grooming.
Other fields of interest include accessories, dog competitions and training ads. You should also learn about the differences between dog breeds, as each one behaves differently.
You can be a great trainer without being a guru. You only need a number of skills that will teach you how to handle dogs.
Visit DoggyBehave.Com for more dog training articles and dog training manuals. Read also our Sit Stay Fetch book review ? dog training book written by professional dog trainer Daniel Stevens.