Cracking the code to healthy hens: 10 essential tips for backyard poultry prosperity!

By General Beven Mundida. Contact +263776420161.

Backyard chickens can be a highly successful source of eggs and meat as long as you look after them. Although your chickens can wander about the farmyard during the day, they should have safe place to sleep at night. Running a successful poultry operation, even one aimed at feeding you and your family, can be quite difficult even when things run smoothly. But it can become very tough indeed if you have to deal with sickly chickens.

Follow these guidelines to keep your birds healthy

1. Choose the right chickens
   It is very easy in Zimbabwe to buy live hens that come from broiler and layer industry. Day old chicks, especially males, are also cheap. But neither of these are suitable for backyard conditions. Rather buy chickens from your neighbours. They are most likely to be hardy and used to surviving outside.
2. Put clean water in the right containers
   Water containers for chickens are cheap and can be bought at veterinary and feed outlets. You should also use flat bowl or container, but put some rocks in it so that the young chicks don’t drown.Remember to change the water every day – many poultry diseases are carried by dirty water.

    

3. A safe enclosure
   Although chickens can wander about the farmyard during the daytime, they should have a safe place to sleep at night. You can easily make a chicken hutch out of wooden poles and chicken wire, with a corrugated iron or thatch roof.Build it on slightly sloping ground and dig a drain around it so that it does not get flooded when it rains. Put perches or branches inside for the chickens to roost on, as they often get sick if forced to sleep on the ground.Providing perches and cleaning away bushes and long grass around the hutch also protects poultry from rats and snakes.As you have to put the chickens in the hutch at night and let them out in the morning, you will be checking twice a day that they are healthy.
4. A regular source of food
   If backyard chickens are an integral part of a mixed farming system, they may be able to survive on feed spilled onto the ground by beef or dairy cattle, pigs or goats and sheep.Fly larvae provide another source of poultry food. Sub-standard vegetables and table leftovers (except raw meat) can also be thrown out for poultry to eat.However, it is a good idea to buy layer rations for the hens that will incubate eggs and produce chicks. Small chicks also require an extra source of feed such as chick starter mash ration, until they are strong enough to start foraging for food.

   Green food is important for backyard chickens. A kikuyu lawn can provide a scratching area and a source of vitamins.

5. Calcium and other minerals
   A lack of minerals, especially calcium, can result in joint and bone abnormalities as well as soft-shelled eggs.Oyster shell grit is a well-known source of minerals for hens and chicks. Diatomaceous earth also contains many minerals, including calcium, and can easily be included with the ration.
6. Hygienic surroundings
   Chicken manure can be composted for use in vegetable or flower gardens, but can be a source of disease if it is allowed to build up.Flies breed rapidly where chickens roost; keep the area as clean as possible to keep your birds healthy. Always remove and bury dead birds.
7. Breeding and hatching
   If you want chicks, you will need one rooster for every five to six hens. Remove or slaughter other male birds as soon as they are mature to prevent noise and fighting. Hens start laying at about four to five months.If you collect eggs every day, they will carry on laying. If you leave the eggs in the nests, the hens will become broody and want to hatch the eggs.Select about six clean eggs for a broody hen if you want to breed chicks. Avoid cracked eggs; these will not hatch.

   Veld grass or straw is ideal for nests, but must be changed fairly often to prevent a build-up of red mites. Hens sitting on eggs need water and food close by. Chicks must be kept in a pen with the hen for the first two to three weeks after hatching.

8. Parasite management
   Red mites can stop hens laying or sitting on eggs as they are an irritant. Tampans can cause paralysis and death. Both these pests can be controlled by insecticidal powder registered for chickens.Sticktight or hen fleas are small black insects that gather around the eyes and combs of chicks. They can be killed by a thick layer of Vaseline, as it stops them breathing.Chickens also suffer from roundworms and tapeworms. If you slaughter a chicken, cut open the intestines to see if these are a problem. Worm remedies for poultry can be bought from your co-op.
9. Vaccinate and prevent disease
   Newcastle disease is a virus that is deadly to unvaccinated chickens. It can kill your entire flock in a very short time.Although commercial birds are automatically vaccinated, this does not always happen in backyard flocks. Vaccines are available that can be dripped into the eyes of young chicks, used as a spray on birds in cages, or mixed into the drinking water. Buy them from your local veterinary outlet; full instructions are included on the leaflets or labels.
10. Check the chickens daily
    Probably the best way of keeping your chickens healthy is by keeping an eye on them and reacting quickly if something goes wrong.