As anyone who was already experienced raising backyard chickens for a long time would tell you, flock losses are a big part of the experience. You may be taking care of your chickens well enough, but would suddenly be surprised to find out that a group of them would be sick and would have to be culled so that they would not risk the entire flock.

There are also other reasons for the death aside from sickness. Sometimes it could be a predator who would suddenly find its way into your chicken coop that would attack your flock and get a couple of birds. There are also some instances where the chickens may kill themselves accidentally by hitting nails, loose wires and such.

As you can see, chickens dying and flock losses are a big part of raising backyard chickens. That is why it would be very important for the owner to be able to know how to recover from flock losses. This is because the failure to recuperate properly may just lead to more deaths and become a waste of your resources.

Here are some ways so that you can easily recover from flock losses:

Investigate the cause of death:

The first thing that you should do once you suffer some flock losses is to investigate the reasons for the death of your chickens. This is because before you head out to purchase replacement eggs or chickens, you should first ensure that they would not suffer the same fate as those who died.

You should check if the death of your backyard chickens was caused by a disease and try to prevent it. Similarly, if it was predator or accident related, then you must ensure that it would not happen again by securing your chicken coop and fixing up on all the loose ends.

Only after you have made these repairs would be the time when you should start thinking about replacing the dead chickens.

Learn the ways to integrate new chickens to the flock:

Once you have purchased the new chickens that you would add to your flock as replacements for those who died, you would probably come across the second problem of most people who raise backyard chickens; integrating new chickens to the flock.

You should understand that chickens are creatures that need to have a harmonious social order before they would be able to function well. Introducing new chickens to the group may upset this balance and may cause some chaos from the previously harmonious flock. This could lead to a dip in productivity or worse, fighting between the chickens which could lead to death.

That is why you should find out the best methods of integrating new chickens to the flock. You should know that the different breeds and chicken types have unique styles and temperaments so there is no certain best way to do it. You may want to ask experts who have been raising backyard chickens that are similar to your breed for tips on how to do this.

As you may already know, not every town in this country allows the people living there to raise backyard chickens. There are plenty of neighborhoods wherein you must comply to some laws and restrictions as to how you would be able to keep your flock in your backyard.

These laws would limit the number of chickens, the types and even the location of the coop. They would often differ from city to city and are usually based according on the decision or findings of the town authorities. You should understand that a person’s failure to comply with these laws may lead to the raising backyard chickens being disallowed, not just for you but for everyone in town.

Some examples of these restrictions would include:

The number of chickens that you can keep:

This is the most usual restriction. Some local authorities would limit the total number of chickens that are living in your backyard. The average would usually go at around 4 to 6 chickens in a single coop. Others would not set a definite number but would depend on your available lot. Needless to say, the larger your lot is, then the more chickens that you would be able to have.

No Roosters:

Another common restriction would be not allowing roosters. This is usually because roosters are quite noisy, and may cause a ruckus in the neighborhood. As such, you may have to cull roosters that get into your flock.

This would be unfortunate for someone who would want to raise meat birds but not for an egg laying flock. This is because you do not need roosters for your hens to lay eggs but would need them if you want those eggs to become fertilized.

Chicken coop’s location:

There are also some restrictions done on the location of your chicken coop. Some laws would require that your coop should not be closer than 25 feet to adjacent dwellings. Some may be stricter and require a very large distance, that it would not be possible if you are living in a tight neighborhood.

So what is this list for? Well, if you are lucky enough to live in a neighborhood without having to follow all of these restrictions; then consider yourself very fortunate and appreciate the fact that you can care for your backyard chickens however you want.

On the other hand, if you are living in a place where you are not allowed to own and raise chickens in your backyard at all, then maybe you can use all of these laws as a template about meeting halfway. Who knows? The city council may agree and you would be on your way to raising chickens in your backyard!

Try as they might, it may be quite difficult for someone to just decide to “wing it” when it comes to raising backyard chickens. This is because this activity would require plenty of planning to ensure that you would get the best care possible. As such, it would be important for you to know possible information sources that you could use for raising your backyard chickens.

The great thing with getting additional information about raising backyard chickens is that they are now significantly much easier to get. This fact is spurred on by a couple of reasons. The first is that the internet has allowed people to easily access websites that contain information regarding raising backyard chickens.

The other reason that makes it easier for people to find information about the topic s that the popularity of raising backyard chickens nowadays have made more writers or web designers to create material for people to read.

Here are a few of the methods that you can use to be able to get additional information on raising backyard chickens:

Dedicated chicken forums:

While your neighborhood may have a small community for fostering your love of backyard chickens, there is a way to get into a much bigger one. Just join an online forum that talks about raising chickens in your backyard.

By joining these kinds of sites, you would be able to expand your community to people who are also enthusiasts about the topic but are not near your location. You can have discussions about the chicken’s needs even if the person that you are talking to comes from a different state or even country.

Another great thing with forums is that there may be some experts (agriculturalists, veterinarians) who may join and provide free expert advice about raising backyard chickens,

Online books or journals:

As mentioned earlier, the popularity of raising backyard chickens has lead to many authors writing useful reading materials about the topic. You can access them through the various ebooks or journals that are available online.

The great thing is that while you would have to pay for some of them, there also some free materials that you can download and read. Actually, even if you would have to pay for them, you would be surprised at how they are usually much cheaper than their paper counterparts.

As such, you would have a great reference source for basing your coop designs, feed schedules, and other maintenance activities.

Since all of these information is now much more accessible to you, you would hopefully be able to get all the necessary data to ensure that you would raise backyard chickens well.

The truth is that raising chickens is not all fun and games. While there are plenty of positives that you can get from raising them, there are also some disadvantages that you would have to face. The good thing is that being able to overcome these disadvantages is not that difficult.

Here are some tips that would help you solve some of your issues regarding raising backyard chickens:

Noise:

One of the common problems with regards to raising backyard chickens would be the noise. This is especially true if you have roosters in your flock, as they can be quite noisy. Actually, even the hens in a flock could make some noise.

The best way to solve this may be to build your coop using sound insulating materials. It would also help if you would quickly respond to your chicken’s sounds and stop them from doing it. This would help deter the chickens from making noise.

Stench:

The problem with taking care of backyard chickens is that if you do not maintain the coop well enough, you would have problem with the stench. The chickens themselves are not really the culprit but rather the accumulation of their droppings as well as leftover food scraps.

To be able to rise above this issue, you should be very diligent and steadfast in performing maintenance work on your chicken coops. You must be able to quickly clean up after your chickens by throwing out their leftovers and also clearing all of their droppings quickly.

If you would clean up your coop regularly, then you can expect that the stench would become lesser and would not affect you as much.

Inconvenience to your neighbors:

The thing is that while you may be able to tolerate the noise or the stench and doing everything to ensure the cleanliness of your coop, your neighbors may not necessarily share the same sentiments. They may become quite frustrated at the inconvenience that it brings to the neighborhood.

To be able to overcome this, you should understand that communication is very important. You must be able to explain to them your situation well, as well as apologize for any untoward incidents that may occur.

Perhaps giving them some chicken related gifts (eggs, a roasted chicken) would help in greasing the social wheels so that they would become more accepting of you and your flock’s plight.

Hopefully, by being able to learn the methods that would enable you to overcome these disadvantages when you are raising backyard chickens; you would now have a happier and easier time in taking care of your flock.

You would now be able to simply focus on the advantages and forget about the negatives that are associated with doing this activity.

You should understand that raising backyard chickens is an activity that would be quite difficult to be covert about. The size of the coops, the odor of the chickens, as well as the noise of the roosters are all contributing factors to the difficulty of being stealthy while raising them. As such, your neighbors would definitely notice that you are taking care of or raising chickens in your backyard.

When other people are involved, there is always a matter of etiquette about your dealings with them. The case is the same when it comes to raising backyard chickens. Following proper etiquette would ensure that you would have a harmonious relationship with your neighbors, and that you would have very little issues when it comes to the chickens in your backyard.

Here are some of the etiquette matters that you should consider when it comes to Raising Backyard Chickens:

Apologizing for Untoward Incidents:

No matter how much you try to be guarded about raising your backyard chickens, you can expect that there would be some untoward incidents while you are taking care of them. These events could range from a chicken escaping and causing a ruckus in your neighbor’s lot to roosters or even your hens suddenly becoming very very noisy in the middle of the night.

When these situations occur, you may want to talk to your neighbors and apologize for what happened. Yes, they may already understand the situation, but it would be very helpful socially if you would still talk to them and be sorry about it. Bringing them an egg or two as a gift when you talk to them would also help.

Just ensure that you are sincere about apologizing, and are not just mouthing of words to them.

Informing your neighbors about changes to the chicken coop or even the number of chickens:

Taking care of your chickens is a very dynamic process. You would usually add chickens or remove things to your coop, in an effort to make the best environment possible for your flock. As such, you should expect to make plenty of changes while you are taking care of them.

The problem lies in two ways, first is that construction work for your coop may make a lot of noise .Sawing and cutting and hammering everything into place may disturb the peace in your neighborhood.

The other issue is the fact that your chickens are quite moody animals. They would need some time to acclimate themselves with the new things that are changing in their current lifestyle. This means that they may react noisily towards the changes that you would make to your chicken coop or to their numbers.

You may want to give a heads up to your neighborhood about these changes so that they would not be too surprised if your chickens would suddenly be a bit wild.