As mentioned throughout many articles about raising chickens in your backyard, one of the major drawbacks to having these animals in your area is the noise that they can make. Perhaps you even have some firsthand experience about the loud sounds that your chickens are creating.

While you may be able to tolerate it, you can’t expect that all your neighbors would be okay with it. This is especially true if you are living in a neighborhood that has people who have babies or younger children. The noise from your backyard chickens may wake these kids up, and you can expect the complaints to roll in!

That is why it would be important for you to be able to limit the noise that comes out of raising chickens in your backyard. By being able to limit the sounds, you would be able to have a better time from your neighbors while you are raising your chickens.

Some steps that you could take to quiet your chickens would include:

Rushing and Feeding them Treats

This step is probably the most basic thing that you can do. You can try to anticipate the noise that your chickens will make and be ready to rush in and offer them some treats or snacks so that their crowing would stop.

While this may be effective in the short haul, you may be setting yourself up for some new issues; namely, the chickens may get used to you rushing and bringing snacks that they would initiate their noise to “call” you to bring food. So you should use this method sparingly.

Position:

You could also try to limit the noise that your neighbors would hear by adjusting the position of your coop. If you isolate your coop in an area of the backyard that is far from your closest neighbors then you would help in lessening the amount of sound that they would hear.

You could also build your chicken coop in an area of the yard that is surrounded by plenty of other buildings or structures. This is because the other structures would help contain the sound and may limit what your neighbors would be able to pick up.

Acoustic ceiling tiles

If you think that any position that you would put your chicken coop in would still cause enough noise to bother your neighbors, then it may be time to invest on the purchase of acoustic insulating ceiling tiles. These tiles would stop the sound from escaping the coop and would significantly limit the racket that comes from it.

Of course, the problem with it is that acoustic ceiling tiles are usually expensive and would significantly drive up the cost of putting up your coop. However, it may just be worth it as you won’t have to worry about the complaints of your neighbors.

When people have just set up their chicken coops and have started raising backyard chickens they can usually get overwhelmed by the experience. While they may have already prepared the main things necessary, there are some items that may become overlooked.

While these items may not be immediately necessary, there would usually come a time when you realize that you already need them for raising backyard chickens properly.  That is why it would be good to know about them now, and be ready to find sources for acquiring them.

Here are three of the most often overlooked items that are necessary for raising your chickens well.

Chicken Wire or other mesh type materials for fencing:

No matter how tough the frames of your chicken coop are, you would still run the risk of losing some of your chickens because of the weakness of your mesh. The chicken wire meshes that people often use for their coops would usually break down in a few months time for a variety of reasons such as weather, the chickens’ actions or just natural wear and tear.

You should have chicken wire readily available so that you would be able to immediately patch up the tears in your fencing. This would help you reduce the risk of predators or your chickens getting into and out of the coop.

Chicken Feed:

You need to ensure that you would be able to have a steady supply of chicken feed that you can give to your chickens. The great thing is that most feed stores in areas where raising backyard chickens are allowed are able to readily provide you with the feed that you need. However, you should always have backup plans just in case your regular supplier closes down, or would suddenly have a lack of supply.

Just be sure that the feeds that you are purchasing are right for your chickens. There are feeds that are better suited for chicks and there are also those that are more suited for egg laying adults or for those that are being primed as sources of meat.

Another issue to contend with would be the storage of such feeds, as other pests such as rats, may be attracted to it, and diminish your supply. You may want to purchase a covered, metal container so that you can easily secure your chicken’s food source.

Vitamins:

Yes, there are actually some vitamins that you could purchase for the chickens that you are raising in the backyard. They are usually available through local pet stores, or in the local veterinarian .These vitamins are necessary to ensure the health of your chickens. After all unhealthy chickens may not be able to produce as much eggs as they would have normally done, or grow into their natural sizes.

These vitamins are usually added to the water supply of the chickens so that they would be able to ingest it when they are drinking. A few drops in the watering station would probably suffice, of course this depends on the number of chickens that you have in the coop.

As much as possible, you should try to have these three things readily available so that your experience in raising backyard chickens, would go as smoothly as possible.

When you are a beginner in the world of raising backyard chickens, you would often try to search for the various ways in order to get help in caring for your flock. This is especially true for the people who are the only backyard chicken raisers in their neighborhood.

The great thing with raising backyard chickens now is that it is slowly rising in popularity all over the country. This means that there are more and more people that you can seek for help if ever you would need some tips or advice with regards to caring and raising your chickens.

Here are some of the people who you could probably approach if ever you would need to get some help when you are raising your chickens in the backyard:

The internet:

As mentioned above, the hobby of raising backyard chickens has been on a boom recently. This means that you have now more and more people to talk to when it comes to tips about raising them. The great thing now is that with the recent technological innovations, seeking them out to talk to them would not be that difficult.

You can use various means through the internet such as joining forums or mailing lists dedicated to raising backyard chickens. There are even some experts who have put up some websites that you could visit so that you would be able to gain everything that you would need to know about how to care for your flock.

Of course, you should always be wary however, as not everyone who gives you advice online may be experts on the field that they are talking about. While most tips found or given out on the forums can be helpful, there are some which could potentially harm the chickens in your flock. That is why, you should not take everything as they are and be discerning about the advice given to you.

The veterinarian or local agriculture expert

If you would need more scientific information from the experts, then you may want to consult the local agriculture expert or even the veterinarian. They would be able to give you high level data about how to take care of your chickens. You may even ask them to visit you so that they could personally see how well your chickens are.

Another great thing with asking the veterinarians or the agricultural experts for help is that aside from the advice they would also have access to some of the vitamins or medicine that you may need in order to maintain your chickens.

Chicken raising community:

If you are lucky enough to  be in a neighborhood that has a good collection of people who also raise backyard chickens, then you should probably go ahead and approach them.

They are probably very willing to give a fellow backyard chicken owner some tips in raising their flock.

When you are raising chickens in your backyard, you would inevitably encounter some deaths to your chicken flock. These deaths could happen for a variety of reasons ranging from natural deaths to predator attacks.

When this happens to people who are just beginning the hobby of raising backyard chickens, there are many of them who are lost about how they should go about handling the deaths. They do not know how to properly act in relation to the loss of their chickens.

Here are some of the things that you should do in the event that one of the chickens that you are raising in your backyard dies:

Check for causes:

The first step would be to check for the cause of the death of your chickens. As mentioned earlier, the fatality could be caused by a variety of reasons, which is why it is important to check what the reasons are so that you would be able to do some preventive measures in the future.

You could check for physical damage such as trauma or puncture wounds to see if they had been attacked by a predator or were roughed up by the other chickens in the coop. You may also want to check if there are signs of other diseases and ask your veterinarian about them so that you would be able to know what lead to your chicken’s death.

If it is caused by a predator, then you should find out how the predator was able to get inside your coop and attack the chicken. If it was an “inside job” you should see see which aggressive chicken roughed the one that died, and try to separate it from the flock.

If it was a disease then it would be important to dispose of the body quickly to avoid contamination. You should also check the other chickens and see if they have similar symptoms that the dead chicken previously had.

Disposing the body:

After you have isolated and checked the cause of the death of your chicken, the next step would be to dispose of the body. As much as possible, you must dispose of the body as soon as you can so as to avoid contamination (in case of diseases) or rotting.

Disposing of the body could be done in many ways. You could bury the birds, incinerate them, or throw them along with the biodegradable rubbish.

However, you should be aware that there are some cities, which dictate how you should dispose of the bodies of the dead chickens. This law usually pertains to those that were killed because of an illness.

Replacement Issues:

When you lose a member of your flock, a beginner would commonly search for a replacement chicken immediately. However, you may encounter some issues, if you just suddenly insert a new chicken into the flock.

Before inserting a new chicken into your flock, you have to make sure that it is well integrated so as to avoid disharmony inside the coop. You should follow the different measures that are done so that the pecking order inside it would not become very disrupted.

When people start raising backyard chickens, the reasons for it are usually grouped into two main causes. The first is to keep them as pets, and the other would be to use them as food sources or supplies that are either kept or sold to their neighbors.

When you think of your backyard chickens as food sources, the classification is that you either take care of them for their eggs or you breed them for their meat. The needs of the two different reasons for taking care of backyard chickens as food sources actually vary significantly. As such, your strategy for raising your egg laying flock may not be applicable for a meat producing group.

Here are some of the things that you would have to consider if you are raising backyard chickens for their meat.

Selecting a Breed:

You should understand that there are usually three different classifications when it comes to chicken breeds. There are the egg layers, the dual purpose breeds, and the meat birds. The egg layers are those that are able to lay high quality eggs, the meat birds are those that are able to be great sources of chicken meat, while the dual purpose breeds are those that can do an adequate job of both being a meat source or an egg source.

If you want to raise chickens solely for their meat, then you should get a meat bird. Breeds that are classified as meat birds usually grow extremely rapidly and have frames that are large and ideal for obtaining meat.

Some breeds that you may want to consider include: Cornish,  Orpingtons, or Giants.

Getting A Rooster:

A huge difference between having chickens for their eggs and having them as meat birds is the fact that you would need roosters. Roosters are important for meat birds as they would be the ones who would fertilize the eggs so that you can have chicks.

You should first check with your local laws if they actually allow you to keep roosters as part of your backyard chicken flock. This is because some states do not allow this perhaps due to the fact that roosters can usually make a lot of noise as compared to the hens.

Equipment:

You would also need some additional equipment if you would want to keep a flock of meat birds as you raise your backyard chickens.

You would need some brooders as this is what you would use to take care of the chicks. Brooders are heated enclosures which help in providing a good environment for the chicks to grow. This simulates the warmth that a hen would usually provide to their chicks. This is because most chickens from a meat bird breed do not have that habit of brooding or caring for their chicks once they hatch.

By ensuring that you do all of these 3 properly, you would be able to have a better chance of having a sustainable backyard chicken flock that you can use as a meat source.