I spoke with a lady today who is wanting a few hens and I realized there are a few things I could share about keeping your chickens in the pen/yard.

First, clip one side of the chicken’s wing feathers.  This throws the chicken off balance when they try to fly over the fence.

I had a couple chickens that wanted to perch in the small trees on the edge of the fenced-in yard instead of the house on the perches.  Once the chicken is perched (ready for bedtime and dark), they are fairly easy to grab by the legs.  I grab the chicken and then place it on the perch in the house.  It usually takes 3 or 4 nights and the chicken then understands the whole perching in the house idea.

Also, I have a net on a 8 ft pole…looks like something a fisherman would use to pull his fish into the boat…that I use to catch the chickens if I don’t want to wait until dusk when they perch.  Occasionally, someone wants to come buy a couple chickens and I don’t know which ones they will pick so the net is a great help.

Remember, if your chickens don’t return to the house or get out during the day, just wait until dark and watch where they are perching so you can catch them.

Another thing, if you keep the chickens confined in the fenced-in yard or pen for a couple weeks, then you can let them out and they will return to their yard as long as you leave the door open for them to get back in.

I use a milk crate with hay in it for a nest for the hens to lay.  Then of course you need food and water.  Scratch has seeds and is a good general feed but if you want eggs on a regular basis, be sure and buy egg laying mash.  It comes in pellets or crumbles.  If you have smaller chickens, you might buy the crumbles.  The pellets are larger.  Crumbles look like large pieces of dirt.

There also needs to be a house of some kind (see my previous post about building a chicken house for 36 bucks).  During the summer I don’t have any problem with leaving the chickens to come and go in the yard and house.  But, during the winter when food is harder to find for wild animals, you need to close your chickens in to avoid them being an animal’s meal.

And by all means, don’t forget a perch for the chicken.  If you have an old rake or hoe handle that has broken off, you could use it to make a perch.  I usually buy my perches if I am building an 8 ft long house.  Go to Home Depot or Lowes and look in the wood/lumber area.  You will find large dowels.  Basically, it looks like a wooden round pole that you would see inside a closet.  I think it is a a dollar plus per foot and you can have them cut it whatever size you want.  Since I have a hole on each side of my house for the pole to go thru, I always add another foot to the length of the pole (9 ft pole for an 8 ft house).

If you want a quick and easy chicken yard, you can purchase a 10×10 dog pen (about $250) made of chain link fencing.  You will need to put a tarp across the top to keep the rain and sun off the yard.  You can also move the pen, too.  A 10×10 area is 100 square feet and you should have (4 sq ft) 16 feet for each chicken if it is a larger adult.  So, 16 into 100 is 6.25 so you can have 6 chickens in the yard.  If you have smaller breed chickens you can go with 3 square feet each (9 feet)…bantam type chickens.. so that would be 9 into 100 which means you could have 11 chickens in the same 10×10 yard.

It is important not to overcrowd your chickens for many reasons.  They will fight more in small areas.  I read you should never have more than 30 chickens in a chicken yard even if it is large enough to hold more.  They have a pecking order.

For sanitary reasons, you don’t want to overcrowd either.   I rake out my houses frequently.   I collect the poop and put it in feed bags.  You can actually sell it but I usually spread it on my two acres where the soil doesn’t look like it is producing good grass.  I also have a friend in town that I give some to every year when she is preparing her garden for the coming year’s crop.   If you have a compost bin, you can throw some in there, too.

If my chickens are out on my two acres instead of in their yard, I grab a couple slices of bread and call them and throw the small bite size pieces of bread into the yard I want them to go into.  Works like a charm.

I would also suggest that you call your chickens when you are going to feed them.  It makes them come to you.  I just say, chickie, chickie, chickie and they know I have food for them.  Even if they are in their yard when I feed them, I call out to them.  Chickens are certainly creatures of habit and I have given them a habit that helps me.  I look like the “Piped Piper of Hamlin” when they all follow me.