Anyone raising chickens in their backyard? I have 6 hens and a rooster. They are all in a very large pen. I am having problems with rain water collecting in the pen. Any suggestions for litter on the dirt ?

We don't have chickens now but we raised plenty of them for many many years.

Sawdust/wood shavings should work. You could also use shredded landscape bark mulch that comes in bags, it's not very expensive. Don't use the big pieces of pine bark mulch. That stuff creates more problems than it solves.

I loooove chickens. We had a dozen kinds. Had the most trouble with Leghorns. Never could keep them in and they were always sick. Barred Rocks and Rhode Island Reds were the best. Also really liked the big glossy black Australorp. We also had a bunch of weird kinds, silkies and araucanas, Wyandottes and Plymouth Rock and others. Also ducks and geese and various other fowl and birds.

Once you get bitten with the chickenlove your goose is cooked. You'll be buying every beautiful chicken you see and taking it home. Happy farming!

[ January 09, 2006, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: mrs_madness ]

If you like chickens, you'll like this site. Lots of neat pictures

http://www.petepaterson.com/roosters.com/main.htm

Here's my take on chickens.

When I was a kid on a farm, we had pigs, cows, horses and chickens. Oh don't get me started on chickens. I hate chickens.

One of the worst things about chickens is they lay eggs. Well at least some of them do and me, my cousins, and anyone else too small to defend themselves, had to gather the darned things. My granny would get us up before daylight just so so we could gather the eggs. We hated it, but we learned a few things.

One of the most important things is when you're gathering eggs, you always want to wear your shoes. Hip boots might be better, but either way, you better make sure your toes are covered. You see chickens do some really yukky stuff on the ground and no matter how you try, you'll step in it and it will creep between your toes and oh lord, it's bad. Really, really bad. YUK.

Of course us kids would be half awake and most of the time had no idea where our shoes were anyway so we would traipse out to the chicken house barefoot. Oh boy was that ever a mistake. Yuk. Double Yuk.

We also learned that there is only one animal worse than a chicken and that's a snake. Those snakes would get in the chicken nest really early and they wouold try to get the eggs before we woke up. So even though granny got us up literally with the chickens, sometimes the snakes beat us to the chicken house. Oh my lord was that ever bad. Really bad.

We would be half asleep trying not to step in that yukky stuff on the ground and reach in to get the eggs and something would move. I gotta' tell ya' if an eggs moves, it's probably a snake. And if you come close to a snake, there is only one thing to do. Run! Run real fast. No matter what you step in, just run.

And when there's a snake around, the yukky stuff ozzing between our toes doesn't matter at all. Just run.

Yep we learned a few things, but now that I'm a big girl, I say let the snakes have the eggs. I'll sleep in. I can eat Pop tarts for breakfast.

But I wish you chicken farmers the best.

smile

I'm with smile on the chickens, sounds all too familiar. Good thing no one ever said anything about the snake thing....that would have been my last trip.
Do remember the slip sliding.

Hysterical Smile, I can see it now you slippen and a-sliden....Personally since my Grandpa died the only chickens I see are from Kentucky Fried, Churchs Chicken or El Polo Loco. Eggs now thats a different story, every super market carries them and theres no snakes or goop under foot there when gathering your eggs from the stores cooler but watch those 'buy by dates' or those eggs can be too old..LOL

[ January 10, 2006, 08:46 PM: Message edited by: chatty lady ]

Thanks to all who replied, especially the snake story. I ended up putting staw down, works ok. Not to be discouraged with the slip sliding stories---I have my little red clogs ready to go to slog thru the... extra benefit stuff. I also dumped some of the "stuff" around my trees.