breeding chickens – Storybook Farm

I have decided to use a time-tested method of gathering information about my laying hens. It’s called trap nesting. Using one of various methods, you trap your hens as they enter their nest boxes individually to lay, and then manually release them afterwards. Thus, you can identify without a doubt which hen laid which egg, and keep highly accurate records. It is a bit labor intensive, because traps must be checked every couple of hours since hens get quite thirsty after laying and are eager to exit the nest.

There are a myriad of reasons for trap nesting practices. Here are a handful of them:

Find out how consistently (or if?) your hens are laying.
Identify your best layers so that you breed them, and thus over time, increase overall egg production in your flock.
Link eggs with specific hens when seeking to breed for egg color enhancements in the flock (very handy when breeding Marans for those darker eggs, for instance).
Identify eggs with specific hens when doing flock mating. Thus, you can house more than one hen with a single cock, yet know exactly which specific paring produces exactly which eggs. Then, you can label and incubate and tag chicks and know with certainty what your blood lines are.
Find out who your egg eater is (it might be a rat!).

There are more, and I am undertaking trap nesting for all these reasons. This is the first post on this topic, and I anticipate sharing more as I go down this road. This post is about my build.

I have an old building that came with my farm when we bought it, seven years ago now. It was a tractor run below and a grain storage building above. The whole thing is about 24’ x 18’; the lower half (12’ x 18’) has long been converted into a coop for my layer flock. This part of the original building had been outfitted with a 3’ x 18’ corn-crib extension, which was partitioned off from the main space, so we didn’t use until this year. The extension has a central door in the 18’ lone wall; thus, the crib has a left side and a right side. Last winter, we put a pop door into the left side and created some sheltered roosts.

This summer, I’ve broken into the right side to create improved nests with (removable) trap door flaps. This is that right side before I began demolition. We had faced it with some 1/2” plywood because the first use we made of this space was for my horse. So, this was her kickboard.

It took some doing to remove this plywood, and under it were ancient (really tough) boards that were held on by rusted, tough old nails. It was definitely good exercise to pry all this wall apart.

After I got all of these boards off, I was confronted with verticle studs, which were of varying depths. I had to decide whether to replace these with a new header or leave them as they were. I decided on the latter because, well, I’m no carpenter, and these are chickens. 😬

It’s not easy to see, but the floorboards of the crib section were loose, and some were rotted. I removed, cleaned, and then put them back. In places where they couldn’t be used, I patched them with new boards, and then put down a layer of 1/4” hardware cloth. This was followed by some insulation, and then a tilted floor of plywood. (I tilted it from back to front in the hope that eggs, when laid, would roll forward to where I can more easily retrieve them.

I then constructed 12” high dividers that were 24” deep, and 1” x 2” supports for them that are 15” tall in the front. These then support the 2” x 3” beam that runs across the fronts of the boxes, forming the lip for the second tier of nesting boxes. All in all, there are 14 boxes: 7 below and 7 above. (On the roof of the second tier, we now store bales of shavings—and trap rats. 😏

On the lower tier, there is a 4”-6” space above each divider, between nesting boxes. I originally intended this to be only 3” at the most, and was content that no hens would hurt themselves trying to get through them, but as the 2” x 3” cross beam was laid in place, the vertical space increased. We ended up putting 1/4” hardware cloth down the length of the boxes on top of the 12” dividers so that the hens would not seek to exit the boxes on the sides after being trapped.

In the picture above, you can get an idea of the slope of the roll-away nesting boxes. This is both the ceiling of the first tier and the floor of the second tier. You can also see the 1/4” hardware cloth that we inserted to keep hens from exiting through the space.

Finally, all the nesting boxes were constructed, and it was time to create the trap doors. I used 1/4” luan, embroidery floss, a jigsaw, a staple gun, finishing nails, and Velcro in constructing these. In my next post, I’ll detail how I designed them, and how they operate, but for now, here’s a picture of the first three set into place: boxes # 2, 4, and 6. They are on the lower tier, and are numbered right to left (since we enter the coop on the right side).

Below is a close up shot of #2, set and waiting for a hen to enter.

It’s fall, and that’s the time when we face one of the harder parts of breeding chickens: culling. I can still remember the first time I realized that we would need to learn to butcher our roosters (and some older hens). While we often can rehome young hens, almost all roosters end up as food for our table. I know it’s a topic that many chicken lovers try to avoid or ignore, but I’d like to offer some thoughts on the rightness of seeing chickens all the way through their life cycles since the reality is that backyard chicken keepers will end up with roosters at some time in their careers.

First of all, though many of us keep chickens as pets, which means they are beloved individuals with names, they are animals: as such, they have no self consciousness. For instance, a chicken does not “say goodbye” to another chicken when they are sold away from each other. Chickens don’t fall in love, get married, or even — as do some animals — mate for life. Neither do chickens freak out at harvest time when cage mates are culled. Chickens are not humans: they do not reason as we do, or know their world as we do. Of course they have feelings, which include pain and fear. But the fear is more like startling, or a flight instinct, than a reasoned dread such as you or I would have in the face of mortal danger.

As a breeder of chickens, it gives me a great sense of purpose to raise birds that are the best that they can be. I choose high quality parent birds, and seek to feed and house them very well so that they will be as healthy (and happy) as possible. I place carefully chosen eggs in an incubator, and hover over it as the eggs set. I watch with amazement as chicks hatch — sometimes even intervening to help, though I’ve found that usually there’s a reason why a chick can’t make it out of the egg unaided. Many of our day-old chicks go off to be adored by others. But many also remain here at Storybook Farm.

I nurture my newborn chicks with electrolytes and apple cider vinegar in their water, medicated feeds that I grind in a blender to make sure they can get it into their newborn beaks. I provide warm lights, and clean, large pens. If they get pasty butts, I wash them off lovingly by hand.

As the birds who remain here grow from fledglings to adolescents, I watch them with delight. I love to see them come running at chow time. I love to hear the young cockerels learning to crow, sounding so much like adolescent boys whose voices have just changed. I laugh over the sparring matches of the young cocks, and am amazed to see the feathers change on pullets with each successive molt. Over and over, I wonder daily at the miracles of life, and growth, and beauty, and sweetness that my birds display.

Both cockerels and pullets frolic all summer at Storybook Farm on green grass, with plenty of sunlight, shade, food, clean water, and company. Unlike most large hatcheries, we do not dispatch young males. We purposefully choose breeds that are 1) heritage, 2) dual purpose (so that they are valuable for both meat and eggs), and 3) homozygous (look the same at birth) so that we sell all our chicks as “straight run” — and raise them the same as well. They all live sweet, pleasant lives while at Storybook Farm.

And then, in the fall, comes time for the hard choices of which chicks will feed us, which pullets will go into our laying flock for eggs, and which of the best birds will be bred to produce the next generation. For me, there’s a holy sense of awe when we go to harvest chickens. I’ve watched each animal its whole life, and now I’m bringing it full circle, and taking it to its final purpose. Each bird here has had a good life. Each bird has been loved and appreciated. And each bird will meet a quick, peaceful, painless, and humane end. It is hard, but it is also good, right, and proper.

All animals die. If I do not lovingly end their lives, their lives will still end eventually, and often in the claws of a predator or in disease brought on by old age. I cannot breed chickens and avoid that fact. Better I do it kindly and quickly than that they fall into hands less loving — like those of predators, or cock fighters, or as a by product of a larger chicken mill.

Deep thoughts about life and death come naturally to me because I am a Christian. I believe that God created chickens for a purpose. Actually, He created them for more than one purpose! Chickens give us so much: their eggs, their friendliness, their funny antics, their silly ways, and ultimately, their bodies. We live in a world where death comes to all. My faith teaches me that death is an evil, but a necessary evil, and sets me free to play my part in this circle of life.

So, I don’t have to ignore or avoid this phase of my responsibilities as a breeder. Bringing chickens into this world includes the duty and privilege of seeing them out of it, and I accept that, humbly and gratefully. I’m standing in the image of my Good Shepherd, Who has determined the roles that each of His people shall play, Who provides for, cares for, loves, and nurtures His children, and Who decides when He will bring them — not to an end, for we are not unconscious animals — but to be home with Him forever.

For me, then, butchering chickens is a sober, sacred business. God gave them life, and then gave them to me. As I choose which ones shall live and die, I reflect in my tiny way His awesome authority. I suppose it could make some people proud to wield such power, or help them become callous/indifferent to death. It has the opposite effect on me: I value the lives of both myself and my chickens more, seeing each day as a joyous gift. I also face death better (mine and my chickens’) by seeing it in right relationship to a bigger picture, and I am grateful.

Tag: breeding chickens

Trap Nests: the Build

Circle of Life