We’re more than halfway through March and you must be busy collecting and incubating eggs to get your new stock of chickens. If you haven’t tried one of these automatic egg incubators so far, there’s a whole poultry farming world that you’re missing out on. Get yourself an automatic egg incubator and make hatching eggs easier than ever before.
April is just round the corner and with the changing month, your responsibilities and required jobs for poultry farming will change accordingly. This post is drafted to compile all the chicken care jobs you need to take care of in the month of April in one place. Here’s what you need to do in the upcoming month.
Spring Cleaning
It’s time to get down and dirty to give your chickens a cleaner and more hygienic place to live and breed. It is ideal to clean the coop every once in awhile, but if you haven’t do it this month. Muck out all the litter and old bedding. Wash and sanitise all the nesting boxes, waterers, and feeders and keep them out to dry. Scrape away the dried bits of debris and poop before opening the hose on the coop. wash away thoroughly and repeat the procedure if required. Add in some fresh nest bedding, reinstall the nest boxes, feeders, and waters, and voila!
Set the Broody Hens
If you are using your hens to hatch eggs, it is ideal to move them to a separate spot. Identify the broody hens and set them in the new nest, near the eggs. Placing or forcing them to sit on the eggs immediately can cause them to panic and harm the eggs – you don’t want that. Let the hens take their time to warm up to the eggs and brood them for you.
Tend the Chicks
The eggs you are incubating right now will eventually hatch till next month. You will have a clutch of chicks to look after. You need to take adequate steps to feed, water, and essentially protect these chicks from harm. Make sure the enclosure or brooder you rear them in is warm enough to keep the chicks healthy. Also it is important to keep the enclosure clean and dry – this will require daily effort on your part. Lining the enclosure with straw or sand will provide the chicks better ground and keep the enclosure cleaner.
Make Place for the New Flock
Sure they just hatched, but they’ll grow up before you know it. With new birds hatched, you will need more space to house them. Inspect your current coop for available space. If you don’t have enough, this is a good time to start looking for or building a new coop that can house your new birds.
Let Them be Chicks
It is important to allow your chicks and growers to get enough space and activity to grow healthy. Make sure you keep the little ones away from the older birds. It is ideal to put them in separate enclosures where they cannot be harmed by the adults. Also, make it a point to let them out of their enclosures for an hour or two everyday to get some daylight and fresh grass.
That’s not a long list of chores that you need to worry about for the month April! However, while you’re at them don’t forget the weekly and daily poultry jobs that you need to take care of.
