Best Practices for Backyard Chickens

Welcome to "Best Practices for Backyard Chickens," a dedicated group by Roslin Poultry Ranch. As a quaint, family-run farm, we specialize in a variety of egg colors from our select breeds. Join us to learn and share best practices for backyard chickens, ensuring your flock thrives. Our community is perfect for both new and experienced poultry enthusiasts looking to enhance their backyard chicken-keeping skills. Let's nurture our flocks together with expert advice and friendly support.

What is the Deep Litter Method?

It is a method of chicken waste management which involves droppings and bedding material to compost inside the coop instead of being cleaned out and replaced regularly.

With the deep litter method, a carbon-based litter such as pine shavings absorbs nitrogen from the chicken droppings, which ferments in an odor-free process to produce a rich, humas just the same as a traditional compost pile.

I personally can not allow droppings to built up inside my coops, I'm sure if executed properly the deep litter method could work.

The Deep Litter Method could be a time saver for those backyard chicken keepers that use traditional types of litter, but it also can be a health hazard to the chickens if implemented incorrectly. If you choose to use the deep litter method, it should be well understood and properly managed.

It is definitely not a hands…

Somehow along the way, the big talk on social media is how important it is to have ventilation in the chicken coop.

Not that important!

What is more important is circulation in the heat of summer.

Lets start with ventilation:

Ventilation is important, yes but for the big commercial poultry industries, housing thousands of birds in the huge industrial buildings. They need the big fans sucking out the ammonia and bring the clean air in as it is unhealthy for the birds and can cause respiratory diseases.

Backyard chicken keepers do not have thousands of chickens in their coops and are not kept in the coop 24/7. They generally have a run attached and can leave the chicken coop. In addition, the coop isn't completely sealed up during the day as the pop door would be open, letting in air.

Chickens have become very popular in the backyard. Chickens were once viewed as livestock, now people are keeping them as pets.

That's where this topic begins.

Everyone wants their chickens to be as happy and healthy as they can be and in return give us as many eggs to their maximum potential.

I'm going to help you achieve both the healthy chickens and the maximum egg flow.

It all starts with DIET.

Diet is everything in laying hens and more of something healthy other than their nutritionally complete chicken feed is not helpful and not beneficial.