How to keep your chickens whiles on holidays or Christmas holidays
One problem with keeping backyard chickens is when it comes to holidays and you have to leave the house. Christmas holidays especially is the moment you want to see the family again. Unlike Thanksgiving holidays you get to be the host for the family because you keep poultry and that’s obvious and absolutely cool.
If your chickens are secure from predators, you should leave them unattended for not more than three days. If your chickens are simply for meat production (growing cockerels), you don’t need to be worried, but producing eggs will be a major issue.
Do chickens need daily care?
Chickens can survive on their own in your absence. In the wild chickens know what to feed on and it’s very easy for them to access their food. In your situation where the chickens have been domesticated you need to ensure they receive daily care especially when you run a strict intensive system for raising chickens.
Who looks after chickens when you go on holiday?
Everyday, a chicken need access to feed and water. So, now that you have then intention going on Christmas holidays or any other holidays or vacation, you need to put the following in place before asking your neighbor to monitor them for you ones a while. Its not nice to make your neighbor do your everyday morning routine for your chickens unless they volunteer to do so.
What to put in place for your chickens before going for a holiday
If you can’t afford a visiting chicken sitter or flying or shipping your chicken, you can improvise by setting up a friendly environment for your chicken.
1. Automatic Chicken feeder
Automatic chicken feeder is the best for every busy person raising chickens. Automatic chicken feeder can hold any amount of feed to take your chicken through a period of time depending on the size of the automatic chicken feeder. You can get the factory made from amazon or eBay or make your own automatic chicken feeder.
How to make an automatic chicken feeder (DIY)
In making your own automatic chicken feeder, you will need a large container according to the quantity of the chicken you. PVC pipes and add wooden boards to make stand. Here is a demonstrational video where Kelvin and his wife Sarah from the Living Tradition Homestead YouTube channel will guide you to make your automatic chicken feeder (DIY) at home. I do not own this video but felt like sharing the amazing work they do to help other homesteaders.
2. Automatic waterer for chicken
Automatic waterer are very common. One popular automatic drinker is the bell drinker. It is cheap to afford and comes with tubes which you can connect to big water containers for water to flow throughout whiles you on Christmas holidays or vacation.
Putting water in basins for your chicken whiles on holiday is not the best practice. Basins do not have anything covering it to protect the water from impurities. Below is a typical example.
3. Pop doors
Pop doors are vital when you have small fields outside the chicken coop with a fence to protect them. With pop doors, the chicken come out during the day and return into the coop when the sun goes down. Remember to always go for automatic pop doors for security reasons.
Can I leave my chickens in the coop for the weekend?
Provided you enough space with all the stated preparations above in place you can leave your chickens in the coop for the weekend. Enough water and feed will take them through the weekend or a three day holiday whiles away.
Can I leave my egg laying chickens for holidays?
When you have chickens laying eggs, you need to plan ahead and make arrangement with your neighbor or a teen in the area to collect the eggs for you regularly. Providing nesting box only is not an assurance to have all the eggs intact.
When the quantity of eggs in the nest box increases, they will crack, and your birds will begin eating all of the cracked eggs. You don’t want this to happen so, plan ahead and get some to do the eggs collection for you.
Keeping chickens needs a lot of time investment and commitment everyday. Whether backyard chicken farming or commercial chicken farming you need to speed more time taking care of the chicken or get extra hand to assist you on the farm.
Source: PoultryABC.com. Thanks for reading from PoultryABC.com an agriculture publishing website from Ghana. You are free to share this story via the various social media platforms and follow us on; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.
