Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens (22 page)

Other issues — difficulty keeping the net taut; problems getting line posts into rocky soil, drought-ridden clay, or frozen ground; inconvenient guy wires at the corners — are incidental by comparison with finding bullfrogs and other dead animals tangled in the fence. Despite these issues, net fence with a battery-powered controller is popular as a lightweight, movable fence for range rotation. No matter how careful you are not to snag the fence each time you move it, gradually it will fray to the point of requiring replacement.

Chickens aren’t as susceptible to getting zapped as other livestock because of their small feet and protective feathers, but they do learn to respect an electric fence. First they have to know their home territory. Whenever you move chickens much outside their previous location, confine them inside their shelter for a day. Then, when you let them into the fenced yard, they shouldn’t stray too far from home.

THE SECRET TO FEEDING CHICKENS
properly is to imitate as closely as possible their natural diet were they truly free to forage. The more attention you pay to your feeding — and drinking — program, the greater your rewards will be in terms of perky chicks, healthy chickens, abundant eggs, good fertility and hatchability, show awards, and tasty meat.

A chicken drinks often throughout the day, sipping a little each time. A chicken’s body contains more than 50 percent water, and an egg is 65 percent water. Therefore, for its body to function properly, a bird needs access to fresh drinking water at all times.

On average each chicken drinks between 1 and 2 cups (237 and 473 mL) of water each day. Exactly how much a chicken drinks depends on several factors, including these:

Age:
Chickens drink more as they get older

If they’re laying:
Layers drink twice as much as nonlayers

Temperature:
Chickens drink two to four times more in hot weather

Time of day:
Chickens drink the most at dawn and dusk

The most important ingredient in your chickens’ diet is water. But water quality and availability are not things we normally think much about until a problem arises. Water deprivation is a serious matter. Pound for pound, a meat bird requires about one-and-a-half times as much water as feed, and hot weather increases the amount of water needed. If broilers don’t get enough water, they won’t eat well
and therefore won’t grow well. Similarly, laying hens that don’t get enough to drink won’t lay well. Hens deprived of water for 24 hours may take another 24 hours to recover. Deprived of water for 36 hours, they may go into a molt, followed by a long period of poor laying from which they may never recover.

WATER HEATERS

To keep water from freezing, set a metal drinker on a thermostatically controlled heating pan or drop a sinking immersion heater into a trough.

Deprivation easily occurs when water needs go up during warm weather but the amount of water furnished remains the same. Chickens prefer water at a temperature between 50 and 55°F (10 and 13°C). The warmer the water, the less they’ll drink. In summer, put out extra waterers and keep them in the shade or frequently furnish your flock with fresh, cool water. Electrolytes in the water stimulate drinking, as well as replenishing electrolytes lost due to heat stress.

Water deprivation occurs in winter when the water supply freezes. In cold weather bring your chickens warm (not steaming hot) water at least twice a day. Or keep waterers from freezing with water-warming devices, available from a farm store or livestock-supply catalog. You might choose to use an immersion heater in a water trough, place a metal bell fountain on a pan heater, or wrap heating coils around automatic watering pipes. For a small number of chickens, a plug-in heated water bowl makes a handy option. You can save electricity that would otherwise be lost by unnecessarily heating water on the warmer days by plugging each water-heating device into a thermostatically controlled outlet adapter (Thermo Cube TC-3).

Even when they have plenty of water, chickens may be deprived if they don’t like the taste. Factors affecting water quality include the following:

Color:
Water should be colorless.

Odor:
Water should be odorless.

Opacity:
Water should be clear.

Bacteria:
Water should be free of bacteria.