T Melville learns how (not?) to raise chickens on a budget.

I finally built up confidence to try leaving them out overnight. Since I was feeding them inside at night, I drilled holes in a #10 can so I could zip tie it into a corner. Then I put their feed into a stainless bowl that sits snugly in the can. I mounted a light so I can check them easily and so they could eat. I turn the light off in the day time. Right now they're on overnight #2. So far I've seen no evidence of wild predators, only dogs and cats. They've not caused trouble so far.

The holder I made for the feed pan:



The pan installed:





Saturday we had a barbecue. The neighbor's little mutt comes around a lot. I don't bother the neighbors about it, 'cause our dog goes over there too. I do try to encourage her to go home, but I'm not mean enough to do a good job of it. Yesterday she got petted, loved on, held. Wasn't going anywhere. A little later when she wandered off briefly, I'd been telling how tame my chickens are as a result of having lived so long in the brooder at the foot of my bed and being handled so much. Our lawn chairs were circled up, and I went and got a hen and brought her over. One of the ladies held her and petted her for quite a while, but then we set her down inside the circle and gave her some scraps left over from making the fruit salad. She hung out and ate for probably close to an hour with only minimal intervention. We had to turn her around a few times so she didn't wander out of the circle, but mostly we had to supervise visitation when the mutt came back. She did pretty well when someone held her by the collar and someone held the hen. We slowly gave her more and more freedom, but she finally got the tail feathers in her mouth. She kinda had her, and we were on the way to separate them when she went for a new grip and missed. This all lasted less than a second and the hen wasn't hurt, but I figured it was a good time to take her back to the flock.

I think the chickens wouldn't mind if we had fruit salad more often.

These guys were 20 weeks old on 7/31/24. They'll be 21 weeks this Wednesday. They haven't laid any eggs yet. Can crowding cause this? (In which case they'll start when they move into their bigger permanent tractor.) Or should I be looking at other causes? What are the most probable causes?

Hi T,
Environment can affect egg laying, but I wouldn't worry too much yet. While different breeds do start at slightly different ages, 24 weeks is probably a better average for when they start laying eggs. If they are not laying in a month... then I would start to wonder about environmental things that might be affecting them.

Went out to feed the chickens today, after church. One of the ladies left me my first tip! (In spite of the terrible service.)

The brown one AIN'T from the grocery store!

Thank you, Matt McSpadden, for telling me not to panic yet. They're not quite 23 weeks old. I bet the others will join the savant soon enough.

The bad news is that so far, that egg has cost me $70.30. The good news is, I expect the cost per egg to be cut at least in half in the next few days. (It'll keep going down and down for a while after, but never again will it likely fall by 50% in one move.)

Hehe.. yeah, they always say that your first egg from a flock is the most expensive egg you will ever eat :)... fortunately like you said... they go down in price a lot after that.

That cage they are in is far, far too small. It would be too small for one bird.  It's also very bad for chickens to walk on wire.  Most people consider 8 sq ft per chicken adequate for the run area, so for your 6 birds, that would be a minimum of 48 sq ft.  The cage you have them in looks to be about 2 sq ft.  I would urge you to build a bigger area as quickly as possible.

Trace Oswald wrote:That cage they are in is far, far too small. It would be too small for one bird.  It's also very bad for chickens to walk on wire.  Most people consider 8 sq ft per chicken adequate for the run area, so for your 6 birds, that would be a minimum of 48 sq ft.  The cage you have them in looks to be about 2 sq ft.  I would urge you to build a bigger area as quickly as possible.

It's actually 8²', so still too small. The plan is for a bigger tractor. I didn't know being on wire was bad for them, but I'd finally decided to leave out the wire floor in the final design because it would hinder things like eating grass, digging up bugs and making dust baths.

T Melville wrote:

Trace Oswald wrote:That cage they are in is far, far too small. It would be too small for one bird.  It's also very bad for chickens to walk on wire.  Most people consider 8 sq ft per chicken adequate for the run area, so for your 6 birds, that would be a minimum of 48 sq ft.  The cage you have them in looks to be about 2 sq ft.  I would urge you to build a bigger area as quickly as possible.

It's actually 8²', so still too small. The plan is for a bigger tractor. I didn't know being on wire was bad for them, but I'd finally decided to leave out the wire floor in the final design because it would hinder things like eating grass, digging up bugs and making dust baths.

I wish I were closer.  I've built about a dozen chicken tractors, I would be happy to help you build one.  I've built different kinds but usually go back to these:  Hoop house

Must've laid the second egg, but either I have an egg eatin' chicken(s) or they broke it. Can't think of a predator bigger than a snake that could've got in the cage without opening it. Then even the snake couldn't have gotten out until the shell broke. So it must've been them who broke it. After the shell got pushed out, I suspect a dog licked it clean.