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Hi Jim –
I am a “ten center” and read your blog every day. Just wanted to say that I thought Keith in Minnesota’s article on “Survival Chickens” was outstanding. A really good example of maximizing what you have (and leveraging Mother Nature) without spending huge amounts of effort or money to get a major benefit. – John

Jim and Memsahib,
Regarding the recent blog entry “The Home Chicken Flock for Self-Reliance”, I have a few comments. I have been raising chickens since I was young and continue to this day. Having a source of fresh eggs is great and I do agree that they are not free. They are of a much superior quality and taste and they are right there in your backyard. That makes them worthwhile.
I do disagree with a couple of care issues from the article. I always lock up the birds at night. Poultry cannot see in the dark but their predators can. Giving your birds a safe roost at night is trivial and you just need to make closing them up at night part of your routine. If you are relying upon them for a source of food, you can’t afford to waste them by making the predators fat. In addition, most predators will remember where they got their last meal and will return time and time again leaving you with no survival stock.
Another item I differ from is the cleanliness. Clean water and a clean coop is crucial for avoiding numerous illnesses. There are many methods to coop cleaning and I lean toward the every week method. Ammonia from decomposing manure build up can occur under damp conditions and the birds can develop serious respiratory issues. In the cold weather, you can be a bit more relaxed with coop cleaning if desired as the bedding usually freezes solid. Make sure the coop is not drafty but good ventilation is a must to keep fresh air flowing inside. As well as being beneficial to the birds it will dry up the bedding and eliminate the ammonia smell.

Some other tips:
Many bantams chickens tend to be better foragers than standard breeds. You also get smaller eggs but bird weight to egg ratio is pretty good (read: less feed required per egg). Bantam roosters are much cockier than their larger counterpart and will stand up to dogs. (But they don’t always win!) Bantam hens are great mothers who will incubate and brood any other type of poultry you’d like to raise.
Bringing in new birds to your flock should be handled with care. I recommend at least a two week quarantine before introduction. Chickens don’t always telegraph their illnesses and you may need to allow a disease to work through a more advanced stage to be able to see it. Of course, the situation allows for it, you should have some medications on hand to assist in the prevention/recovery. Don’t forget to sanitize shoes/boots and clothing after visiting another person’s coop. You can easily bring home diseases from the manure on your boots.
Chickens will eat nearly any table scraps you produce. We do not give ours any onions (it will transfer the taste to the egg) or meat. Our birds get insects, worms, and grubs for meat protein. These scraps will greatly reduce the amount of feed required.- Rob

JWR,
Keep up the great work! I’m proud to be a double ten-cent subscriber and continually amazed at the wealth of new topics that come up on your site. The recent post on survival flocks is an excellent example of a concept I had not considered before, but could be lifesaving.

Regarding the survival flock, did anyone else notice that the traits Kevin in Minnesota breeds into his chickens are pretty much exactly the same traits we work towards in ourselves and search for in group members?
1. Can you provide for you own food?
2. Do you have the ability to defend yourself from predators?
3. Are you smart enough to avoid predators in the first place?
4. Strong immune system?
5. Raise your own “chicks”?

I got a chuckle out of rereading the entire “survival flock” article and applying everything in there to people. And for me, preparedness can be summarized as Keith states, it’s pretty easy to separate them into two flocks, the dinner flock and the survivor flock. Which flock will you belong to when the Schumer hits?

Speaking of Schumer, I’d like to comment on the recent Sanitation letter, and the treatment of Schumer, the home-grown kind, not the political kind. I take a different view on “The Humanure Handbook” than you. Yes, there are risks in composting your own manure, but no more risk than kerosene, chainsaws, and firearms. Each of these three items have inherent risks that are life-threatening, but easily avoided thru training and safety precautions, just like humanure. And fortunately, the “Humanure Handbook” is available free on-line, and it provides all the details, and scientific studies that prove this is safe, and how to do it safely and easily. I will not go into the details of how, it’s all there in the book. But I will stress the advantages for people like me that plan to build a retreat, but don’t have a fortune to spend.
1. Huge Cost Savings. Not having to build a septic system will save thousands of dollars.
2. Comfort and Convenience. No trudging outdoors thru the weather to a dark and cold, or hot and bug infested, outhouse. And when done correctly, there is no smell!
3. OPSEC. No need for everyone, several times a day, to expose themselves to prying eyes to visit the outhouse. Have you ever seen the Academy Award-winning movie “Unforgiven” starring Clint Eastwood? The outhouse scene amplifies my fears. This especially applies to your observation posts if hidden. Do you plan to drink hot liquids to stay awake during sentry duty? If so, you will want a bucket system as described in the”Humanure Handbook” to stay hidden.
4. Simplicity. No pipes to clog up and backup. No need to pump/store/waste precious water on flushing. No reliance on a septic pumping company. Even in your own outstanding book, “Patriots”, the septic system became overloaded, and had to be reserved for emergency use only. Why not skip it altogether?
5. Thrifty. Why waste perfectly good, home-grown fertilizer?

But to be fair and balanced, there are some minor drawbacks.
1. Sawdust and Hay. You need a “pickup truck” supply of sawdust per year per family. The sawdust, or equivalent leaves/moss/hulls, is used to cover your deposits, after each and every deposit (this is what prevents all fumes). Fortunately, I love the smell of sawdust! But some planning/work is necessary to ensure easy access to cover material (like sawdust). You will also need about 8 bales of hay (or equivalent yard waste) per year per family to cover/protect/oxygenate your compost pile.
2. Gray water System. If you have no septic system, you will need some kind of gray water system to handle your wash water. Wash water can be from vegetables, clothes, or your bath. Fortunately, these are easy to build, but are best thought out in advance. Many sources of information are available on the internet.
3. Another Household Chore. Approximately weekly, someone must haul the full buckets out to the compost pile, wash the buckets, and monitor the heat in the compost. But this should only take 30 minutes at most. This is not labor intensive at all.
4. Humility. You will need some humility to admit you use this system. But this is good for you.
5. Fecophobia. Yes, there is such a word. Yes, your family/friends/neighbors may shun you until you convince them. But this system works! How do you think the Chinese have farmed the same land for centuries without external fertilizer inputs? But Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV).

As a side note, the excellent book by John Seymour titled “The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It”, describes a similar humanure system, but without buckets. So if the only thing holding you back is the buckets, I would also recommend John Seymour’s “Loveable Loo” as an alternative. Always learning more, – Rookie

Dear JWR and Memsahib,
I wish to offer some helpful comment regarding the article prescribing “Hardening Chickens”. I have raised chickens and other poultry in a free range setting for 20 plus years. My pre-retirement career was that of a health care professional. I have also worked and volunteered in community health care projects and health education in several third world countries. I still volunteer my services when the need arises and I am able to respond. While I strongly agree in the practice of free ranging chickens and all poultry for that matter, for an aid to general hardiness and convenience of caretaking and the overall natural health benefit of the poultry and the superb quality of their eggs. I however must also warn us all of the severe health consequences caused out of human negligence and lack of proactive caretaking responsibility to ourselves and our farm animals which are being used for human and other farm animal food cycle sources. When TEOTWAWKI occurs, and I believe it will sooner than later, medical care and resources will become infrequent if nil to obtain in hinterboonies regions and rural isolated areas and very questionable at best if you are not fortunate enough to have networked adequately beforehand for that valuable and crucial medical person to come on board, or at least viably reachable by travel and who is also agreeable to being available for your survival group in a worst case scenario. My prime concern here is advocating a proactive responsibility in maintaining and keeping humans and their animals healthy in as natural as possible using natures sources of availability. The practice of poor to absent hygiene practices advocated by the author of the article is questionable for the good health outcome of both species. Even in third world countries, the incorporation of holistic health practices of a sanitary or “clean environment” for human and animal hygiene have statistically shown vast improvements in the populations affected by those health practices and significant reduction of diseases and mortality rates related to them. Thus, their overall quality of life improved. Note, I am not refuting the issue of immunity. That is a whole other issue of whether it is acquired or natural or artificial immunity, passive or active. Diseases caused specifically via harmful bacteria, viruses, protozoans, fungus or the vectors like flies, mites, mosquitoes, and fleas that carry them into contact with us or our animals, must be discouraged. Practices to reduce those harmful populations must be performed in earnest.

Never plan to dine on an animal that had or has questionable health issues. Never feed their caucuses, milk, eggs, or any byproducts of questionable health animals to your family or other animals. Do not put them into your compost pile. Incinerate them. Here you will find just a sampling of multiple diseases causes and effects from an unclean environment. Botulism is more common than we hear about in unclean environments, which is potentially deadly and is transferable to the egg. If you practice the dirty litter suggested by this author, then you had best take heed and caution. Coccidiosis is caused by a protozoan parasite, which are deep tissue invaders occurring in the meat of the bird and eggs laid by it and harbored in moist, old litter. You could treat the poultry with Sulfa based medications which is also then passed on to you in their meat and eggs. Or, you can keep a clean hen house for proactive prevention. Erysipelas is caused by a soil borne gram positive bacteria which enters a break in the skin. It is spread by poultry being bitten by biting flies which are attracted to manure. This is also a human transmittable strain and also transmittable to stocked fish in ponds which are used as free range poultry water sources. It can also transmit to your pigs, sheep, mice and your other yard poultry. Encephalitis is caused by vectors of migrating mosquitoes and biting flies near or on open water sources. The flies lay their eggs in the poultry manure or spilled food. The disease list goes on. Most, if not all can be avoided by your proactive responsible health practices of cleanliness.

I highly recommend the World Poultry web site for its accuracy of abundant information; ease of reference, and on line pictures. It would take volumes for me to describe the offenses and diseases that are caused in poultry alone by these harmful organisms. But, I have high objection and researched validation to show the negative consequences to cleaning a coop of its litter and manure only once a year. All that manure is valuable as garden composting, only after it has cooked to a usable loam state. Never apply green manure directly to your garden or plants. It must be allowed to compost cook to kill off harmful organism cycles. Wear your gardening gloves to protect yourself from live harmful organisms. Wear them over a pair of disposable gloves or rubber gloves when applying compost to your plants or for that matter anytime you work directly in the soil. If you’re kneeling in the soil, wear knee protectors. The object is to protect your intact skin. For the coop cleaning process remove all the eggs and the poultry out and away from the coop. Wear a specifically designated outfit for this clean out, preferably a Tyvek type zip jumpsuit to protect your whole body surface. These can be hosed off and reused many times as long as there are no punctures to the fabric or stresses to the seams. Get a size that is one size larger than your normal size of clothes. If this is not available for you, use a heavy denim type or high denier cloth type military jumpsuit that zips in front. Don latex, or nitrile gloves if you’re allergic to rubber, make sure the gloves cover over the sleeve of the jumpsuit so you have created a skin seal. Last, wear a face mask that also fully protects your eyes, nose and mouth when you clean out either your coop or the nests found randomly constructed on the outskirts of your property. My husband makes use of his light weight welding helmet for this purpose over a disposable nose and mouth mask. This actually provides whole head and hair and ear protection as well. Those feathers can go into the composter as well, unless you are sanitizing them and using them for some other project. Note if you are finding these frequently, your poultry are talking to you. They’re telling you they either need fresh litter or the hen house nest boxes are being occupied when they need to use it. This will usually happen most during brooding season. Listen to them and fix the problem.

Just because you can’t see the bacteria, protozoa, fungus, mold, spores, and the most virulent harmful organisms doesn’t mean they are not there. They are. Most of these become airborne during the clean out process and are unknowingly inhaled by you and your chickens. Even if you have a great immune system response, it does not work well for another or the very young or the elders or the already infirmed that you will come in contact with. These organisms can be passed on by humans performing the human or animal care. This becomes possible by touching contact with the harmful source, or by any natural anatomical open orifice on your body, or unnatural open orifice of skin, like a cut, scrape or burn, for them to enter or be inhaled. You need on hand all these suggested items in ample supply anyway in your survival storage for the more virulent strains of viruses to come.

There are nutritional issues that need to be considered in this important food cycle as well. The poultry must receive a daily minimum requirement of good vegetable protein, vitamins and minerals in their natural habitat if you’re going to only free range. Just like humans. Remember, we’re going to eat their bodies and eggs. The practice of supplements is a good one if you are living in an area where the soil or vegetation is lacking these. Test your soil. Do some study on safe for poultry forage consumable vegetative sources which will provide natural vitamin and mineral supplements. The primary ones to consider are Calcium, Phosphorus, Vitamin D3 and Folic acid. While it is a fact that chicken feces does provide Phosphorus if consumed, eating unnaturally high colony counts of bacteria or viruses which were allowed to incubate for months, could easily infest and kill your entire flock inadvertently. Also, the practice of supplementing back raw egg shells for calcium as a feed supplement should be discouraged as it encourages egg cannibalism. A plot of Spinach plantings and castings are a much better choice. Without adequate intake of these supplements, either natural or store bought, the poultry will poorly develop and are subject to many other maladies related to growth, bone development, skin, and vision. Thus are poor consumables. Those hip fractures described in the article may be related to more than a jump off the roost. My chickens get calcium via crushed oyster shell and have a perpetual spinach plot. They have jumped off the roof of their 10 foot hen house and don’t suffer broken hips. We must always be responsible and accountable to our animals who serve our needs so well. Unlike humans, they can’t tell us that something is wrong. We have to conduct daily routine observation of their behavior and bodies to detect a problem and insure a proactive and ongoing active level of maintenance and responsibility to protect and care for our animals. If you are not willing to make this level of commitment, perhaps it would be better to skip the poultry for you and your family’s sake of good health. Cleanliness is truly next to Godliness in our triage of practices on the homestead.

Once you’re finished with the cleaning process and are ready to leave the coop, please follow these infection prevention practices in this order. Remove the garden gloves and hang them up. Leave the rubber or disposable gloves on until you’re totally finished cleaning your other personal articles. Remove the face mask, and hang it up or throw it away in the trash if it is a disposable. If you’re not using a whole face mask, then wear at least eye goggles and the mask must completely cover your nose and mouth and be one that will protect you from tiny viruses. Read the label. Remove that organism laden jumpsuit that’s protecting your underwear or clothing, by peeling it off at the shoulders and backwards away from your clean body and step out of it. Tug on the bottom exterior of the suit to get your legs and arms out if you need to get it over your washable boots. Avoid turning the soiled side to make contact with your clean skin. Hang it, zip it up and Hose it down in the yard near the coop and away from your home. Scrub your washable muck boots on a boot cleaner outdoors and hose them off and then remove them in your mud room or garage. Keep another pair of clean shoes or scuffs to slip on to wear inside your home. Remove the disposable gloves and dispose them. Wash your hands well with soap and water before you reenter into your inner home. Shower as soon as possible.

God Bless you and yours, this of course includes all your fortunate animals. – KBF