Chickens for Tick Control

[Will Neide]

Just wondering if anyone has any pointers in raising and housing chickens to roam about your property to keep ticks in control. I just moved into central pa and in a quick 30 min walk around the property we had 3 ticks, one of which was a deer tick.....and it's only February. I've come across a few recommendations to get chickens or guinnea hens and I'm seriously considering it. Between kids and future pets, I'd like to keep them as tick free as possible.

I've never had chickens so this is all new to me.

[marley]

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.......

What are going to use/raise to keep your chickens safe from predators....unless you are going to make the whole yard a coop

[mzilliox]

guinea fowl are far superior for this application, but they are noisy and their eggs don't taste as good. id recommend a mix of barnyard birds and guineas. get on Craigslist andd look for someones random barn breed chickens, they survive free range better. then get 3-4 guinea fowl to protect your flock and up the tick eating.

i have no ticks inside my fenced area, and plenty anywhere else.

[Too Tall]

Our neighbors have 4 chickens. They rented them from a farmer who supplies everything. It's pretty painless and we get eggs :)

The birds are really pleasant, the make comfortable sounds and don't mind being picked up.

Too bad Peacocks don't eat ticks.

[Tom]

Guinea hens work well and look funny.

[joosttx]

a nice spray of a pyrethroid insecticide on the property is a better solution. Also, shooting the deer around your area will help too.

[EightySixer]

Will a friend of mine out past Yorklyn in Hockessin has a chicken coop, he would probably be more than happy to talk to you for a bit regarding setup. I will put you two in contact if you'd like.

Their eggs are far better than anything bought in the supermarket.

Doesn't Nao Tomii have a little bird (chicken) coop also? His looks like a cool little setup from the few pictures I've seen.

[djg21]

Guinea Fowl seem to be pretty common around me. They do a good job with ticks and insects, but apparently can be loud and like to roam.

[stackie]

Costco sells a decent chicken coop kit around my parts. They will have them in a couple months.

Buy chickens in march so they can go outside when weather warms up. Also you'll get eggs sooner as the laying will pretty much stop as it gets cold and days get shorter in winter.

If you care at all about any plants in your yard or don't want lots of fertilizer ( chicken poo) by your patio door, build an enclosed run. The chickens are social and they will hang out by the patio door to look in on you. Where they hang out, they poo. Maybe if you have enough property you can put coop far enough away to discourage. But then it's far to go to maintain.

Raccoons can open just about any latch. Ask me how I know. 😢 Fortunately they cannot figure out how to use the key tied to the coop on a long string to open a small master lock. At least not for three years.

After the investment of coop and run I think the cost is lower than store bought eggs. Especially if you consider free range organic eggs. And the homegrown eggs are way tastier with a much higher yolk to white ratio. Mine eat all sorts of table scraps. Farmers market people will give me extra carrot tops for them too! I average 1-2 dozen eggs a week from 3 birds and I only buy $20 organic feed every couple months. So $20 feed plus scraps gets me say 12 dozen organic eggs at a value of 4-8$ a dozen depending on where you buy eggs (Costco on the cheap end farmers market on high end).

I live in city so don't have ticks. I just like good eggs.

Jon

[guido]

Fortunately they cannot figure out how to use the key tied to the coop on a long string to open a small master lock. At least not for three years.

Give them time they will master that too...

[Bob Ross]

Costco sells a decent chicken coop kit around my parts.

Last week I was really surprised to discover that the Ace Hardware store near my parents' house in Tucson AZ not only sells chicken coop kits, they also sell chickens! Near the checkout aisles, so apparently they're an impulse buy?

[Doug Fattic]

I don't know anything about chickens but I do know I can buy about any kind of baby chicks I want at my local Rural King store. They are a kind of farmer's supply store located throughout the midwest that is a kind of a combination of a Lowe's and a TSC and Walmart. They keep many different varieties (including ducks) in the store for sale in what looks like a farm watering trough. They must have several thousand for sale now that it is spring in about 20 of those troughs. They have a video on how to take care of them including building a chicken coop.

We used to do a bike ride in Ukraine as a fund raiser for our project to provide bicycles for pastors. Every morning - no matter whether we were in a big city or small town - I was awakened by a Rooster crowing. Even houses in fairly large cities have a garden with fruit trees and chickens and often a goat. I just got used to animal sounds everywhere I went there.

[Tom]

We used to send away for chicks every spring. 20-30 meat birds and when the layers got old, some new ones. They'd come in the mail in a box with holes in it. The mailman wouldn't deliver it, we'd have to go down to Windsor to get them. It was a big old post office from the days when we built grand public municipal buildings, all high ceilings and marble. The sound of the peeping echoing in those acoustics is still with me.

[Will Neide]

What's a decent number of chickens to start with? I was thinking roughly 6.

[j44ke]

Cracked corn is sort of like candy for chickens. And they love habits. So you can make a routine where you toss a handful of cracked corn down outside the coop just before lockdown and magically the hens will be there once they learn the routine.

Roosters can be really hard on hens, but if you get a good one who treats the hens well, he will keep everyone sorted and do some pretty good defensive work as well. But hens don’t need a rooster. They are just convenient if there are hazards around. A friend likes to get bantam roosters for her larger hens. They listen to him but won’t take any gruff. Makes him more of a personal assistant. Minus the clipboard.

[j44ke]

Our chicks have a fully enclosed 3' x 8' coop that sits inside a 10' x 10' chain link kennel (that I've also "roofed" with small gap poly fencing) all to themselves. Once outside of that structure we have about an acre or slightly more of fenced in property (7.5' tall). The thought is to transition them from the coop to then access to the whole 10' x 10' kennel, then eventually access to yard.

That’ll work just fine. Palatial.

[Tom]

My sister let her ducks in the house so they could bathe in the tub. Not kidding.

[j44ke]

My sister in law raises her chicks in a kiddie pool full of sawdust warmed by heat lamps on photographic light stands in her basement office/studio. When they get stronger and able to jump higher, she puts a chicken wire dome over it, Buckminster Fuller style. Keeps them safe until they are big enough to fend for themselves in the coop.