CARE & FEEDING OF CHICKENS

Keeping the flock happy, healthy, and busy.

Chickens may look like easy farm animals, but a healthy flock needs good food, clean water, safe housing, companionship, and daily attention. They are curious, social animals with individual personalities—and they are very good at letting you know when something isn't right.

FOOD

Chickens need a nutritionally complete feed appropriate for their age and life stage. Laying hens also need access to calcium, often provided through oyster shell. Treats, vegetables, garden scraps, and bugs can add variety, but they shouldn't replace balanced chicken feed. Chickens also need grit when they eat foods other than commercial feed so their digestive systems can properly break down food.

WATER

Fresh, clean water should always be available. Chickens can dirty a waterer surprisingly quickly, so it needs to be checked every day—and often more than once during hot weather. In winter, water needs to be kept from freezing.

HOME

A good coop provides a dry, well-ventilated place to sleep, protection from weather, nesting boxes for laying hens, and enough roosting space for the flock. Outside, chickens need room to scratch, dust bathe, forage, stretch their wings, and simply be chickens.

HEALTH

Spend time looking at your flock every day. Changes in eating, drinking, walking, breathing, droppings, egg production, feathers, or behavior can be early signs that something is wrong. Chickens also need protection from parasites and access to appropriate veterinary care when they are sick or injured.

FRIENDS & ENRICHMENT

Chickens are flock animals and generally shouldn't live alone. They establish friendships and social relationships and communicate constantly. Give them places to scratch and forage, safe things to investigate, dust-bathing areas, perches, and enough space to get away from one another when they want to.

THE PART OLD MACDONALD LEFT OUT

The eggs aren't the whole story.

Hens don't stop needing food, housing, protection, and medical care when their egg production slows. Roosters need safe homes too. And every chicken needs daily care whether you're collecting six eggs that morning or none at all.

At Rainbow Connection Farm, that's what Coop Operations is really about: the everyday work behind keeping the whole flock safe and cared for.

Same flock. Big jobs.