We have said in many of our previous articles that chickens are smarter than many people think. Chickens have the ability to adapt and learn routines, and that is why chicken keeping can be a lot easier for everyone who likes it if you adapt your chickens to your routine check-ups and clean-ups.
This is what made the typesofchicken.com team write this article about the basic routines every chicken-keeper should follow.
1. Constant Monitoring
Let’s be clear: when we say “check-ups,” we mean that your chickens should have regular, planned, and thorough physical exams.
If you have a larger flock, you don’t have to check up on all of your chickens at once. Instead, you can check on a different group of chickens every day.
Of course, if you see a hurt chicken, you can break the routine to see how bad the injury is and stop it from getting worse.
Keep track of which chickens you’ve checked on and which you haven’t. After a few weeks of regular physical exams, the chickens will get used to them and won’t fight when you pick them up to check on them.
2. Clean-Ups
In almost all of our articles, we talk about how important it is to keep clean inside and outside of the coop.
We do that for a very important reason: cleanliness keeps a lot of problems from happening in and around your chicken coop. As a chicken keeper, it is very important that you clean your chicken coop regularly and correctly.
Make yourself a schedule for cleaning the coop once a week or once a month. This is very helpful.
Both the coops and the chickens should be cleaned regularly.
Giving your chicken regular dust and water baths can do a lot for its health. The regular physical checks we talked about above can be much easier to do after giving your chickens a bath. Aside from the chickens and the coop, you also need to clean the run, the feeder, and the waterer regularly.
3. Routine Exercise
By routine exercise, we mean letting your chickens out in the run at the same time every day.
Choose a time of day when you or someone in your family will be sure to be able to let your chickens out and then put them back in the coop.
If you let your chickens out at the same time every day, you can stop them from picking on each other and teach them to follow rules.
But keep in mind that they will get used to wasting energy at that time of day, and if you don’t let them out often, they might get mad and fight, which is not good at all.
