Eggshell

Contains a large number of calcium to 80% calcium carbonate. The shell must first be boiled and then crushed.

Eggshell must be used with care. With its constant use, chickens begin to taste and move on to practice. Therefore, be careful not to practice adding it to your diet too often or unnecessarily.

Phosphates

When we write about phosphates, we mean fluorine-free fodder phosphate, di- and tricalcium phosphate. Their introduction into the diet significantly increases the presence of phosphorus in it.

Phosphorus must be in balance with calcium.

It is best absorbed in the digestive system of birds and hangs down with the feed tricalcium phosphate.

The application rate for laying hens is 1.5-2% in the diet and for chickens from 10 days of age 0.5-1%.

wood ash

Wood ash is a valuable mineral supplement due to the fact that it contains a whole range of minerals:

• calcium - 33%;
• phosphorus - 2%;
• sodium - 9%;
• potassium - 7%;
• magnesium - 7%;
• manganese - 0.47%;
• iron - 0.8%.

Add to the diet of birds at the rate of 10 grams of wood ash per head.

Sapropel

Sapropel is silt raised from the bottom of reservoirs. It contains a sufficient amount of protein, calcium and other beneficial trace elements.

Sapropel is used as a nutritional supplement in the amount of 20 grams per bird head.

Meat, bone and fish meal

Although these mixtures are not targeted mineral supplements, but are used as protein supplements, they contain a sufficient amount of mineral elements.

Meat and bone meal contains a significant amount of calcium, and fish meal is rich in phosphorus.

Be careful when applying fish meal- the salt content in it is quite high!

Nuances when making mineral additives

When making mineral supplements, the type of feed should be taken into account.

Green fodder - you can increase the share of table salt in it by 0.5%.

If there is meat and bone meal in the feed, reduce the use of other mineral supplements containing calcium and sodium by half.

Ready mineral premixes

The use of ready-made purchased premixes makes sense if the manufacturer is responsible for the production of its mineral complexes and is ready to answer to customers for the quality of the final product:

The chicken is a unique creation. If you properly care for it - keep it in optimal conditions, fully feed it, then almost daily (depending on the level of productivity) you can get the most valuable product from it - an egg! In gratitude for this, people treat laying hens more carefully and try to make their living conditions as comfortable as possible. Let's talk about chicken baths.

Chickens love to take baths. Yes, yes, don't be surprised! This land bird likes to swim, but not in water, but in dust. Passion for such "procedures" poultry inherited from their wild relatives. Dust baths are part of their hygiene. At the same time, they obviously get great pleasure, because they strive to arrange such a procedure for themselves at the first favorable opportunity.

However, only a bird that is kept in its natural conditions can afford it. But what about industrial laying hens? Currently in Europe there is Directive 1999/74 / EU, which entered into force on January 1, 2012, according to which laying hens can only be kept in large spacious cages equipped with nests for laying eggs, perches and sand baths. After all, a chicken spends only a few hours a day on food intake and the process of laying eggs, and the rest of the time it must “walk”, satisfying its biological and behavioral needs. It is believed that eggs obtained from laying hens in conditions close to natural are of higher quality.

However, if for laying hens kept in the conditions of industrial poultry farms in the countries of the European Union, sand baths are equipped only to satisfy their instinctive “whims”, then for chickens raised in home gardens, taking specific baths is simply a necessity.

The chicken is a unique creature. In the case when it is well looked after, we get a valuable product - an egg! For this, a person cares and does everything to make the living environment as good as possible. Today we will talk about baths for chickens.

Chickens love to take baths.. Yes, yes, don't be surprised! This land bird likes to swim, but not in water, but in dust. Passion for such "procedures" poultry inherited from their wild relatives. Dust baths are part of their hygiene. At the same time, they obviously get great pleasure, because they strive to arrange such a procedure for themselves at the first favorable opportunity.

However, only a bird that is kept in its natural conditions can afford it. But what about industrial laying hens? Currently in Europe there is Directive 1999/74 / EU, which entered into force on January 1, 2012, according to which laying hens can only be kept in large spacious cages equipped with nests for laying eggs, perches and sand baths. After all, a chicken spends only a few hours a day on food intake and the process of laying eggs, and the rest of the time it must “walk”, satisfying its biological and behavioral needs. It is believed that eggs obtained from laying hens in conditions close to natural are of higher quality.

Taking dust baths, chickens get great pleasure

However, if for laying hens kept in the conditions of industrial poultry farms in the countries of the European Union, sand baths are equipped only to satisfy their instinctive “whims”, then for chickens raised in home gardens, taking specific baths is simply a necessity.

It is not enough to build a good barn for chickens, you also need to equip it: fix perches, make nests, put / hang drinkers, feeders. But you need to do this in such a way that it is convenient for you to serve the poultry house. In reality, chickens don't care how beautiful their nests are. They fit perfectly on the floor. It will be inconvenient for you to collect eggs from the floor, and they can peck at them. Therefore, we make the arrangement of the chicken coop so that it is more convenient for you.

perches

First of all, you need to equip the chicken coop inside with perches. This is a round or oval stick - a tree branch, a shovel handle, a planed bar, etc., fixed at some height above the floor.

On average, they take about 20-25 cm of perch length per hen. They are fastened from the wall at a distance of 25-30 cm, one perch from another - at a distance of 35-40 cm. You can make multi-tiered ones, but there will be fights for the highest place. Keep in mind that all dimensions are approximate only and are necessary in order to be able to navigate. Everything is selected more locally: different breeds and chicken coops, and their owners too.

To make cleaning easier, a shield made of some smooth material is installed at a distance of 20 cm below the perch. Litter accumulates on it, so choose a smooth surface: it will be easier to sweep.

The question remains: at what height to make a perch, and hence a shield? It is most convenient to clean off in a cart. It should drive under the shield so that you can dump the litter directly into the wheelbarrow with a chopper. Flood height of the shield determines the height of your wheelbarrow, and above the shield there will already be perch slats. And again, choose the height of the perch for chickens so that it is convenient to clean.

nests

The second mandatory element in the arrangement of the chicken coop is nests. They will rush on the floor, but the eggs will be dirty, and even they can peck. According to the norms, one nest is made for three chickens. But in fact it turns out that no matter how many they do, they choose one or two, maximum three and stand in line in them. The rest are exactly the same next to empty. From time to time their tastes change, they begin to rush to others ... From all this it follows that you can safely count 5-6 goals per nest, anyway half will be empty.

It is better to arrange nests so that it is convenient for you to pick up eggs, i.e. hang on the wall. So that the bird can safely get there, they make traps - an inclined board with perches / sticks nailed across. The same trapiki are made for perches. If the nests are placed close to the perches and at about the same level, they will go back and forth. Quite convenient.

You can make such civilized nests

If possible, make sure that the nests face the corridor, if any, with the reverse side. From the back side make a door. Then, in order to pick up the eggs, you do not need to go into the corral - they opened the doors, collected them.

Even chickens like to rush in the dark, or at least in a dim light. Therefore, the entrance is made small, and so that they do not sit inside for a long time, sleep and do not crap, the roof is made with a strong slope (pictured).

You can simply arrange or hang boxes along the wall, but organize a blackout by placing a partition in front of the nests. In general, it is difficult to predict their behavior. It happens that they simply ignore the nests, rush anywhere. Then a stencil or layout can help: cut an egg out of white paper and put it in the nest. It can help: they will rush there.

Several nests in different designs in the photo below. These are all real chicken coops, you can take them into service.

Plastic is very practical: it is convenient to wash, it is inexpensive, you can do a lot of things. Chickens are very fond of such plastic nests. We put more hay in them - they rush. You can take a place below for perches or hang an IR lamp on the bottom - make a solarium

In the nest, you always act with caution with your hands: you never know what the chickens carried there ... It is much more convenient and safer when the eggs roll into a special compartment - the egg receiver. The main snag in this device is to choose the angle of the floor and the flexible material so that the egg pushes it away and stops before it reaches the wall. To soften the "landing" sawdust is poured onto the bottom.

Since the eggs roll and the bird does not see them, they may refuse to lay in such nests. In this case, you can make a dummy egg - from a full-size foam plastic or cut a stencil out of paper - and glue it to the bottom. It almost always works.

Chicken cages

Sometimes the bird is kept in cages. But this is with industrial or semi-industrial content. With this method of cultivation, a large number of birds live in a small area. A drawing of a cage for chickens with dimensions is available below.

Broiler cage drawing with dimensions

All sizes are according to the standards, and you don’t need to invent anything. This is the minimum that laying hens need. And what can be obtained from such cells in the photo below.

How to make cages for broilers from wood, see the video. Everything is painted in great detail: what, for what, what sizes, how to assemble and what is needed for this. Really helpful.

Drinkers-feeders

The arrangement of the chicken coop is unthinkable without drinking bowls and feeders. Not only that, they should be. Feeders are periodic and bunker. Periodic - this is when you came, poured out the norm of feed and that's it. Until the next feeding, they are empty.

Climbing and digging is a favorite thing

Bunker - this is when there is a decent supply of food, which is constantly poured into some kind of container. Both have drawbacks: periodic ones - every time you need to go to the chicken coop and pour grain, and the bird also crowds, fights for the best place, which sometimes leads to the fact that the feeder is turned over.

If you have a bunker feeder, you need to walk much less often, but it is possible to overfeed the bird, which is a disaster for laying hens. Therefore, either laying hens are given a big paddock or only broilers are fed in this way.

There are many designs of periodic feeders, but not all of them allow you to save feed. The easiest way is to pour the food into a bowl or container. But, if there is at least some opportunity, the chickens begin to rake the food, pouring it out and then trampling it. Have to throw it away. And such feeders allow not only to dig into the feed, but also to climb into the feeder with legs. Therefore, they need to be improved. To do this, wire separators are installed on the container. Feed consumption is sharply reduced: it is harder to rake it out.

You can make, for example, another similar feeder (or drinker), which is conveniently attached or placed against the wall. It is probably easier to weld it from metal, although there are craftsmen who will make something similar from wood.

There are some interesting ideas. For example, an economical auto-feeder is assembled from an old disk for a car, a basin of a suitable diameter and a plastic bottle for water with a capacity of 5-10 liters.

Look for a disk of the type shown in the photo: with a large number of small holes along the outer edge. In its middle, cut a hole to fit the neck of the bottle. In the bottle cap, cut out the bottom, leaving only the threaded ring. The feed mixture is poured into the bottle, a disk is put on it, and it is pressed with a cut off lid. Food is poured into the basin, a structure is installed on top.

In order not to disassemble the feeder every time when it is necessary to pour food into the bottle, you can cut the bottom, making it look like a lid. Then the bottle itself can be fixed more seriously: fixing with a thread from the lid is not very reliable. But such an improvement does not allow rummaging in the stern, and no one will climb into the basin.

You can make a feeder out of a piece of plastic sewer pipe. Holes with a diameter of about 7 cm are cut out on both sides. They do not have to be made round at all - square or rectangular ones will also work. A corner is installed at the ends at a 90 ° socket upwards and along a small piece of pipe: food can be poured here.

A simple but capacious bunker feeder is a decent chest in which a folding bar is attached at the bottom. In the open position, food is poured onto it.

Another option for an economical feeder is made from plastic sewer pipes. But this is already a bunker design: a decent supply. The design is simple and consumption is reduced.

An even more interesting design of the chicken feeder in the video: with a lid. To open it, you need to jump on it.

Another option is a hopper feeder made of PVC pipes and a plastic water bottle.

Homemade drinkers for chickens

With drinkers almost the same story. Only here water is sprayed, which, mixed with litter, gives an exceptionally persistent smell, as well as dirt. All this does not contribute to easier and faster cleaning. Therefore, the choice of drinkers is no less important than feeders.

The easiest option for a small number of birds - up to 15 pieces - siphon drinkers. They are on legs, allow you to save water. If the legs are well designed, even a chicken flying to the top does not knock them over.

Siphon drinkers - factory and homemade from a plastic bottle

Factory drinkers, of course, look more attractive, but a homemade version is almost for nothing, and they work just as well. In the photo you see a simple siphon homemade drinker for chickens: a support was nailed in the corner - a piece of board with a hole cut out for the neck. Above - a fastening system, and a load so as not to be knocked down. IN former day The bottle has a hole cut out into which water is poured. The whole trick here is to choose the distance at which to install the water tank: so that it is not too little or too much.

Cup drinkers are convenient when growing in cages, as they are conveniently attached to the net. But no one bothers to hang a piece of mesh, say, on the wall or come up with another mount.

They allow birds to drink without splashing. Water is fed into the cup, it bends under the influence of gravity, blocking the supply. They drank the water, the cup rose, the water flows again. A hose is connected to the side fitting, the second end of which is in a container with water, which should be above the level of the drinkers. Convenient and economical.

Nipple drinkers for chickens. These are small devices, a few centimeters in size. A cone-shaped stainless steel rod is inserted into the plastic case.

These nipples are screwed into plastic pipes into which water is supplied. A hole of the required diameter is drilled, a thread is cut and the nipple is screwed in. When you press the rod, a few drops of water appear. Chickens peck at the rod, drinking the drops that appear. Main disadvantage this way - drops that fall on the floor. To avoid this, a special drop catcher is placed under each drinker. It just snaps onto the pipe.

For all their diminutiveness, these small drinkers cost a lot, especially if they are high-quality - read - imported. Ours, of course, are cheaper, but break faster.

And the rest are different cups and basins into which water is simply poured. Their disadvantage is that birds often turn them over, and the water in them quickly gets dirty.

Is there some more interesting ideas from homemade ones. For example, such a drinking bowl from a pipe is shown in the photo. In a piece of plastic pipe, the water level is controlled by a float mechanism from the toilet bowl. Three cup drinkers are attached to the pipes.

The video shows a drinker with autofill.

If there is a desire to equip the chicken coop, you can do it in such a way as to minimize the need for its maintenance. In this case, the bird will bring not only income, but also pleasure: it is always pleasant to look at objects made by oneself, and it is difficult and expensive to keep a bird in a chicken coop without “straight” hands.

I am sure that many of you use wood all the time - for fireplaces, wood stoves, fires. In this article, we will only talk about "clean" wood - no chemical treatment, pressing, staining and pollution. And, of course, no charcoal briquettes or commercial products like slow-burning logs. We'll talk about the different ones in your coop, garden, or yard.

In the chicken coop

Wood ash is a rich source of calcium. In addition, it contains a lot of potassium, phosphorus and magnesium.

The addition of wood ash, as low as 1% of the total weight of the chicken feed, increases the frequency of laying eggs and also helps to reduce the smell of chicken manure.

Ash from tree species such as cedar, oak and maple contains five times more nutrients than pine and cork.

As a wound healing agent. Wood ash has antibacterial properties, so it can prevent infection from wounds. In addition, when applied topically to the affected area, ash can quickly stop bleeding like starch. When consumed internally, the vitamin K contained in ash promotes the formation of blood clots - this can help, for example, with rat poisoning.

To reduce the ammonia content in chicken manure. Adding 1-2% charcoal to the total weight of the chicken feed will help prevent the formation of ammonia, which will reduce its content in bird droppings.

The ability of ash to actively absorb ammonia and prevent its evaporation has been proven by scientific research.

To purify water from impurities and contaminants. Adding a piece of charcoal to a chicken drinker will help prevent the formation of algae and other micro-organisms. In addition, the charcoal will absorb and filter out the impurities contained in the water. Remember to periodically remove a piece of coal from the water and replace it with a new one.

In the garden

as a fertilizer. Since wood ash is a plant-based substance, it contains most of the essential nutrients that must be present in the soil for normal plant growth. Wood ash contains approximately 10–25% calcium, 1–4% magnesium, 5–15% potassium, and 1–3% phosphorus, depending on the type of wood. In wood ash, which is sold in packages as a fertilizer, the N:P:K ratio is usually 0:1:3, respectively.

Before adding wood ash to your garden, I suggest checking the soil's pH level. For most vegetables optimal level acidity is pH 6.8–7.2. The introduction of ash can significantly increase the alkalinity of the soil.

To neutralize acidic soils. By its properties, wood ash resembles lime, which is used in agriculture as a fertilizer. Since ash is essentially lye, it can neutralize acidic soils in your garden when used as fertilizer.

Be careful - do not fertilize with wood ash those plants that prefer acidic soils: azalea, berry bushes, cilantro, cucumbers, garlic, parsley, potatoes, pumpkin, rhododendron, zucchini, strawberries and other plants.

To feed plants that need calcium. As a nutritious top dressing, wood ash is perfect for those plants that prefer a high content of calcium in the soil: beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, collards, celery, cauliflower, lettuce, peas, potatoes, spinach and tomatoes.

To repel garden pests. Sprinkle ashes around the base of plants to keep slugs and snails away.

In the home area

To melt ice. Potash, which is part of the ash (the so-called salt - potassium carbonate), makes it an environmentally friendly tool for powdering ice and snow on paths and roadways. It won't corrode metal or concrete like rock salt, won't harm your plants or grass, and is safe for dogs, cats, and chickens. True, the ash will add some dirt to the paths, so you probably don't want to use it near the house.

To neutralize the unpleasant odor from the dog. Rubbing a small amount of wood ash into a dog's coat after it has been sprayed by a skunk can neutralize the bad smell.

We do not throw away wood ash - video