Keeping laying hens at the dacha is very beneficial: the taste and nutritional properties of domestic eggs are incomparable with store eggs. Therefore, you need to know how to choose a bird, what to make a chicken coop, how to feed the chickens, how to care for them.
How to choose laying hens?
It is best to keep hybrid breeds of chickens in the country. The rules for choosing layers are as follows: the bird should be active, its comb and earrings should be bright red, legs should be a pronounced yellowish color (if they are pale, this is a sign that the bird is old). The feathers of the chicken should be clean and shiny, close fitting to the body. If you buy a rooster together with the hens, the eggs will be "live", that is, you can bring out the chickens.
How to care for hens?
Caring for chickens is simple, any adult can cope with this task. The first thing to do after buying layers is to build a chicken coop for them at the rate of 1 m2 for 4 birds or use any room suitable for this purpose for it. A layer of straw or sawdust with a thickness of at least 5 cm is laid on the floor. In the poultry house, a perch installed at a height of 60 cm from the floor is required.
It is important to know that the more the chickens are in the sun, the higher their egg production. Therefore, for walking birds, you need to fence off the site. This is necessary so that the chickens do not run around the beds. A chain-link mesh is quite suitable as a fence. It is advisable to organize a place for bathing birds near the hen house: pour sand or ash on the ground.
You should be aware that layers should not be overfed. In the morning they need to be given any grain: corn, wheat, barley. Better if they are crushed. Cereals should make up at least 60% of the poultry diet. Layers can be given food waste, cereals, boiled potatoes. To increase egg production, special mixtures are added to the feed, for example, "Ryabushka".
As a protein food for chickens, cake and meal are suitable. Their share in the diet is at least 15%. Fish meal and meat and bone meal are of particular value. Boiled or fresh finely chopped fish increases egg production well.
Fresh grass is needed for chickens. For this purpose, nettles, alfalfa, and runny are harvested. As vitamin supplements, poultry are given carrots, beets, pumpkin, special ready-made preparations. Chicken needs small stones for proper digestion. The bird swallows them and they help to grind solid food in the stomach. Therefore, there must be fine gravel in the area for walking layers.
It is important that the bird always has plenty of clean water. Its lack can affect egg production and it will noticeably decrease. In total, laying hens will take no more than 30 minutes a day to care for. In addition to feeding, you will need to clean the coop and collect the eggs.
