How *Accurate* Information = Happy, Healthy Chickens

Okay, it’s true.

Your local raccoon or fox, skunk, opossum, hawk may not be as clever or have as much money and weaponry as Wile E. Coyote from the old-school cartoon “The Roadrunner.” But make no mistake about it, your local varmint will be just as determined and relentless in pursuing your chickens as Wile E. was in pursuing the road runner.

So it does you no good to have your chicken “cross the road” back to her coop, if her home doesn’t provide protection against all of those critters out there that see her as dinner.

In my last few posts, I have covered a range of topics.

If I haven’t been clear enough, then let me just say what a great opportunity raising chickens provides you. This activity will change your life in so many ways.

• It will get you those fresh, HEALTHY eggs
• It will give you greater control over your food source
• It will make you more self-reliant
• It will get you outdoors
• It will be a great source of entertainment

These are the reasons why so many Americans across the country are getting swept up in CHICKEN FEVER!

Keeping chickens is easy and relatively inexpensive. There’s not that much you need to do. Provide them with a coop, which I already discussed. Feed, water and occasionally clean up after them.

However, one of the most important responsibilities you’ll have raising chickens is simply keeping them safe. This is the topic that I get the most questions about and the #1 issue you have to get right from the beginning — a strategy for protecting your chickens from predators.

Believe me, the last thing you want is to end up like so many others who come outside one morning to find their chickens either missing or their body parts strewn across your property. If you don’t believe me, ask Nadine Louise who wrote on her own blog about the death of her beloved rooster, DeeDee:

[I] am overwhelmed with sadness. There is something about a creature so mundane…so unimportant…so absolutely replaceable, that made this particular creature irreplaceable… he was kind to the hens and he was a good lookout, he shared what food he found with them, calling them over… he made us laugh and provided priceless entertainment… I just loved this silly, beautiful rooster more than a person should.

Now Nadine lives in the rugged mountains of Colorado. But predators are EVERYWHERE — mountains, suburbs and cities!

And they are often crafty, clever buggers. They can attack by air (hawks) and land (possums, skunks, raccoons, foxes) and are even willing to get dirty digging under your coop or run to get their dinner. And they are patient. They will return over and over, looking to exploit any weakness.

Remember this: They only have to be right once!

The most experienced chicken raiser will tell you that there is essentially no such thing as a 100% protection. Nevertheless, there are definite steps you can take to significantly enhance the safety of your chickens. And to get some straight answers on the subject, I asked Gail Damerow, a book author and chicken raising extraordinaire, about how to go about protecting chickens.

Here are a few things she said you should keep in mind:

1. The Biggest Chicken Killing Predator You Need To Watch Out For: Dogs!
This one really surprised me. I would have thought fox or raccoon, but it’s not. And it can be anything from a stray to a neighbor’s dog, or even your own pet. Dogs often don’t want to eat the chickens. They just kind of like play with them to death!

So you really need to be on the look out for that. If you don’t have chickens, but are thinking about getting them, and you have a dog, you really need to think through what you are going to do if it turns out that your dog wants to chase them down. There’s just a lot of luck here. Some dogs will be very protective of your chickens, others won’t care. But then you’ll have those that will kill them.

2. Stopping the Diggers!
Many new chicken raisers think that as long as they have their chickens inside a run or coop, their chickens are safe. But the reality is that there are a bunch of predators that can dig underneath to get to your chickens. You definitely want to prepare a defense for this.

While there are a variety of strategies to prevent digging, Ms. Damerow said the one she uses is an electrified offset wire low on the outside of the fence. That, she says, “discourages digging by zapping the predator on the nose. The wire poses no danger to the chickens and I would recommend using it right from the outset. We use electrified offset wires where appropriate and we do not bury fence bottoms or use apron fencing.”

3. Latches
You are going to use a bunch of latches at different places on your coop. What could be more innocuous than some latches?

Well, your chickens’ safety will be as secure as your latches. Because a funny thing is, raccoons have a finger that’s a lot like a thumb, and they can do the darnedest things with it…like open latches!

And once they are in, they are vicious!

Ms. Damerow said that the she will only use just one kind of latch — self-latching gate latches that you can get at any hardware store. “When this latch is secured with a spring clip,” she said, “not even my dairy goats can get them open.”

If you follow just these few tips, then you will be taking crucial strides in “battening down the hatches” of your chicken coop, and protecting your chickens from predators.

***MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT***
My Snazzy Chicken Coop “Taking Things” to a WHOLE NEW LEVEL!!!

I hope you found these few tips helpful. In fact, I hope you have found all of the articles, blog posts and Facebook posts helpful.

It was my objective to shed to some light on what makes chicken raising such a great opportunity to transform your life, why this activity has ranged off the farms and is popping up everywhere. And lastly, to share some good tips regarding your coop and protecting your chickens from “Wile E. Coyote.”

For me, my goal here is to try to provide you with useful, practical, ACTIONABLE information that is presented in an entertaining manner.

And I have been having a blast doing it.

I just love the community and all of the interaction, communication and feedback. And I especially love all of the stories — the funny, sad, touching and unusual ones.

The great news is that I’m getting ready to reveal how I am taking everything to a whole new level.

In a few days, I will be announcing all of the details of a program designed to help anyone from total newbie to someone raising chickens for 18 months get answers and solutions to their biggest questions and challenges.

These guides are designed to put the information and resources you need at your fingertips. They are designed to provide make your early experiences with raising chickens as positive, fun and “un-bloody” as possible — to provide solutions to the most common problems and challenges you’ll face.

They are also designed to get to the point quickly to put actionable and accurate information at your fingertips. There will be no searching through lots of websites or wading through  voluminous books written about raising chickens. What it lacks in depth, it makes up with relevance.

Using these guides will help you avoid many newcomer mistakes and pitfalls, some of which can lead to the death of your chickens and you regretting ever having embarked on this journey. And they will help make your foray into chicken raising a fun, entertaining, productive activity that will give you tasty eggs, a sense of satisfaction in your work, peace of mind knowing you are eating healthy food.

Heck, you may even get that warm satisfaction of knowing that beneath your friends and family little sarcastic jabs is that spark of envy!

Inside the package, you’ll find a solution for one of the biggest obstacles preventing people from starting on their chicken-raising journey — GETTING A CHICKEN COOP. People struggle over so many facets of this — to buy or build, cost, size, etc. So first things first is eliminating that problem.

I am offering a plans for a great coop designed and built by our Facebook fan, Lisa Steele. Lisa lives on a small “hobby farm,” with her chickens, a horse duck, large garden. She’s an avid pie baker. She composts and knits. She designed and built her own coop, and has put the plans together.

Now there are a lot of plans available on the Internet for free and for pay. And in a lot of cases, you either have to be an architect to understand the plans or a carpenter to build them.

But not with Lisa’s. Her plans are clear, simple, systematic. Step 1, step 2, step 3. Photos accompany them. There’s a page that gives you list of all the supplies you need, in the right sizes, with the recent costs of those supplies.

So that’s the first thing we get out the way. No more obstacle with the plan. Just follow the simple instructions and BAMM! you’ll have your coop.

BUT WHAT IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A COOP…DO YOU STILL NEED THIS PROGRAM?

Well, let me ask it a different way.

If you have a coop, do you ever have questions come up on a wide range of issues?

Of course you do! In fact, I know you do….They show up on the Facebook page and in my email every single day! So wouldn’t it be awesome if you had — even for just an hour — your own personal chicken-raising expert that you could fire questions at?

Well, you pretty much do.

I collected all of the questions that I have received and reviewed all of the Facebook posts, and made a list of the most commonly and repeatedly asked ones. I then contacted the LEADING NATION’S EXPERTS in chicken raising and got answers from them.

I’ve got a great audio recording of my interview with Christine Heinrichs on the chicken coop along with a transcription of that interview so you can either listen to it or read or both. (In fact, all of the components of this package are digital and you’ll be able to download them and start using them immediately.)

Along with the coop plans and Ms. Heinrichs coop interview, you’ll get more in-depth strategies for dealing with predators from Ms. Damerow. You’ll also get expert advice on what to feed your chickens and how to keep them comfortable and safe in hot and cold weathers from Sue Weaver, another recognized expert and book author.

There is more, and I’ll be announcing all of the details in the next few days.

But here’s really the driving force…MY PASSION behind all of this.

As I put this package together, I kept in the back of my mind how I wanted to offer something that I could get into the hands as many people as possible the information and resources you need to embark on this journey of self-reliance and tasty eggs.

I have true admiration for people like yourself — people who instead of looking for handouts and for others to do for them, are going out and making things happen for themselves.

Lisa Steele’s a great example. I’ll be telling you more about her, but she’s an industrious entrepreneur. And I love that. She’s making things happen. She’s getting things done. And she looks to no one else for handouts.

And I have found a lot of people in the chicken-raising world the same way. You seek to take control of your own destiny, including your own food sources. That’s awesome. I encourage that. I am on my own personal journey with that. And I just want to help facilitate and enable that for you and as many people as possible.

You are probably wondering about the price of this offer. While I’m still working it out, let me tell you two things:

1. Everyone who wants this WILL be able to afford it.
2. It is going to be offered at a special “bundled” price just for a week. After that, the parts will be available separately. If you buy them all individually, it will cost you a lot more!

So I’m going to make this as good an offer as I can to get the guides into the hands of as many people as possible.

Stayed tuned! More information to come.

And please post any questions or comments below!