Kids and Chickens

Along with any pet there comes a list of chores and responsibilities that need to be done for the chickens to stay safe and healthy. For chickens, this list includes, changing water, adding feed to the feeding buckets, making sure they are secured at night and, of course, gathering eggs.

When your children participate in taking care of animals, they learn to be responsible. If the feed isn’t put out, if the water isn’t changed, or if they aren’t secured at night, one of their pets could get sick or killed.

Chicks

A young boy feeds baby chicks inside of a chicken house

After hatching from their eggs, a chick needs to be in an environment that is 99 degrees Fahrenheit. This can be accomplished with the use of a heater or a gooseneck lamp. The kids should know to make sure the chicks are warm enough. If they are all gathered together in one spot, this is a good indication that they are cold.

They also have a tendency to fall into an open water dish and could drown. The chick watering trays resemble an egg carton with holes just large enough for the chick to put a head in and take a drink.

These trays always end up with feces in the water. It isn’t good for the chicks to drink contaminated water, so these should be kept clean and be changed often. The feeders look similar to the watering trays and they too end up being a collecting area for feces. These feeders should be cleaned regularly.

As the chicks get older, they will begin jumping, trying to perch on something off the ground. And if they are in a box, there isn’t much for them to perch on. The kids should be aware that the chicks may eventually find their way out of their container.

Grown Chickens

As with the younger chicks, the watering stations and feed stations should be cleaned regularly. This leaves two extremely important tasks for a child to perform on a daily basis. The first is in gathering the eggs from the various locations. If your chickens are confined, this is much easier.

If they are free-range birds, you may find eggs in any location. If you have roosters, and forget to collect the eggs or miss a hidden nest, you will soon see a few baby chicks following their mama across the lawn.

The second extremely important task is securing the chickens at night. Chickens are easy prey for night predators like possums and raccoons. When a chicken sleeps, it sleeps hard. The area in which they are confined should be secure on the top, the bottom and all four sides. We will discuss coop building later.

At night, the chickens will return to the area where their ‘roost’ is. The kids should make sure the doors are shut and secure. Occasionally, a chicken will be late getting into the coop, make sure your kids know to check tree branches or on top of structures for those tardy birds.

It is also important for a child to understand the value of food. Kids who grow up on a farm understand that a lot of what they eat comes to them with a price. When they are the ones cleaning the coops, feeding the chickens and harvesting the eggs, they know everything that has gone into keeping those birds alive and happy.