In 2010, as part of my wife Elaine’s recovery from breast cancer, I proposed we raise chickens. As a couple, we had never reared any kind of animal, but I had learned that eggs from backyard chooks provide more nutrition than those from caged, factory-farmed birds … definitely relevant regarding Elaine’s recovery. I also felt that my spouse would emotionally benefit from having critters to interact with. Elaine agreed.
We decided from the beginning we would share the responsibilities of raising our flock. Of greatest importance was dividing the duties so neither felt we were doing too much. After all, we had heard stories about couples bickering over livestock-related chores.
By playing to our individual strengths and tendencies when we raise chickens, we partner in this endeavor amicably. Here’s how we did so; perhaps others can gain insight from our experiences.
Basic care and chores when you raise chickens as a couple
I relish rising early in the morning and going to bed early, while Elaine prefers to sleep late and go to bed well after I do. So, it was an easy decision when we started to raise chickens to put me in charge of letting the birds out in the morning and for Elaine to secure them safely come evening.
I am also the primary gardener in the family, and after cleaning out the coops a few times, it didn’t take me long to realize our birds’ manure would become our primary source of fertilizer. Consequently, I became the individual in charge of the weekly cleanings of our two coops. In the winter, I spread the manure and soiled straw in our garden and have a compost bin to deposit the litter in.
While I’m cleaning coops, Elaine shepherds our birds as they forage in our yard. Because we live in a rural area, an abundance of predators abound. So, all free-ranging is supervised by one or both of us. Every one of our neighbors who raise chickens on our rural road has lost birds to predators, but we’ve never lost a single chicken. Finally, in this category, Elaine makes all chicken-related purchases, whether straw and food or chicken care products.
Matters of health when couples raise chickens
For whatever reason, I seem better than Elaine at recognizing if an individual chicken is experiencing health issues. I also was the one who came up with the idea to put color-coded leg bands on our birds so that individuals could be given names and quickly identified if some suspicious health-related illness appeared to be occurring or reoccurring.
For example, fly strike has afflicted three of our birds over the years. The first chicken died from the malady, but after I learned how fly maggots would attack openings or wounds, I could quickly diagnose the reason behind the next two birds that were stricken, and they survived this often fatal condition.
Conversely, Elaine took it upon herself to learn how to treat the various health problems in chickens. She even created a medical kit which includes Vaseline for spreading on combs that have been frost burned, permethrin dust for fly strike, Vetericyn for cuts or wounds, and electrolytes for dehydration, stress, and general lethargy. Hen Healer, a multi-purpose ointment, was another handy item she researched and added to her kit. My wife also came up with the idea of turning a kid’s playtime enclosure into a recovery room for ailing chickens. An old screen door serves as the top for this indoor structure.
Culling and Butchering
Another reason I devised a leg band system is so that we could keep track of which hens are the premier layers and how old each female is. From my record keeping, we’ve learned that most of our heritage Rhode Island Reds drastically reduce their laying of eggs after their third fall. Simply stated, most four-year-old hens aren’t good layers. So when autumn arrives, molting begins, and egg laying concludes for the year, I dispatch our older birds so that we don’t have the expense of feeding them over the winter. The meals these older birds provide are their way of serving us one last time. Of course, any hen that has been broody before (as no chicken is worth more than a perennially broody female) remains a part of the flock.
I am also in charge of cockerel culling. We can’t keep all the young roos that hatch every year, but we do want to have one young buck coming along as the future leader of one of our two coops. I position leg bands on the juvenile males and cull them one by one if they are overly aggressive toward us or the hens or possess various health, size, or general appearance deficiencies.
Finally, I am in charge of the butchering process, as Elaine does not want to witness any initial stages of this act. However, she willingly does the final cleaning before they are frozen, and delights in devising various chicken-themed entrees.
Egg gathering and storing
We cheerfully share the egg gathering. My wife is a retired teacher, so she gathers eggs several times during the day, while I do so after coming home from school and later in the evening. But she is the one who came up with our egg storage system.
All egg cartons are dated and stored in our downstairs refrigerator. Elaine ensures the oldest dated box is always the next one to be moved to the upstairs refrigerator. A plastic egg box holds the most recently gathered eggs. The plastic tape on it indicates they are the freshest. When that egg container is full, the contents go to a dated cardboard box in the downstairs refrigerator.
Flock management when raise chickens as a couple
Besides overseeing which chickens to cull, I also decide which adult chickens dwell in which coop. For instance, this past spring, our 10-month-old cockerel Tom became overly amorous with the four pullets he grew up with and their mother hen, Charlotte. Concerned that he would soon rub off all their back feathers, I moved Tom to our next-door coop, where all the hens are two to three years old. I reasoned that those older hens would be more skilled in rooster avoidance than the younger ones…and I was correct.
Another situation that arose several years ago concerned three hens going broody at the same time. We always segregate broody hens because we’ve sadly learned the other hens will kill the chicks as they start to hatch. Charlotte and Six coexisted very well, and no problems existed between them and their chicks. However, Ethyl constantly attacked the other two hens, even though both kept their chicks well away from hers. Afraid the chicks would be hurt in all these skirmishes, I removed Ethyl from the nursery coop … and order was restored.
I’m also the decision maker on when chicks have grown large enough to join the main flock. I firmly believe in “erring on the side of caution” and prefer to wait until young birds are 12 to 14 weeks old before they co-exist with older hens.
However, Elaine determines when a chicken in her “infirmary” is well enough to rejoin a flock. Her primary objective is that the recovered bird is strong enough so its peers will not bully it. She’s also in charge when we incubate eggs, ensuring the temperature and humidity levels are always correct, performing all egg candling, and determining when an egg will never hatch and should be removed from an incubator.
Building construction and keeping birds safe
Traditionally, in many households, the man is the tool person and prides himself in possessing a well-stocked toolbox. However, Elaine is the whiz with a hammer and a saw in our home, and the toolbox is unmistakably her domain. I’m the one sent on lowly errands and the designated board holder, water retriever, and general gofer. Elaine and a friend built our first chicken house and, frankly, created a far better abode than anything I could have devised or constructed.
On the other hand, as a hunter, I’m very aware of the many avian and mammalian predators in rural Southwest Virginia, where we live. So, while Elaine was building the first henhouse, I was in charge of constructing an impenetrable outside perimeter. I positioned hardware cloth all along the outer edge, buried it beneath a layer of soil, and placed cinder blocks over the hardware cloth along the fence.
After finishing the henhouse, Elaine ran two solar-powered wires around the chicken run’s exterior. When anything ever goes wrong with our solar battery system, she either fixes the issue herself or asks for advice from an expert. She also built a tractor so the chickens could have outdoor spaces to forage. This was made from precut PVC pipes, PVC joints and cement, hardware cloth, and zip ties.
Summing up what it’s like to raise chickens as a couple
Raising chickens has been a delightful experience. We seem to share the duties equally, even down to the treats that we provide. Elaine has a chart of foods our birds can and can’t eat and makes sure the list is honored. And I’ve learned which “yard and garden” menu items chickens prefer. For instance, our chickens relish clover, chickweed, and dandelions but don’t care for ground ivy.
Hopefully, our experiences and divisions of duties as we raise chickens can serve as guidelines or helpful suggestions if you and your significant other have been discussing rearing chickens or another backyard animal.
Bruce
- Take care of birds in the morning
- Gather eggs
- Clean coop
- Chicken health checkups
- Culling cockerels
- Culling non-productive hens
- Predator-proofing the perimeter of the run
- Wild treats
- Integrate chickens into flock
- Integrate chicken manure and litter into garden
Elaine
- Put birds to bed at night
- Organize egg cartons by date for freshness
- Supervise birds while I’m cleaning
- Chicken doctoring. Elaine created a first-aid kit
- Cooking cockerels
- Cooking hens
- Building coop, painting, and repairing it
- Domestic treats: Elaine made a chart
- Supervise egg incubation
- Purchase straw, food, and all other items
