Children and chickens go together like Vegemite and toast! Naturally playful, friendly and sociable the two make the perfect pair. Are you looking for clever ways to get your children more involved in the backyard chicken keeping egg-sperience? Look no further than these easy-peasy chook chores for children! Having your children help care for your flock of fine feathery friends teaches them responsibility, time management, compassion and respect for animals. And, it’s great fun!
A Tisket, A Tasket, An Egg-filled Basket!
Truly the most delightful chicken keeping chore is gathering eggs. Children will be thrilled at the prospect of discovering how many eggs are waiting for them in the nesting boxes. Collecting eggs each day can lead to valuable teachable moments. Take this time to teach your young ones how to handle backyard farm fresh eggs, how to store them properly and how to transform the simple egg into something egg-straordinary with delicious recipes! The more recipes the merrier and the merrier your children will be to visit the chook house to collect more eggs! It’s a happy cycle.
Observation Olympics
One of the most important tasks of a backyard chicken keeper is daily observation. Observation certainly doesn’t have to be a chore. Make it fun! If a particular child is egg-static about chooks, let them be your observation pal. If you have more than one chicken enthusiast, let them pick their favorite chook to watch or draw chook names from a hat to ensure fair play.
Children can keep track of egg laying, keep the scoop on the poop (we all know just how fond young children are of “bathroom talk”), act as referees during feathery squabbles and help supervise free range time. By teaching your children how to observe your flock and what to watch for such as a loner who looks a little bit too quiet, any excessive preening which may be a sign of external parasites, bullying, etc., you’re not only gaining a helpful ally, but you are working to mold and shape tomorrow’s backyard chicken keepers.
Feeding and Filling Waterers
Feeding is easy and a very popular chicken chore in a child’s mind, second only to gathering eggs. Watch the egg-citement on their little faces as they rush out to the chook coop each morning to feed their feathery friends. Rinsing out waterers and refilling them each day is also an easy chook chore for children, particularly if you add apple cider vinegar to your plastic waterers. Apple cider vinegar not only boosts chook health but keeps the water cleaner.
Organizational Whizzes
Do you have an organized, “just stick to the regular routine, please” child? Then, chicken keeping just got a whole lot easier. Or, even if you just have an older child who’s looking to trade a current chore for something different with a little feathery fun thrown into the mix, let them organize until the chickens come home to roost! They can keep track of feed use and storage and reorganize your chicken keeping supplies. If one of your children has been blessed with a green thumb, let them choose which chicken friendly plants and herbs to include in the garden or as landscaping in and around the chicken coop.
Budding Behaviourists
As backyard poultry enthusiasts and chicken keepers, you all know just how very intelligent your fine feathered friends really are. They create and manage their own unique social hierarchy, they can learn to recognize their names, your chooks can form bonds and friendships, they have an amazing memory, their communication skills are highly developed, chickens can express emotions, seek out and simply thrive on feathery social rituals such as dust and sun bathing and they can even learn to do tricks. Wow!
Older children may be interested in conducting a little research and do some further reading on this subject. Or, perhaps, they have a few tricks up their sleeve and want to try their hand at teaching your chooks a trick or two.
Now, while this may not resemble a typical backyard farm chore, it does prove valuable to you as a backyard chicken keeper. Chickens get bored-plain and simple. So, enter your young animal behaviorist and voila…your child is not only involved in the chicken keeping process, but he or she is engaged in the process and your chooks are entertained. Definitely a win-win situation!
Helping Hands
All children can help you by simply helping out. Young children can help with easier and more fun chores, while older siblings can help by independently taking responsibility of specific chores. Encourage any water bugs to help you bathe fowl looking feet or feathers. Cleaning the coop just got a whole lot easier! After all, many hands are definitely better than two.
Stick your curious beak into the following list of children friendly chook chores that your kids can help with:
- Sweeping the chicken coop
- Spreading new bedding
- Handing out treats
- Making homemade chicken treats
- Painting and decorating the chook’s coop
- Cleaning the chicken coop
- Washing feeders and waterers
- Encouraging shy chooks
- Bathing chooks
- Offer harsh weather comforts. Feed warm nutritionally abundant oatmeal or scrambled eggs in the winter and add frozen berry and mint cubes to waterers in summer
- Be in charge of opening the coop hatch in the morning and closing it again in the evening
- Observe the incubation process
- Care for brooder babies
- Tend to ill chooks brought inside for recuperation
- Let them play the spy game and have them be on the lookout for signs of predators such as tracks on the ground
- Holding, cuddling and petting your chooks!
Your young backyard chicken keepers will thrive on added doses of responsibility, thus helping them to feel important. And, we all know how important it is that children feel valued and that they are an important part of your feathered family.
Whatever the weather, there are plenty of things your family can do to keep your flock safe and comfortable throughout the seasons. We cannot control the weather and each season brings its own challenges when caring for our ladies.
Cluckily, you can prepare for all seasons thanks to our friends over at Chickenpedia. I recommend their brilliant Weatherproof Chickens course to all my readers! They have compiled a guide of everything you need to keep healthy chickens through the seasons (which is more than you think!) with a great set of checklists and downloads to keep. Dangerous conditions including dehydration and frostbite can be avoided with the correct information and actions. Whatever the weather, this course will help you keep your chickens happy and healthy all year round.
As chicken keepers, we want to do an eggcellent job when caring for our feathered friends. Many chicken keepers struggle to handle chicken health or behaviour issues, especially in the first few years of having a flock. Chickenpedia have comprehensive online courses on everything you didn’t know you need to know and then some more! From healthcare to raising baby chicks to feeding and behavior, you’ll find beginner-friendly courses that’ll give you the knowledge and confidence to successfully look after your chickens.
As a member, you will get access to ALL their fantastic courses. No need to wing it, become the ultimate chicken eggspert! Check out Chickenpedia and their amazing courses today!
