My kids started raising chicks through the 4H, and we’ve been keeping them for years now.
We’ve had a bout of intestinal issues that antibiotics or dewormers just couldn’t knock out. Then someone dumped a rooster in to our yard and he had severe scaly leg mites, which went through the whole flock.
Soooo... 2 drops white thyme essential oil into one gallon of water has worked WONDERS. I use NOW FOODS brand and I made sure it was their only water source. Now that the diarrhea has cleared up I’m just using 1 drop per gallon.
For the scaly leg mites: I took cheap vegetable oil and put it in to a tall plastic container, about a quart size. I mixed in 1 drop of the white thyme oil and stuck each leg into the oil up to the feather line and rubbed it in pretty well. I also tried it with 2 drops thyme oil on the really bad rooster legs and no one died. It’s been 2 weeks and the thick raised scales have fallen off and fresh new skin is emerging.
You can use thyme oil in water in a spray bottle in the coop too, esp on the perches.
Keep your coops clean!
We did it last year. I highly recommend not waiting with all the avian flu BS talk going on right now. They are going to shutdown the poultry industry soon to help with the food crisis I believe. Get the chicks ordered, mostly pullets but get a few roosters too and then cull later based on aggressiveness which 1-2 to keep. An incubator to be able to replenish chicks and be able to sell to those who didn’t get them in time is another great idea.
During Covid and not being able to buy eggs for 3 weeks we had enough and ordered about 80 pullets and 6 little roosters. They needed a few months in brooders so this basically forced us to build the 10x20 henhouse with roosting space for 100 birds and 16 egg laying boxes. We added a 40x40 outside enclosure and then had to put up avian netting above for hawks. Buying the chicks put us on a clock and made the coop building our priority to have done when they were ready to come out of the brooders. I wouldn’t wait on these plans much longer friend.