Tips for Raising Laying Hens Without a Coop

Laying hens are widely raised for their eggs. Eggs are a staple food in Indonesia because they are rich in protein, which the body uses to repair damaged cells. To make sure their children get enough nutrition, many mothers cook eggs for their kids. With such strong demand for eggs, it's no surprise that sales stay high, and you can turn that into a promising business. To get the best results, anyone who wants to enter this business needs to know how to raise laying hens properly.

Raising Hens Without a Coop

These days, you can raise laying hens without a coop. Going coop-free saves you the cost of building one, which is far from cheap. So how do you raise laying hens without a coop? Here's how:

1. Prepare the Right Land

Raising laying hens without a coop requires the right piece of land. The key requirement is a boundary. A plot fenced in on all sides is the right kind of land for raising laying hens this way, and the larger it is, the better.

• Plenty of Plants

When raising laying hens without a coop, you can plant the land with lots of vegetation. The more plants, the better. Large trees with sturdy trunks are especially popular with laying hens, since chickens naturally like to climb and perch in trees. Letting them climb keeps them from getting stressed, because they aren't shut inside a coop all the time.

• A Shelter Area

One advantage of raising chickens without a coop is that they keep their natural behavior. The hens roam free over a large range, so they can move around wherever they like. On the range, they can also scratch for their own food instead of depending entirely on their owner. Even with a free-range area, you still need to provide a shelter with a sturdy roof to protect the hens from heat and rain. The difference is that this shelter has only a roof and no walls, with low bamboo perches underneath where the hens can play.

• The Right Age

To succeed at raising hens without a coop, you need to start at the right age. The grower period is the right time to begin coop-free raising. The method isn't recommended during the starter period, because the young birds are still too weak to roam the range.

• The Right Feed

Chickens raised without a coop can find some of their own food, but as a poultry farmer you still need to provide feed so their nutritional needs are met. Good nutrition is essential for the hens' growth and development on the farm, and it also boosts their productivity.

Drawbacks

Raising hens without a coop has a few drawbacks to watch out for. It isn't recommended during the rainy season, because the cold and unpredictable weather can kill the birds. That makes coop-free raising suitable only during the dry season.

Those are some ways you can raise laying hens without a coop. We hope you find this information useful.

Also read:

Pros and Cons of Raising Laying Hens Without a Coop

Calculating the Startup Costs and Profits of Raising Laying Hens