Chickens...
I believe that EVERYONE who has even a postage-stamp-size yard can easily raise chickens.
Yes you heard me right, they are easy to keep, quieter than your neighborhood dog, live as long as dogs, eat your food scraps and give you something to eat just about every day.
However, as with all good things there comes a responsibility.
First and foremost, young children should not play with baby chicks and children in general should be supervised around chicks because they are very fragile and easily injured.
They also need to be protected from dogs, cats and other potential predators, so they need a coop and enclosed area where they can safely roost.
But, believe me, it is well worth it.
My Big Bonus...
In the nine years since I began keeping chickens I have not had to buy a single egg.
I enjoy harvesting fresh eggs every day of the year, although when the days get short and it gets very cold or really hot, the hens slow way down on laying.
They also are great soil tillers, rivaling most dogs for how well they dig.
They also eat weeds, seeds and bugs, and provide rich fertilizer along the way.
Additionally, they are natural composters.
I push all my food and yard scraps into the chicken yard and let the chickens do their thing.
Then once a year I rake up everything and put it in the compost bins that I keep in the chicken area.
That way the chickens are doing most of the work.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
For several years before I actually acquired my first hen, the mystery of keeping chickens kept me from taking the leap.
After all, I live in the heart of the 5th largest city in the United States and I wondered - How can I keep chickens? What do they eat? When do they eat? Where do they live? I often visited my friend, Debee, affectionately called the chicken lady, and frequently chatted about her chickens.
She would sell a dozen eggs to me for a dollar.
Then a mutual acquaintance offered to get me started by giving me a few, full-grown hens and specific advice for keeping them.
I was off and running.
The actual keeping of the chickens is easy.
First build them a small coop to live in at night, make sure that they have daily food and water and you are good to go.
Your local feed store will have all the advice, materials and feed you will need.
I started with some adult hens (I value my sleep so no roosters, plus hey I don't want to perturb the neighbors).
However, at some point, I really suggest getting yourself some day old chicks and raising them to adults.
That too is easier that you might think.
I started with a large dishwasher-size box, and a smaller 10-ream, paper-size box.
Cut a small chicken-size hole in the smaller box and place it with the open side facing up in the bigger box.
This creates two rooms for the chicks to live in.
Now get a 25-watt bulb and hang it in the smaller room so the chicks can get warm and/or cool as they need to.
Add a little bowl for water (make it small as the chicks can easily drown) and a dish with some high protein crumble feed for them.
Change the water and add food daily and in a few months they will be ready for the yard.
Once you have adult chickens transfer them to their permanent home, which can be a stationery chicken coop or a portable coop, called a chicken tractor.
(They can survive in your yard and find places to roost in the trees and shrubs, but they are not protected from predators and they love to eat greens, grass, flowers and plants.
) Chicken tractors are great because you can move them from bed to bed letting the chickens clean up the bugs, weeds and fertilize.
This makes the planting process a whole lot easier.
I selected a permanent place in my yard and put up a small 4 x 8 foot coop for them to retire to every evening.
Then I created a chicken yard that is 20 x 30 for them to live in during the day.
This is where I feed them, collect their eggs and generally let them socialize.
How many eggs does a chicken lay? A hen starts laying eggs at about 5 to 6 months.
You can tell when they are laying as they have a tendency to squawk like, well like they are laying an egg.
The first year or two, given they are not too stressed; they will lay about 6 eggs per week.
Then as they grow older they lay fewer, but the eggs get bigger.
Stressors include heat, cold, a dog close by or anything else that you might think would have them a little on edge.
They also stop laying when they are molting.
And to completely bust up the urban myth - you DON'T need a rooster for the hens to lay eggs! Here's to spring chicks and happy egg harvesting by fall.
I believe that EVERYONE who has even a postage-stamp-size yard can easily raise chickens.
Yes you heard me right, they are easy to keep, quieter than your neighborhood dog, live as long as dogs, eat your food scraps and give you something to eat just about every day.
However, as with all good things there comes a responsibility.
First and foremost, young children should not play with baby chicks and children in general should be supervised around chicks because they are very fragile and easily injured.
They also need to be protected from dogs, cats and other potential predators, so they need a coop and enclosed area where they can safely roost.
But, believe me, it is well worth it.
My Big Bonus...
In the nine years since I began keeping chickens I have not had to buy a single egg.
I enjoy harvesting fresh eggs every day of the year, although when the days get short and it gets very cold or really hot, the hens slow way down on laying.
They also are great soil tillers, rivaling most dogs for how well they dig.
They also eat weeds, seeds and bugs, and provide rich fertilizer along the way.
Additionally, they are natural composters.
I push all my food and yard scraps into the chicken yard and let the chickens do their thing.
Then once a year I rake up everything and put it in the compost bins that I keep in the chicken area.
That way the chickens are doing most of the work.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
For several years before I actually acquired my first hen, the mystery of keeping chickens kept me from taking the leap.
After all, I live in the heart of the 5th largest city in the United States and I wondered - How can I keep chickens? What do they eat? When do they eat? Where do they live? I often visited my friend, Debee, affectionately called the chicken lady, and frequently chatted about her chickens.
She would sell a dozen eggs to me for a dollar.
Then a mutual acquaintance offered to get me started by giving me a few, full-grown hens and specific advice for keeping them.
I was off and running.
The actual keeping of the chickens is easy.
First build them a small coop to live in at night, make sure that they have daily food and water and you are good to go.
Your local feed store will have all the advice, materials and feed you will need.
I started with some adult hens (I value my sleep so no roosters, plus hey I don't want to perturb the neighbors).
However, at some point, I really suggest getting yourself some day old chicks and raising them to adults.
That too is easier that you might think.
I started with a large dishwasher-size box, and a smaller 10-ream, paper-size box.
Cut a small chicken-size hole in the smaller box and place it with the open side facing up in the bigger box.
This creates two rooms for the chicks to live in.
Now get a 25-watt bulb and hang it in the smaller room so the chicks can get warm and/or cool as they need to.
Add a little bowl for water (make it small as the chicks can easily drown) and a dish with some high protein crumble feed for them.
Change the water and add food daily and in a few months they will be ready for the yard.
Once you have adult chickens transfer them to their permanent home, which can be a stationery chicken coop or a portable coop, called a chicken tractor.
(They can survive in your yard and find places to roost in the trees and shrubs, but they are not protected from predators and they love to eat greens, grass, flowers and plants.
) Chicken tractors are great because you can move them from bed to bed letting the chickens clean up the bugs, weeds and fertilize.
This makes the planting process a whole lot easier.
I selected a permanent place in my yard and put up a small 4 x 8 foot coop for them to retire to every evening.
Then I created a chicken yard that is 20 x 30 for them to live in during the day.
This is where I feed them, collect their eggs and generally let them socialize.
How many eggs does a chicken lay? A hen starts laying eggs at about 5 to 6 months.
You can tell when they are laying as they have a tendency to squawk like, well like they are laying an egg.
The first year or two, given they are not too stressed; they will lay about 6 eggs per week.
Then as they grow older they lay fewer, but the eggs get bigger.
Stressors include heat, cold, a dog close by or anything else that you might think would have them a little on edge.
They also stop laying when they are molting.
And to completely bust up the urban myth - you DON'T need a rooster for the hens to lay eggs! Here's to spring chicks and happy egg harvesting by fall.
Source...