Backyard Chickens

Have you ever had chickens before? 

This is the first question that nearly everyone who found out that I wanted chickens asked... 

Oh well they aren't as glamourous as they seem...

They are SO loud...

They smell so bad...

They are just so mean...

LIES! To all you haters out there I LOVE MY CHICKENS. They are a great addition to my household. They are sweet, quirky and fun. They provide entertainment, rubbish disposal AND fresh eggs! They don't smell back and take LITERALLY 5-10 minutes a day worth of work. 

I have 5 hens. They live in a little coop on the edge of the wood. I go out every morning and let them out, they come running out and immediately start eating bugs, scratching in the leaves and just being chickens! I change their water, give them a little food... and leave. They roam the yard and forest all day eating the ticks and bugs. I get on average one egg from each chicken every day... thats about 5 eggs a day. Perfect. Then about dusk I go back out, they have put themselves to bed and are all tucked into their coop. I lock the door and say goodnight. Once a week I push all the dirty bedding from the top of the coop to the bottom and add fresh to the top. And thats it folks. So easy. 

They key to having a pleasant flock (for me) is 

1. No rooster... they are too loud and sometimes mean.

2. Lots of free space for the chickens to roam... the more spread out the poo the less it will smell...

 My chickens smell good... I promise. 

3. Deep bedding... I have 6-8 inches of bedding in the bottom of my coop and add the old bedding from the top weekly... this allows for optimal moisture control and a natural composting environment... in about 6 months I am gonna have some really nice soil!

After initial cost of set up they cost me about $6 a month... for the feed... I probably give them more then they need and I like to buy them sunflower seeds as a treat (they eat them from my hand!)

The other benefit of chickens is they eat your kitchen scraps. Joel Salatin in his book Folks This Ain't Normal (READ IT) mentions a Belgian town that in an effort to reduce waste give three free chickens to 2,000 residents. Within one year the town reduced landfill waste by 100 TONS by feeding the birds kitchen scraps.  

AND YET ANOTHER BENEFIT of backyard chickens is that you get fresh eggs... not only are the eggs themselves a benefit but also the fact that you are no longer buying from companies that are keeping chickens in terrible living conditions... cutting off their beaks, not letting them walk... keeping them so confined with their own feces that salmonella from the poo gets into the air... the breath it in, it creates sores in their lungs and the salmonella enters their bloodstream directly though their lungs... that is just wrong. AND not to mention the fuel/oil used in transporting all those eggs across the country. 

If you want to get started with backyard chickens start by googling "backyard chickens" There is a TON of info out there! Don't get overwhelmed and stop with the excuses... Before I came to love these chickens they lived in the middle of the city in Kansas City! They were super happy just hanging out in the back yard (although I prefer to believe they like the woods even better). The coop I have was handmade but they have ones you can buy off the internet... you don't need fancy stuff, just something that will keep them dry and safe. I hope we all decide to get chickens!

“May your beets be large and not puny, may your landlords be kind to let you have chickens, may your parakeets forgive you for replacing them with chickens, may your kitchens exude aromatic and aesthetic sensual romance ... may the rain beat gently on your fields, the wind be always at your back and may we all leave the world a better place than when we found it.” 

-Joel Salatin