backyard chicken
Backyard chickens can be wonderful companions. Interest in keeping them has grown as part of the local, sustainable, and organic food movements.
The HSUS supports measures that reduce animal suffering, and every family that gets their eggs from backyard hens is likely reducing or eliminating their purchase of eggs laid by hens who were confined to crowded cages on factory farms.
Chickens are energetic, inquisitive, and friendly animals who are a joy to watch, but the decision to keep them should not be made lightly. Chickens require dedicated, consistent care and there are important issues to consider before acquiring a backyard flock.
Benefits To Raising Backyard Chickens
Many municipalities prohibit residents from having backyard chickens.Be sure to contact local authorities (such as your local animal control or zoning/planning departments) to ensure such animals are legal before you bring any chickens home.
Within city limits, many municipalities that permit chickens nevertheless limit the number of chickens that one household can keep, and roosters are generally not permitted at all, as their crowing can disturb neighbors. This creates an ethical conundrum, because when chickens are purchased as young chicks it is not possible to accurately determine their sex.
Chicks purchased through mail order or local farm supply outlets may be sold in groups separated by sex, but since gender determination is inexact, as the birds grow, families often find they have one or more male birds when they were expecting to have only females. Many young roosters are being relinquished to shelters and sanctuaries, organizations already overburdened with unwanted animals. Worse, these roosters may be simply abandoned or killed.
Round Top Backyard Small Chicken Coop
For these reasons, The HSUS recommends that families consider adopting adult birds, when the animal's gender is already known. Adult hens can usually be located through your local humane society or animal control. Chickens end up in traditional shelters more often than people realize, and adopting from a shelter is a great way to save a life. You might even ask to be put on a waiting list to be contacted about hens as they come into the shelter.
If your local shelter has no chickens available, look to adopt a "retired" hen from a factory farm who now lives at a rescue or sanctuary that adopts these birds out. While not as productive as they were in their prime, many of these chickens still lay multiple eggs per week. Most of these older hens would otherwise end up being killed on the farm or sent to slaughter. You can find a list of adoption agencies near you by visitingsanctuaries.orgorpetfinder.com.
Alternatively, you may want to look at flyers posted in your local farm/feed stores, check your newspaper's classified ads, or even scan websites like craigslist.org to find chickens who need good homes.
Diy Chicken Coops
Once hens have been adopted, proper care and housing are vital. In addition to regular daily attention, feed and clean water, and securing them in their shelter at night, the following care principles are also essential.Join Our Newsletter And Receive Our Free Top 25 Recipes Book! Subscribe Tap here to receive our FREE top 25 recipe book!
As many of you who follow us on Instagram know, we now have a flock of backyard chickens laying fresh eggs every day. We started sharing regular chick updates when we got them as baby chicks back in February, and now they’re fully grown adults, living a life of leisure, snacking on kitchen/garden scraps and dried mealworms.
There have been some high highs and low lows over the past eight months, but we’re ready to share what we’ve learned so far about raising backyard chickens.
New To Backyard Chicken Keeping? Here's Some Eggspert Advice
So this actually isn’t our first time raising chickens. About 12 years ago(!), we decided to get some chicks from our local Tractor Supply store. They’re available each spring, and we read up on how to brood and raise them.
My mom, ever gleeful at the prospect of food she coaxed out of the earth herself, designed the coop. Together, my dad and grandpa built it. (A mini-me dupe of our house at the time in color and character!)
In the meantime, the chicks lived in a cardboard box in the basement under the cozy glow of a red heat lamp.
Backyard Chickens Carry A Hidden Risk: Salmonella
The original coop. The triangular part opened up like a lid, which we could hold in place with a thin piece of wood. Most evenings, the hens hopped back in on their own, though more than a few times, we had to chase them around the yard and put them back inside. Life lesson: you haven’t been truly humbled until you’ve tried to catch a chicken. Note also that we used chicken wire; we lived at the time in a more populated area, with fewer predators. We recommend using 1/2-inch heavy gauge hardware cloth for better protection!
It was a mobile coop, which slid along the grass (with significant effort—that thing was heavy) along two thick PVC pipes, so that we could move the girls to a new patch of grass each day.
We also let them out each afternoon so they could stretch their legs and forage for more bugs and plants. They loved jumping feet-first into our compost pile in particular! Our dog Jake at the time resisted the urge to chase them.
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