The truth about backyard chickens

[dirtbiker]

any animal will have odor & poop probs . i have 12 egg hens in a 12 x 40 run and the smell is not even noticed unless in the coop.and then its minemal. keep the area dry,give the birds space,and they will give you great pleasure. in the long run you can save a good deal of $$$ be cheap but smart. it will take a few years to "recoop" lol ,your start up but then its all good . the labor is verry little, but it shouldnt be all about money.

 

[Mrs. K]

start small, small number of hens, I had 5 all winter, kept my family of three in eggs, plus plenty to give away. Get a sturdy breed, like red stars, barred rocks, or RIR or buff orpingtons. They are good layers and good hens.

A small coop does not cost a fortune, a small run is cheaper. Start small, the mess is smaller, and the feed bill is smaller. Feed all scraps, and when you clean the fridge, all of that too. I have seen people post that they only feed what they would eat, but let me tell you a chicken is not that picky.

You do need understand and be able to explain to your kids about death. It does happen, it is a fact of life, and I think it is a good lesson for children to learn, culling animals may have to be done. Some here give them away, but lot's of people process them for food. It is a good fact of life to teach children too.

It can be done expensively or economically, like anything else. Start up costs can get out of hand, but stop and think how they did it 100 years ago, and they had successful flocks. It always keeps me reasonable.

Also, I agree with an above post, no veterinary bills, it is a chicken.

Mrs.K

 

[Lucy_R]

Thank you everyone for your fantastic replies. The pictures are amazing, the chickens all look so clean, well-looked after and soft. There's one thing that I'm wondering about. For all of you that don't live on an acerage or in the country. When your chickens are free-ranging, how do you keep them from making their way over to the neighbors?

 

[savingdogs]

I think our experience will be a good one to relate to you.

We have space in the forest now, but really no budget to speak of for investing in livestock or buying really expensive eggs just to know where they came from. So we have HAD to find the ways to improvise and do everything on the cheap. Unlike so many others, we did not pay a fortune for our first eggs. However, the project did take up quite a bit of one entire summer to get started, but we had more time than money.

We bought feed store chicks that were 2.50. Not much investment there. However, shavings for their little brooder ran ten dollars a bag! We used them sparingly and used a kitty litter scoop. We did not buy anything for a brooder. We had an old kiddie pool and encircled it with cardboard boxes. We had a heat lamp left here in the barn by the previous owner luckily. We invested in a thermometor at the dollar store and did buy chick feed and waterers, not too much investment there.

For a coop, my husband repurposed a lot of stuff we had. We had an old dog kennel that became their run. Some construction materials he had lying around became the coop. He built a rooster ramp for them to roost on at night from a picture in a book we bought with some old wood we had. We made the chain link predator proof by using a lot of stakes pounded into the ground encircling the pen. We had to invest in some hardware, hinges for the doors and such, latches, but most of the stuff we found amongst our stuff we had already. We painted it all one color with some leftover paint. It is cute! really....

We bought sand to lay down in the pen once they ate all the grass and use either sand or straw inside the coop, reserving shavings just for the nesting boxes. We made those using plastic containers from the dollar store. Everything we chose was as cheap as possible.

Our biggest expenses now are just the layer pellets. I don't buy oyster shell, I crush up their own shells that we use and buy a feed with oyster shell in it already. We have a back door to our run and we let the birds free range whenever we are home, which cuts down on the amount of feed they need especially in the summer. We do spoil them buying sunflower seeds, but this is supposed to make healthful eggs and I use this as a bribe for coming back to the pen when I wish them to come in.

I sell eggs for 3.00 a dozen to co workers and give some away as gifts, but the ones we sell more than pay for the feed they now consume. Since we feel we spent more like $200.00 on our set up costs of coop and run, and chickens and feed, we are coming out ahead much faster.

In addition, our teenage sons are seeing something they raised themselves become something they can cook themselves. The chickens are amusing and we have enjoyed them much more than we ever expected.

 

[savingdogs]

Oh, I forgot one more way to cut costs. We shop for deals on our chicken feed and buy a couple extra bags when they are on sale. Usually another sale happens before we run out!

 

[Pardee_Boy]

six pages deep wow nice thread here. Go for it!!!! I just started this spring and it was a bumpy road at first with all of the unknowns out there. But It's not hard once you get going. Build a coop ,secure it , feed them, water them and watch them grow into fun animals . The pay off is much more than the dollar signs sure fresh eggs are nice but the other parts of raising chickens is the real value.

just my two cents.

 

[Morgan7782]

Quote:
I free range in my urban backyard here in Sacramento. It's not a big yard either. I have a 6 foot, some places its 7 foot, dog ear wooden fence. I make sure all garbage bins, or ladders, ANYTHING the chickens can and WILL use to get onto the fence are nowhere near the fence.

I don't clip my chickens wings, purely because I don't know how and don't really want to chase my 2 scaredy chickens down to clip them. But I have never had one of them even try to fly out. And my Easter Egger can JUMP. I have a Brahma, a Barred Rock, an Easter Egger, and two Wyandottes. If any of them made a move to escape, I would absolutely clip one or both wings. I have a dog directly behind me and would not enjoy cleaning up my poor chicken.

But until they make a move to leave, I won't clip wings. I also read up on all my breeds and saw who is more likely to be flighty, and who handles confinement better. The only breed I have that I would ever worry about would be my Easter Egger. But she doesn't make tries for the fence or roof or anything, just flies around the yard when they are playing lol.

Butternut, my splash Wyandotte girl, 12 weeks

5-6 month old Brahma

4 month old Easter Egger (I put that gaurd up behind her because the coop is close to the fence, and with that chicken wire gaurd they can't use the coop to fly over the fence

)