Here’s a list of 10 Reasons why you should Own Chickens
- Fresh Eggs daily – Much better than store bought eggs. The egg white alone is about 33% more and it’s less expensive.
- Chickens have great personalities – Our favorite pastime is sit in the back garden with a couple of cold beers and watch the chickens (they look like miniature robots).
- Help out with the compost pile – Chicken poo is too hot (high in nitrogen to place directly onto growing plants) but it works wonder on your compost pile.
- They are very low maintenance – Easier than a cat or dog to maintain. Just top of their food and water them, clean the cage once in a while and collect eggs.
- You are One step closer to sustainable living – it feels good to have chickens, like you’re a real farmer
- Household leftovers are food for chickens – These birds eat just about anything. When I peel cucumbers or carrots or chop of mushroom stems, I save it for the chickens (along with fruit rinds and skins) everything but potatoes and garlic. Unless you want your eggs to taste like garlic.
- Save a chicken from factory life – Have you ever seen the crap-holes commercial chickens live in? Enough said.
- Pest prevention – These hens cruise around and eat up a slew of bugs like; slugs, snails, leatherjackets and more.
- When they get old and stop laying you can eat them – I haven’t done this yet and I’m not sure I can.
- Be the best neighbor on the block – I thought my neighbors would complain about the chickens but in fact, it was just the opposite. They bring them veggie scraps and their grandchildren rush over to see the chickens upon every visit and…..wait for it…. They all get free eggs.
My wife hated all birds and not because of the classic Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds about a bunch of crazy birds attacking people in growing numbers. She was scared of birds cause she was chased by a Pelican when she was little. Poor thing. So, talking her into chickens was tough but she bore no responsibility so she really didn’t care. Besides, she liked fresh eggs.
I bought a book called “Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens” but you really don’t need it. It’s not hard. I mean this birds are the very definition of low-maintenance. Just go to your local feed shop (I always support local stores) or Tractor Supply and pick up the following (for a dozen or so hens):
- 3 Gallon Drinker
- 10lb Hanging Feeder
- 50lb Bag of Egg Layer Pellets
- 50lb Bag of Cracked Corn
and that’s about it. Find a local farm or look on Craigslist and pick up some hens. I love, love, love Golden Comets.
The Golden Comet Chicken is a sex linked cross breed created from a White Plymouth Rock hen and New Hampshire Red rooster. This breed has not been given recognition by the American Poultry Association.
They’re a great dual-purpose breed. Great egg layers and good for meat as well. Though I’ve never eaten one of mine.
Stay away from roosters! You don’t need them for hens to lay eggs, just to fertilize them. Roosters are mean and they sing, not just in the wee hours of the morning but day long. Hens are friendly little creatures that follow you around the yard eating unwanted bugs and fertilizing your yard at the same time.
Get some 12-18 month old chickens if you’re a beginner. They’re already laying and can adjust pretty quick and they’re pretty cheap (usually about $5ea.) If you’re transporting a dozen or so, you’ll most likely lose one because of the stress of travel.
I built a nest box out of some reclaimed or (repurposed wood) and a small area out of some old landscape timbers and a few rolls of wire fencing I found it the back of my barn. Chickens need a box to lay in and lay eggs in or else they’ll just lay them on the ground….then they’ll get broken then the other chickens will eat the eggs (since chickens are cannibals) and the last thing you want is chickens finding out what they produce is delicious. Then they’ll break them and eat them and you won’t have any eggs.
I rebuilt the roof of the coop this past summer with all reclaimed wood and shingles. What a chore and I did it on the hottest day of the summer fighting off a swarm of carpenter bees.
I let them out in the evenings to run around the garden and eat unwanted pests. At dusk, they just head back into the coop to roost and I close the gate. They like to sleep off the ground so I attached a small 2×2 to the spot in front of their nests. They feel safe up there.
So there it is. Go out and get some for your backyard. If you have any questions, just ask below in the comments and I’ll get back to you ASAP. Ohh and my wife…… she loves the chickens. She heads out there and feeds them and collects eggs and worries about them on cold winter nights.
Two Barn Farm 
I like the eggs. More white / more protein!
Danny never knew all that about chickens, and I can tell you the eggs are great because last year you gave us some and they tasted so much better then store bought for sure…I like there deep rich yoke color too…And thanks for not eating your chickens makes me feel better…:)
Ohh and the white is huge. I read somewhere that the longer an egg sits around, the less white there is…
Love your blog.
Thanks Mom
Thank you for “liking” my post on our new adventure in raising chickens- looks like you are enjoying raising them too! Very nice blog you have here.
Thank You! I like your blog also!
Great post. I agree everyone should have a hen or two. I have never ate sex-link chickens, but have had some of my layers in the crockpot.
How did the layers turn out in the crockpot? I’ve read they taste so-so…..or not too good. What was your take?
Oh, how I miss having chickens. I LOVE them! We have a great (empty) coup. You see we have a rat terrier that thinks chickens are scrumptuous! 22 in one day as a matter of fact. And no tying a dead one around her body for a few days did the trick. 😦 So, our chickens were adopted by our neighbor who keeps us supplied w/ eggs! Nice blog!
Awww… at least you get to visit them and enjoy their eggs.
If you have chickens that roam and are not fenced in, roosters serve a very important purpose–they are vigilant and protect the hens. If you have the hens fenced, yeah, roosters aren’t that important.
Good point! They are tough little suckers aren’t they?
We love our roosters! They follow us around, just like the hens 🙂
We live in Solon and am not sure if we can own chickens. I will check. Do you have a “Soulsby Chicken Adoption Program”?
Hi Clare! Most city’s are allowing chickens these days but if not, you can most certainly adopt a hen over here!
Thanks for your sharing your knowledge about chickens! I can’t wait to finally get a coop. I’ll be coming here for resources…
Thanks Wanda, stop back all the time and sign up for updates with your email!
I love my chickens, good eggs, good food, and the “Named Ones” are good pets too. (I can make that distinction… hope you don’t mind) Your blog is a wealth of information! Thanks for stopping by today!
~ Lynda
Thanks Lynda! You’re doing some great things are your blog too!
Thanks for the post Dan. I’m saving it for future reference. Still looking to get a bigger place so we can have room for chickens too.
We’ll have to find you a place before spring. My neighbors have a nice house with the same amount of property as me (just need to clear the trees out) and you can use my barns!
Dude. That would be great. Let me know so I can look at it. My place was just put up formally. And we don’t know how long it’ll take. But we are already getting seeds for seedlings now. If it goes quick, it’s ok, let them have the fresh produce(and I hope they don’t plant grass). I saw a place out in bath that’s like 4 acres that’s on my mind. Idk. Keep me posted for land if something comes up. Also, shan teaches inner city school children that might like to see your farm. Would that be do-able? I mentioned it to her, and she thought it would be great. Her e- mail is justshana@live.com. Thanks Dan. Have a great day.
Very cool! We are going to get four chicks in March, and I love checking out other people’s chicken setups. Just to clarify – you meant 12-18 WEEK old chickens, right? Not 12-18 months?
I get em at 12-18 months. Most hens start to lay around 4-6 months of age but starting chicks can sometimes be intimidating for beginners so that’s why I recommend a little older hen. Not as much work and a very affordable starting price.
We have chickens and the eggs are the best!
I really want chickens! My neighbors would call the police, though…. 😦
Great Article!
Awesome post! I would have to disagree that roosters are mean though. I have 11 roosters out of 50 or so hens and they’re all quite nice. But they do “sing”. That’s definitely true.
Great post! While purchasing older hens for laying eggs greatly simplifies things, be careful to pay attention to their health and definitely don’t introduce them to an existing flock without quarantining them for a period of time. I’d always visit the farm they’ve been raised on to see their living conditions as well. We purchase day-old chicks from McMurray Hatchery and love the fact that they come vaccinated for better chick health. It’s also a real kick to watch these little ones grow up to lay their first eggs!
Great Post! our City allows chickens but unfortunately our HOA does not. We have considered trying to keep them anyway but are a little too worried about the neighbors two Great Danes making easy work of the fence in a chicken frenzy. I’ve kept chickens before elsewhere and have seen what chickens do to dogs though we so still want to keep some and doubt we could ever eat one that we keep. Too many benefits to ignore.
I have to agree with you on the chicken/dog thing. We keep both but the dogs have to be kept away from the hens or all hell breaks loose. We have 2 American Staffordshire Terriers and one of them is a hen hater. He watches them and waits till they get close to the fence and gives them what for. He hasn’t actually killed any yet but he has come close, he pulled our rooster (who was crowing too hard to be paying attention to the big bad wolf behind him) off the gate and plucked his nether regions before we saved him and threw him out into the yard and he broke another hens leg when he got out once. Some dogs are great, its a personality thing I think and not a breed thing. I am a vegetarian and don’t eat eggs anyway but just love what hens do for a garden, an ecosystem and for your mental state. You could try keeping bantams as pets? They are more docile and can be kept in cages more easily than regular sized hens
My roosters are wonderful. I can’t imagine having a flock of chickens without them. I love watching them keep the order amongst the hens. They are not aggressive at all. In fact, one or two of my hens are prone to biting. I think they think I am food, but still. 😛
Thanks for liking my blog post 🙂
Are Golden comets the same as production reds? They have so many names for this hybrid for every different hatchery.
Hola! I love your blog and I love and agree with your 10 reasons. We are going to start building our coop in March and buy 2 little hen friends to live in our backyard. We are an ecofriendly gardening company and we will start doing our own fertilizer with the poo 🙂
Thanks for sharing!
Oh, i enjoyed this post! I made the (not my fault) mistake of obtaining a rooster, dubbed; Mr. Nasty…nuf said.
be well,
Jess
Your farm sounds idyllic…I would love to have a couple of chickens but I think it’s illegal in Manhattan. I guess I will be following your adventures with them and living vicariously! Thanks for visiting my blog.
Great post – we love our chickens and teir eggs too!
Great post and lovely chicken coop! Your girls look well cared for!
Thanks for coming over to my blog to read up on our Homestead Experiment! We REALLY want to have chickens as part of it, but I’m still not sure we’re allowed.
But should we find it permissible, I’ll be hopping, skipping, and jumping right back to this post to sort out what we need to get that project rolling. 🙂
Danny,
I just love this. I am really proud of you and all you are doing.
A.
Yes, reading your list of chicken food reminds me again of why so many things “taste like chicken”… chickens eat everything. I miss having the birds, the healthier sustainable lifestyle, and the whole sense of balance that comes from doing for the self (cities just don’t cut it!). I’ll relive the good life through your blog!
My brother has a couple and his little daughter just loves to cluck and follow them around the yard!
I’ll admit, I took a little time to give actual fresh eggs a chance. I was used to “grocer’s fresh.” But now that I’ve have, I truly understand what eggs should really taste like!
Great post on chickens. Thanks for liking my doofy chicken post on my blog today. Now I see why you liked it!
I’m waiting and waiting until I can have some chickens!
Jealous! I’ve been wanting chickens for a long time but I can’t have them here 😦
this is a really nice breakdown on the simplicity of chickens in the backyard . . … or anywhere really . . … we had a few hens in town before it was okay to have city chicks, and it was pretty easy until the hens began laying . . . . .they cluck louder than one realizes, could be heard down the road!! luckily, our neighbours were okay with city chicks before the city was, so it was all around fine . . . .but they are noisy . . . .and by the time the city okay’d it, we’d moved to the mountains where the chickens and ourselves can cluck and crow away with the coyotes and owls . . .sort of :0)
Reblogged this on Dreamsong Homestead and commented:
Easy peasy chicken keeping, written by Soulsby Farm
You made me want to go out and get some chickens! (LIVE ones! Ha!)
Sounds like you are enjoying your chickens as much as we are enjoying ours! You mention not feeding them potatoes. A friend of ours recommended that we save our potato peels, cook them up in some water (we do this on the top of our woodstove) and then once they have cooled off a bit, feed them to the chickens, “broth” and all. Our chickens really enjoy these, as long as they are well cooked, and especially seem to enjoy the “warmth” of these during these cold winter days.
Great idea! Thanks for the recipe! I’m gonna try it
Thanks so much for posting this! My husband and I are looking in to getting chickens for eggs only (We can’t eat them either). Our city allows them within a certain distance of dwellings so we are all good there.
We have a question though from novice chicken people: How does weather affect chickens? We live in Texas, which as you know equals hotter than blazes for most of the year. Any special treatment or precautionary measures we should take advantage of?
Thanks, again! I’ll be back to read more!
God bless!
~Bohemian Christian Chelle
Hi! In Texas, I’d be most concerned about heat. A chicken has a high body temp already (106.5 degrees Fahrenheit) and it’s easier for a chicken to keep warm then cool. Look into different breeds that people own in your area. Chickens will dig into the dirt to cool themselves during hot days. Provide lots of shade and water. Hope this helps!
Thank you so much! I will definitely do this. I appreciate your help!
~Chelle
Hi! thanks for stopping by my site. Your family and mine have alot in common!! I’m new to chickens, but I’m never going back! 🙂
This is a wonderful blog! Glad you visited me so I could find you!
Great article. Love the top 10 list. And LOVE the chickens. We can’t have them where we live, but maybe one day…
Thanks for the “like”! It’s so much fun to see other folks who’ve fallen in love with keeping chickens. We have Golden Comets too — such sweet birds, and such faithful layers! They spent their first 8 weeks indoors, so the first night they were outside, I went out to make sure they were in the coop. They weren’t, so I picked one up and set her inside on a roost, turned around, and found the others standing beside me in a single-file line, waiting their turn. Picked them up one at a time and put them in, and they just kept shuffling forward in line. 🙂 Glad you enjoy yours, too.
Sorry, my username in the comment above was linked to an old, non-chicken-related blog. Think I have the problem fixed now.
I love having the fresh eggs. I typically don’t buy my chicks from a hatchery, but rather hatch them under certain of my hens which go “broody”.
Love your blog! and your pics!! We have about 20 acres in NE Colorado and have had chickens since day-1 one the farm – TOTALLY LOVE THEM!! We dont settle on 1 breed. We have several breeds for the large brown eggs, but we have also been given a bunch of different varieties from other people that can no longer keep theirs (they know we dont like to kill our critters – will if we have to, but dont like to). We also have guineas (even better at pest control and unlike the chickens, didnt eat our veggies in the gardens), peacocks, ducks, geese, goats, 1 horse and the numerous cats and dogs. We used to have llamas, yaks and bunnies. The bunnies were bought for their hair (i spin, knit and weave)but became to needy (ya have to comb them every day – too time consuming for us). The goats are a cross for their fiber (hair) – that we only have to collect every spring and its perfect for spinning – a bit time consuming cuz you have to separate the guard hair from the working fiber – but well worth it! I also agree that chickens are a load of fun to have around – never a dull moment and i always have a favorite that follows me around! its nice to know people with the same passions at heart!
Great write up on basic chicken keeping, like your coop, look forward to learning more about your little farm..
I live on a farm and its just so much fun watching the chickens interact and wander about. Hours of entertainment. They all have such interesting personalities.
G’day! Thanks for the link to to the Willie Nelson / Chipotle video – very thought provoking. We love our chooks Down Under but I think they lead a very different life to yours – my Little Aussies have never seen snow and our chooks live the dream of beautiful one day, perfect the next!
Rebecca – http://www.littleaussies.com.au
Thanks for liking the article on my blog Sheila’s Green Bounty. I am just starting and appreciate any and all support.
Am interested in the topic of raising chickens one’s own chickens since, believe it or not, we can have them in the city of Chicago!
Looking forward to more good articles!
Amen! Everyone should have chickens; they’re lovely. Joel Salatin says apartment dwellers should trade in their parakeets for chickens!
We keep chickens in the city of Vancouver BC on a tiny 30 x 108′ lot. Our neighbours don’t eat eggs but love our chickens regardless. Even my mail lady brings them treats!
Oh and the layers? Best. Stock. Ever.
Thanks for stopping by my blog! I’m enjoying looking around here. I love this post. I feel the same about my chickens… even down to “When they get old and stop laying you can eat them – I haven’t done this yet and I’m not sure I can.” That is SO us! 🙂
~Michelle
Thanks for liking my latest post in Tails from Crock Cottage. As unlikely as the stories seem, they are all based in fact just dressed up for the table… err… I mean the blog. 🙂
We have been running poultry of varying sorts for somewhere around 18 years. Their personalities make it difficult to put them in the pot so only excess roosters that cannot be traded or sold end up there. But the meat is so much better than the artificially pumped meat from the supermarket.
My wife is currently focussing on rare and endangered breeds in Australia. I think we have the third largest flock of Cayuga ducks at around 20 birds. Sebastopol and Talouse geese also join our clan. The numbers of chicken breeds is too many for me to even attempt to remember them.
Looking forward to reading more entries. Keep up the good work. 🙂
As a poulterer I like your post. Thanks,John
Great post! I’m hoping to raise chickens someday and this was super helpful!
Love your post and agree with all the sentiments. As a child we had chickens in our backyard. They were fascinating to me and yes, they certainly follow you around and become a joy to be with… If it was up to me I’d have them today. Alas, not everyone is a fan…! (Now, how can I convert……? )
My husband and I just had a major discussion about having chickens after I read your blog. He told me that they are prone to lice. Is this true? We get snow where we live. How do chickens do in snow country? 2500 elevation. What kind of fencing do you need? We have neighborhood fox and coyote, not to mention cougar. Too rough of a neighborhood for these gals?
Hey and thanks for the like!
I agree, everyone should have chickens. We have 5 and I love them. We sit out in the evening and watch them, they are so funny. The grandchildren love them (makes me the favorite grandma) and I supply my husbandand myself, my mother and my daughter and her family with eggs. Our favorite sport in the summer is catching grasshoppers for them( they do catch their own as well) but boy do they come running when you have grasshoppers. You can not ask for a better stress release than watching chickens, I even dropped my cable, they are more fasinating then anything on television.
I just posted but what to add that we created a winter coop in an existing shed. We live in the far north and were worried about frigid temps. So my husband built a shed in the shed and insulated it very well but left the top open with hardware wire. My grandaughter painted portraits of our chickens on the inside and it is really lovely. Between the light and the heated waterer it doesn’t get below 32 degrees in there and they go in and out all winter (except for really windy days) and have done well. The only heat is the waterer and the chickens and it is well vented. I wish I new how to up load pictures as it is probably one of the most attractive coop interiors that most have ever seen and is the pride of my 8 year old granddaughter.
I built a coop for my sister in law this past summer. The chickens seem rather pleased with their home and show their gratitude every day……eggs. Enjoyed your post.
Goodness , it appears I am a little late to your party. I have a small sustainably managed farm out here on the prairies in illinois. We just grow to feed ourselves and our families. I write from home so I am able to pop in a post every dawn,(so far, there are no guarantees!..laughter).. We plant vege gardens in many other people’s back yards, growing your own food is EASY! So I was excited to read about your own scheme to get gardens in homes! Lovely to meet you. I am Cecilia from The Kitchen’s Garden. c
Aw! I wish I could have chickens but I live in a gated apartment with too many dangers (loose dogs, cars, etc.) and not enough space for a chicken tractor. One of these days, though. One of these days…
Chickens were our first step into the small farm life. We bought a few (because they are too darn cute!) then inherited a larger flock of mutant mutt chickens from an elderly neighbor. You are absolutely right about roosters! We really enjoyed the precious baby chicks last summer, but we have a very special rooster that sings from midnight until 7 am….Outside our bedroom window…We also learned flocks can grow very quickly. Luckily, we also had an Amish friend who taught us how to butcher and clean them. We will be sticking to hens for eggs in the future!
Fresh eggs make friends! Nice work and great pictures!
Thanks so much for stopping by on my blog!! I’m so glad you did because now I’m reconsidering whether I should get chickens again! I live in Beijing, where the winters are COLD and the summers are HOT, and the space I have is on my rooftop. It is a large concrete space and I thought about laying grass on it. I was doing a bit of reading on raising chickens last night, and it seems chicks are easy to handle, but when they get older, I’ll have to clip their wings and that gets complicated!! I want to be sure the space I have is okay for raising living things before I take the first step. What do you think about my rooftop space and the seasons???
Sure wish I could have chickens and compost. What do you do about Raccoons, we have some really big ones here, huge rats too. We live on an Island so that might be part of the problem plus the soil is not friendly to living things (former Naval spot and all that). Ah but I do dream of a better place with a yard I can grow a garden, compost it, with chickens and rabbits…
Thanks for stopping by and liking my post on tomatoes. Looks like you have your hands full! I’d been tempted to get some chickens in the hopes that they’d eat the Japanese beetles that devour my raspberry plants, but I bet the chickens would devour the raspberries, too!
Reblogged this on dulce mareas and commented:
chicken are next…
Thanks for the great motivation. We have everything ready for the chicks we’ll get next week. I’d add one more reason for having chickens: so your grandchildren develop great memories when they come to visit. I still remember the chickens that my grandmother kept and we look forward to sharing our experiences with our grandkids soon.
I totally agree, everyone should have chickens! There are so many wonderful aspects to having them around, and what spectacular personalities they have! You share a lot of great information here.
The only thing I have to add is that banty chickens are a wonderful option for people also. They are smaller, so you do get a smaller egg, but if someone has limited space, bantys are a great option. And if you ever did want a rooster, banty roosters are MUCH easier to live with than full sized ones.
Keep enjoying your wonderful feathered friends!
Love your post!
Yes, everyone should have chickens – they are such characters as well as
supplying the best eggs we’ve ever had!
Great blog – keep up the good work!
[…] at Soulsby Farm writes on why chickens are good livestock to raise as well as giving lots of information on how to get […]
I love eggs… Your post is great.
Cheers for the “like” for my post “Sunday bloody hot sunday”. Glad you liked my humble little Australian blog and its great to see a fellow chicken lover checking in. We started out as rank amateurs with 8 hens…1 suddenly changed into a rooster and we now have almost 40 wandering about on 4 acres of pecked, scratched and insect free land. I love chooks (what Australian’s call chickens :o) and Steve, like your wife, has learned to adapt to them. We don’t get a lot of eggs as our hens hid them. The rooster makes running tunnels through the blackberries and the hens take his advice and lay right in the middle of the blackberry bushes where we can’t reach. We keep getting little batches of fluffy babies hatching out all over the place and the way we are going we will have to register as a poultry farm before too long.
We can’t and won’t kill our hens for meat either. They are our mates and it would be like eating our kids (and just as chewy…) so they will just end their days in the compost or as nitrogen for a special tree planting. Chickens are not as stupid as people will lead you to believe and are clever enough to be able to manipulate all sorts of things out of their human cohabitors. I have a friend who calls her hens “The princesses” and who gets up early and feeds them porridge (oatmeal) on cold mornings. It looks like it gets pretty cold where you live and we thought we had it tough here! Love your blog and have just subscribed to get your posts when they flow. It’s great to be able to learn and share with like minded people (chicken slaves) all over the world. See you soon
Fran and Steve from Serendipity Farm :o)
That’s hilarious that the cross-dressing chicken/rooster developed a plan and has now every hen hides her eggs. What is your blog address? i do not see it listed. Are you the Road to Serendipity?
-John
https://soulsbyfarm.wordpress.com/
Yeh, thats me…
theroadtoserendipity.wordpress.com
I will put on the kettle for a cup of tea should you want to visit and I might even be able to rustle up some cake with some of those hidden eggs…
We love having chickens, the eggs cannot be compared to store bought, haven’t ever had any better. Plus we let me truly free range & we give them organic feed, so we know how well they’re taken care of & in turn they take great care of us in the return of beautiful eggs.
Thanks for checking out my post, Organic Textures. If we had some land, I’d love to have some chickens! My grandparents were farmers/gardeners and were very self-sustaining. It must be very rewarding.
Hi!
Love the blog! (Thank you for liking mine too).
‘Tis the same with me and the neighbours – I’m forever going out and finding a bag of veggies and peelings hanging on the gate!
Wouldn’t be without my girls for all the world – they are THE best antidote to daily stresses. You just try and keep a straight face when chickens are around! I promise, you won’t be able to do it………!
Keep up the good work!
Thanks for visiting my blog.
I really liked reading about your chickens. My husband and I talk about getting chickens all the time! We want some but our township is not as excited about it. We are hoping we can get land somewhere else in the very near future and then we will have a bunch. For now I’ll read about your chickens and continue growing veggies.
I wish I could have chickens in town! I’d love to have fresh eggs…
If I had some land, I have no doubt I could live sustainably. I love a simple life.
Thanks for liking our blog. Yours is very interesting as well. We live in the city on a small lot and have a garden and chickens in our back yard. (We have privacy fence; city ordinance permits up to 12 hens, no roosters.) We’ve had two of our hens for about 2 months now and the third hen we got as a chick 9 months ago. They are so much fun. No eggs yet. And we’ve got to find a way to keep them out of our in-the-process lasagna garden bed! They got in there yesterday and scratched up the compost and newspaper layers we had just laid! Looks like we’ve got a lot to learn about chickens.
Oh my goodness gracious! This is the most helpful thing ever! Not only is owning chickens on my bucket list, I truly dream about owning them all the time, so I assume it’s meant to be. Thank you so much for posting such great and thorough instructions! Do you have a favorite breed? I want big red ones and maybe a black and white spotted one!
Must agree: Cold beer, warm night, sit in swing, watch the crazy birds.
Chickens are great fela2fela! I can highly recommend them (gallerycatsandhens) Take the plunge – you won’t regret it!
Great post–I agree with every reason you listed–our chickens think they are like the cats and dogs–pets!
Reblogged this on darkcreekfarmdotcom and commented:
Ok… I’m listening! Our hens are arriving next weekend!
I do want to raise chickens, but cannot due to the emotional connection I’d feel. I could not eat them and I’d be stuck with old birds for years!
What an interesting post! And more so because we are at this moment getting ready to put up some fencing and getting ourselves some chickens! It sounds simple, I hope it is… 🙂
Chickens are next on my to do list. Great reasons and tips thank you! I too have heard of pelican attacks- An aunt of mine went to Bristol zoo (uk) as a teenager on a Sunday school trip and back then the pelicans walked around freely. It seems an opportunist pelican happened upon a toddler milling about with its ice cream and my aunt turned around to find said toddlers inside the pelicans beak with only its legs protruding! She set upon the pelican with her umbrella, thrashing the creature until it released the child. The pelican sloped off ‘sheepishly’ and the child was unscathed (but rather upset at loosing its ice cream) and my aunt although shocked was more disturbed by the antics of the highly sexed lonely orangutan and was again thankful she had brought her umbrella(but thats another story not for the feint hearted). I’m glad to report these days the pelicans no longer mingle with the toddlers in the picnic area and the orangutans, although still highly sexed, all have partners.
Thanks for stopping by my Post today! Your Golden Comets are gorgeous!
Too much concrete here for chickens and I have dogs. Loved reading your post though and perhaps in the future I’ll consider birds rather than dogs. My wife is not an “animal” person and my dogs are about her limit. :o) Would like to stop by again.
Excellent post! I really want to have chickens but am planning some traveling for work so will have to wait. We do periodically get eggs from chickens we’ve met! 🙂 Friends of our have them. They’re great! I could watch chickens for hours, too, as you were saying.
Cheers,
Deanna
Very nice! I had many chickens when I was a child and it was amazing! sad thing I have a fisher cat living in the woods behind my house and They wont hesitate to get in to the coop and eat them
We’re getting chickens! A friend ordered some and she only wants a few so we’re getting some of the extra ones ;D
That’s neat casadberry! I actually just set some eggs under one of my broody hens. I am setting them early this year cause it has been so warm.
[…] is borrowed from A Very Small Farm, who was kind enough to ‘like’ this new little blog project within hours of my first […]
Thanks for checking out my blog. It took my wife a few years to talk me into chickens but I told her I absolutely draw the line on roosters! I spent some time volunteering as a PTA down in Honduras last summer and you are so right about the noise. We were surrounded by them and I didn’t get any sleep til the first real rainstorm on the tin roof.
Awesome post. It is always interesting to hear what breeds are the favorites.
Love the post. Wish I could have chicken but I live in the city limit. Hope to change that in the nearest future possible.
I couldn’t agree with you more – I absolutely love my chickens!
Having had chickens all of my 63 years, either because my parents had them or myself as an adult….I so agree!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
Hi Soulsby, a huge honour as you are our biggest fans on our new blog, aswell as a huge inspiration to our small farm in Africa. Great news is we have just produced our first chicken egg today. We have 13 chickens at the moment and looking at expanding. Would love to mention your post and link back to your blog. Looking forward to your updates. Good farming and keep well.
Love your blog! Thank You for the compliment, we’d be honored if you mentioned us. Feel free to reblog/post any of our articles. What part of Africa are you in?
We have chickens, ducks, and two turkeys. We love them all. Like you said, each has it’s own personality and they are a ball to watch. Our’s greet us when we get home each day like kids do when mom & dad get home – lol…
[…] https://soulsbyfarm.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/why-everyone-should-own-chickens/ A super site about a lot of small farming stuff. […]
[…] farm, have given a bit of inspiration for chickens, and have an article I have read a few times, Why everyone should own chickens . Lovely to connect with other small farmers from around the world. Much easier than buying books!! […]
I would really like to keep chickens but I would worry that my Staffordshire Bull Terrier would see them as a ‘fast food’ outlet and help herself to a chicken snack. I can just imagine her sitting patiently by their run just willing one of them to break out so she could chase it and eat it. I used to keep ducks, which were great fun, albeit rather messy, until a fox broke in and got the lot. A very sad day. 😦 Still, maybe one day I shall have a few little hens. I like the idea of getting some ex-factory farm ones. It’d be good to let them have the sun on their backs in their twilight years.
Reblogged this on Real Life Farm Wife and commented:
I would love to have a few chickens, but I’m pretty sure we’d have a problem with the dogs.
Thank you for stopping by my blog and ‘liking’ my post.
My logo is of our last cockerel – he decided not to go into the hen house and met his fate with Mr Fox. We have had a few visitations over the years which is always really sad.
We love keeping chickens and the quality of the eggs, in taste and colour, is the main reason for doing so.
thanks for checking out our blog…it is slowly coming along. I am convinced about adding chickens to my chunk of land. Will have to move in that direction. Meanwhile i will repost your blog and add your link to our market blog list!
Thanks for stopping by my blog recently. This was a great post, but I have to disagree about roosters. If one doesn’t mind the crowing (which, yes, they do ALL day) they can add an extra dimension to the flock. It’s entertaining to watch them work so hard to impress the hens and keep them safe. Ours were always sweet, but we did limit them to one or two, and we gently handled them a lot.
I love having my own chickens for eggs. I’ve had them for years and then a couple years ago a stray dog killed all of mine and I went without for a couple years. When I finally got a new flock, it was soooooo nice to have ‘real’ eggs again 🙂
Loved your blog!
I have three hens and I agree with you – they are great personalities! I love fresh eggs too.
I’m a suburban gardener and we’re currently in a neighborhood that doesn’t allow chickens (Boo, HOA!) But we’re looking to move in the next few years and having space for chickens in on my list of criteria. I just love the idea so much! Thanks for this post. It’s been very helpful.
Well that’s torn it! After reading all the positive comments here I just had to go out and get some chickens. I have spent the week preparing for them and shall, hopefully, pick some up later today. Be prepared – I shall certainly be running up seeking advice. And I feel a new blog coming on…Wish me luck!
Love this post! I’ll be checking out your blog as I also live on a small farm. We have 161 acres – but it’s mostly pasture/brush/water and we just have chickens and ponies so far. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by my blog. COme on back!
I agree with this article a million times over. Grew up on a farm with chickens. My neighbors have a small flock for eggs now, they are entertaining all the time. I’d get some if I knew for sure I would be staying put. Here in Vancouver there was some debate over urban chickens, wherein the city tried to ban it, and got soundly put in its place by the citizens. At least one political party still argues against chickens, backyard gardens, etc, in what I assume is a mad dash for the least votes.
Chicken power!
Great post. I would love to have my own chickens, but the city I live in doesn’t allow them. Hence my dream one day to move out of the city limits and live on a like a 5-10 acre plot of land.
OK with you if I share the link to this post on my FaceBook page? I have several friends who’ve expressed interest in owning chickens, and I know they’d find your thoughts as interesting and helpful as I did. Also, kudos on the number of comments and followers you have. Hoping to join your elevated status someday! 🙂
Absolutely! Thank You for sharing!
When I go to our County Fair, which is very big here…I look at each and every chicken and other fowl. I am amazed at how beautiful they are, and how little city folk know about them, including me. Love your site!
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Hi there. Nice to see your interest in our Wild and Free blog.
We do have chickens, but we let our mother, who lives on our property, look after that department.
A question for you about chickens. We have a problem with mites or something similar. What is a way we can control these?
feed your chickens some garlic. you may have to put it in their beak. this gives them the sulfur they need to get rid or the mites.
The best form is prevention.Depending upon which type of mites and where they are located dictates the prevention and treatment.
[…] By Soulsby Farm – A Very Small Farm […]
Great post–I do have a question for you, because I have wanted chickens for some time. We have a Welsh Terrier and when he saw chickens at a local school he lost his mind. It is in his blood to hunt and destroy small animals (it’s not his fault, it is what they were bred to do!), otherwise he is the nicest sweetest dog ever! Since he is sometimes in the yard alone while we are running errands, etc. I’m afraid the chickens wouldn’t stand a chance…
Any experience with chickens and dogs? Terriers stubborn, and are diggers too, so I’m not sure a pen would dissuade him for very long.
Hey Ken, Thanks! We have a Chihuahua who was barking and going crazy when we first got our chickens. I opened the gate and let him in and the chickens went after him all at once. I broke it up after a 1/2 second and he ran back out. He never bothered them again. I don’t know why people say someone is “acting like a chicken” cause they’re pretty tough birds. Granted he’s a chihuahua, I’m not sure how a terrier would handle it. If you get chickens while they’re babies, dogs are much more likely to learn to get along with them and not find them a threat.
I’d love to get hens: that was a major part of choosing this house :)! But we now know we have a large, bold, resident fox, so my husband says no: he knows I’d not cope with finding them in bits
should I find a way to get rid of the fox?!
Hi have you considered getting a Maremma sheep guard dog?? Theses dogs are awesome you do not have to treat them like a regluar dog, it will run your fox off and protect your chickens. You need to get one as a pup though check out my blog, I have started a page on Maremmas
Reblogged this on Ready For Anything Survival Preparedness & Homestead Store and commented:
A member of my extended family is just starting out on her adventure with owning chickens, and we’re all really excited. Just to the north of me, in southern Oregon, they have had so much interest in people owning their own chickens in urban areas like Ashland and Eugene, they actually changed the urban zoning laws to allow for people close to towns to be able to have a small pen of chickens on their property. Interest in owning chickens is rising, and for all the right reasons. Our meat industry is rife with problems, toxins and hormones in the meat, “pink slime” and more people than ever want to raise and care for their own poultry to guarantee a safe and healthy food supply for their families. And then there is the savings over time in groceries too. At any rate, here’s another good article on keeping chickens from The Soulsby Farm blog. Enjoy.
Chase Kyla Hunter
Copyright 2012-3012 Ready For Anything Preparedness News Blog, All Rights Reserved. Featured product: Midland XT511 22-Channel FRS/GMRS Two-Way Emergency Crank Radio Follow
Very nice article. I am considering this. I now live in a rural area, Coventry Connecticut, and there are many farms around here.
We love to see articles like this, we hope more people know the goodness of growing their own food, Thank you
I want chickens in the WORST/BEST way! Your post is sooooo inspiring!
I really want some! We live in suburbia, and have to buy 6 chicks, I think that’s enough. Trying to decide on accommodations for them, I think I’d like a “tractor” or moveable coop. Still need to do more research though and find a good plan for a coop!
Well my girls have settled in nicely, sorted out the pecking order with minimum fuss and are, as I write, happily foraging around in the fruit cage whilst Hubby is building their run. They have a new state of the art coop and I am deeply smitten. Thank you Soulsby Farm for giving me the push I needed to get my chickens – and I don’t think it will be long before I add to my little flock. What I am wondering is how on earth did I get by without them? They are lovely. Thank you again 🙂 Karen
This is such a great post. I can’t have chickens now but I buy my eggs from a local woman who lets her chickens be free during the day. The eggs are huge, the yolks are beautiful and so delicious.
Glad you let yours out. Foraging hens produce more omega-3s and have better yolk color!
Love your blog!
Hi i am new to wordpress and blogging, how did you get your tags to the side???
We had chickens once for meat chickens then got into sheep. Hope to hear from you
Go to: Dashboard – Posts – Tags – Add New Tag and there ya go! Good Luck!
I also think where the tags show up depends on the Theme you choose. And there should be flexibility. Under Dashboard – Appearance – Widgets you can drag and drop things like “Tag Cloud” into the right hand bar. I use theme Twenty Ten and this blog uses MistyLook. My Tag Cloud only shows the most common tags (for example, I just got chickens and the tag “chickens” isn’t showing up yet because it’s only on a couple of posts).
Play around with the widgets to get all kinds of stuff on the right hand side and Happy Blogging.
I love your post – but I’m biased, I just got my own backyard chooks and they are adorable (is that reason 11?).
You have a great farm and perfect blog to complement it. I have a normal suburban back garden and I’m really jealous of people like you. Jealous and inspired, thanks for all your posts – I’ll keep coming back for more.
Wow! I can’t wait to have a place of my own to start raising chickens! (I don’t think they’d let me keep them here in a dorm)
Thanks for the awesome info. I had no idea about #6, but it makes sense!
Maybe that’s why everything tastes like chicken…..cause they eat Everything. Thanks for your comment.
I would dearly love a few chickens, but my garden is too small to even put up a coop for them to sleep in safely at night..and living in a forest as we do, there are allsorts about at night, namely big red chicken – eating foxes.
I grew upon a farm in Africa though, and we had chickens back then and I loved them.They have such quirky personalities and ours used to eet feed or veggie scraps from my hand.
Love their little eyes too, the way the tilt theire heads and look you in the eye 🙂
I love your post. My mother kept chickens as we grew up. She ordered new chicks from Sears Roebuck catalog. She had no problem butchering them, they were our Sunday lunch. Mom considered the birds another crop to harvest from her extensive garden.
I will look into having birds in our neighborhood, the idea is intriguing.
♥♥♥ People don’t know what they are missing!! Although, I will say- getting chicks is great fun, too. It is amazing to watch them grow before your eyes!
I couldn’t agree more. Chicken keeping is such a rewarding experience. The eggs are fantastic and taking care of the flock is so easy. We found that keeping a flock of backyard chickens was such a rewarding experience that we moved on to goats! Now we have fresh eggs and fresh milk. Now, if I could just find time to learn about beekeeping. Then we’d be on to the next farm project!
Is milking the goats a hassle? Are you doing it every morning or what?
It really is fairly simple. I just started milking in December and milk once a day in the morning. The whole process takes less than 30 minutes (including feeding the herd of three their breakfast and freshening their water). It’s not uncommon to collect two pounds of milk.
The fresh milk is every bit as delicious and fresh tasting as the eggs we get from our chickens. It has been a great learning experience for my children. After they each had a try at milking, they both have a much deeper appreciation for the milk in their glass at the breakfast table!
I have in the distant past, had a small flock of Rhode Island Reds and Plymouth Barred Rocks. Also included three roosters. Straight run chicks was the reason why we had roosters. I now have about six acres and live in a rural area where there are cattle farmers as well as a developed area of resort homes. Mixed bag. I am not decided about chickens here but who knows? Have a super good day tomorrow!
I recently took the plunge… will post more info about them as I can. Have had them about 2 months since they were day olds…I have become quickly attached. 🙂
Love this – perfect top ten list. I had chickens & miss them terribly! I could watch chickens all day. So funny! Such personalities! I’m in town now & can’t have them. Bees are awesome – you should definitely have them too. Even lower maintenance – I need to come up with a similar top 10 list. Ideally I would really have both. Hudson is beautiful, I grew up in Brecksville – when there were still farms there, believe it or not. Small world. Cheers to sustainable living.
Reblogged this on Me and the Bees and commented:
I’m inspired here to write my own top ten reasons to have bees. I wholeheartedly agree, point by point, why everyone should own chickens….
Great blog! I’m from the UK and we have a charity over here that rescues hens from those big commercial battery farms to be rehomed. The hens come out a mess,but they soon recover and grow their feathers back.
Here’s the charity, worth finding out if there is one near you in the states.
http://www.bhwt.org.uk/
My friend recently got some from this charity, here is my blog with pics of the hens, I am going back there soon, apparently the hens have grown all their feathers back!
http://ofconservationandanimalwelfare.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/from-the-battery-cage-to-free-range-back-garden/
Have a great day!
I need to make sure my better half does NOT read this post. He’s all about getting chickens. But we have a dog who could be the real spokes-animal for Chick-Fil-A, because she definitely loves the idea of “eat more chik’n.” Maybe someday….
i want to own chickens. my daughter would love them.
Like Farmer John says, “Every day is a good one except the last one” that is if you decide to eat them. We had chickens before we started our printing business 30 years ago. The kids loved walking around with them. My 4 year old daughter named each one and made up stories about them. They were great to have around, but I did have trouble butchering them. I guess I’m just a softy.
I’ve always wanted to have chickens. After reading your blog I am inspired to get organized and give it a go. Thanks!
Thanks for the ‘Like’ on my post. I am a new blogger and was pleased that you found and liked my post! This one of yours really hits home to me. i too am terrified of birds, all birds. It’s so bad that I can’t eat in any kind of open air restaurant for fear of birds landing on my table. Has your wife overcome her fear of birds now since you have the chickens?
Yes! She loves the chickens (she won’t hold them) but she will hand feed them.
I love the fresh eggs! They are the best. And the entertainment factor is great….I love just watching the chickens. They are a riot.
We’ve named all our chix after characters from The West Wing: CJ, Abigail, Dolores, Donnatella, Bonnie, Ginger and Leo the cockerill – ‘cos he’s the Chief of Staff!
I love chickens and wish I had some.
Hello all,
Ware are new tithe chicken area! We are born and raised New Yorkers, who have moved to the suburbs and find we LOVE growing, planting, tending to our garden. We want to try our hand and owning hens strictly for egg consumption. We have NEVER had any contact with LIVE chickens before, so we need ALOT of tips and guidance! We are looking to have maybe 3-4 hens in our yard. We have read the Oraphange? Don’t know it I spelled that right? Kind is a great one, it is friendly and quite, which is ideal for a family with kids and close neighbors. Can anyone comment on that particular bird, or something similar that meets these requirements? There is so much info out there and we are feeling a little lost as to where to begin and what to have in place. We have read your entire blogs and they are extremely helpful. We have a few questions about….well…everything.lol.
Should we vaccinate and what? We heard it depends where you live? What about disease? For the chickens and our family? Is there anything we should be aware of? What about cold New England winters? Can they survive outside or will they end up in our beds 😉
Heeeeelp, we want to do this but don’t know where to begin!
We would love to get chickens to help eat the slugs and for fresh eggs BUT we have foxes! We get offered chickens all the time but as we are semi-rural there are lots of foxes around. Our neighbours had ducks, geese and chickens and the foxes got them all in the end. We just have to exchange plants and veg for fresh eggs from our friends who have chickens.
Reading your blog makes me wonder if we should maybe look into this a bit deeper. Any suggestions?
Thanks for this great post. I have five hens right now and I love having chickens. You are right that there are many good reasons for having chickens. I’d love to see more city chickens.
Reblogged this on Green Momma Adventures and commented:
I want chickens SO much. I hope Laura gets them so I can bring over my chicken scraps in return for eggs. The ladies at the Phoenix Earthship were fun to take are of for a few days and their eggs were delicious.
Wow. Loved this post. Just about makes me want to get a few chickens myself!
HURRAY for chicken farmers and for small farms!! Great post. Nice to make the connection.
Questions: how many eggs do you get per day (or per week) with 12 chickens? how do you overwinter them? (aaahhhhhh…. I want chickens!!!!!)
{not my blog, but…….. :lol} This will totally depend on the breed you get. Some are very good and very regular layers; others have medium or even low egg-laying frequency. Tractor Supply has a fairly decent list of breeds and shows how well they lay. I have 4 different breeds (barred rocks, buff orpingtons, 1 production red and easter eggers) and out of my 13, I usually get around 10+ eggs every single day.
During the winter, we didn’t add any supplemental light, but upped their protein, and we consistently got 6 to 8 eggs every single day. I definitely have some slackers, but my flock mistress (one of the BOs) is one that has never laid regularly, and I’m still trying to sort out who else is on the fritz right now.
There are some who say you need two layers for every person in the family, and this is probably pretty close. You won’t regret getting them!
Thanks for the info! I definitely need to do some more research about it but look forward to being an urban chicken owner! Whoot, whoot!!
Love it when others help each other out on the blog 🙂 Thanks Tikk Tok! I would also add, it depends where you live. Golden Comets are great in the cold, harsh Ohio winters. A chicken’s egg cycle is 1 every 25 hours so figure on each bird laying 6 eggs every 7 days or so.
I have six Golden Comets. I get six eggs a day, every day. I haven’t had a winter with them yet, so I don’t know how they’ll do during limited light.
They laid all winter. Keep a small 40watt bulb on a timer so they have about 12-15 hours a day of light and they’ll keep laying.
Some folks want to keep them laying consistently and then either eat or otherwise cull them when they slow on the production. We, on the other hand, figured that since they have a set amount of eggs they’ll lay, we’d rather let them do what is going to be natural for them to extend their overall egg-laying time. I’ve heard of people still getting eggs after 10 years (once a week or so) which I think is fantastic!
We’re headed for a molt this fall, though, so I may be ready for them to get back on the job come this winter! 😆
[…] now: three of them. It took a while to decide to get them, but we haven’t looked back. What Soulsby Farm has to say about them is so true. They fulfil the permaculture principle of being […]
LOVE LOVE LOVE your blog:) I’m an Ohio native living in NY so I know about needing cold hardy hens too. I’ll try a few Golden Comets now..thanks for the great info. I have 6 lovely ladies and I got 6 perfect eggs today…they are loving the sunshine!
My husband and I are contemplating between getting chickens or guineas. If I get my way, we will have some of each. 🙂 Loved reading good things about raising chickens! Thanks!
Roosters make your hen community complete. Watching them strut and preen and keep the hens in order is hilarious. Yes, they do crow whenever the mood strikes, but that’s part of the fun! It’s been over 30 years since I raised chickens, some of my fondest memories! And for those brave enough to eat them, if you pluck them off their roost in the evening, and put them in a cage overnight, cleaning them the next day is much, much easier. Otherwise, you have a craw full of early morning snacking to deal with and that is nasty. And have you ever tried to catch a chicken in the daytime?? At night, they just sit there and let you take them!
Well I’m definitely convinced. Love your post!
the only problem is zoning …
I really want chickens too but unsure about whether it’s legal in my city area. Great post and very informative!
I have dreamed of having chickens since our family trip to the U.K. in 1999, but am afraid they would not survive a Southern Ontario winter. Does anyone know what their winter temperature tolerance would be?
People all over the world have chickens. There are many breeds that are cold tolerant. Supplemental heat is generally not needed even in very cold climates so long as there is good ventilation and they don’t get moisture and get frost bitten. I know people living in Alaska that have no issues with their chickens being too cold, if that helps any. Obviously, you’d want more than one though, to help with the heat. (go onto the backyard chickens forums (www.backyardchickens.com) and search supplemental heat- there is a ton of information from people from all over)Fwiw.
Oh, thanks for all of that information. That is encouraging; will check out that site.
Hi. Very persuasive blog! We would love to have chickens and have the perfect spot for them. Unfortunately, there are lots of foxes around and we don’t want to risk it. Our neighbours had chickens, ducks and geese but the foxes got them one by one. Very sad.
We do have friends who keep chickens and luckily we can barter plants and veg in exchange for fresh eggs so we do share some of the benefits!
Hee hee! I never thought about garlic flavored eggs. I love garlic but there might be an experiment in here. Chickens are awesome critters! I love mine.
Reblogged this on practicingwhatipreach.
Have your wife speak self forgiveness for her childhood fear and watch the anxiety subside.
I forgive my self for allowing and accepting my self to fear birds attaching me as I had an experience as a child where a pelican attached me, where I did not understand why the pelican attacked me and now I have allowed my self to develop a relationship with birds separate from what actually exists as this physical world in and as a superstition as an emotional polarity that I carry around as an energetic possession in separation from my self here, where I believe that this pelican attacking me indicates that there is something wrong with me, when in fact the bird was probably protecting its territory and feeling threatened in some way, which I what actually happened to my self as I felt threatened by the world my self just as that bird felt and so I became the living expression one and equal to that bird.
Try it and see if anything moves inside yourself and you feel lighter as that which moves inside you is released as the fear is realized to be self separate from understanding this physical world.
I love this post! I cannot wait until we get our own little chickens… I will be coming back to this post when we do. Probably next year!
Thanks for checking out my blog:) I love this post! We really want to have chickens one day too. Unfortunately, our area currently doesn’t allow it but it is being fought! Can’t wait for the day to have fresh eggs from my own backyard.
Thanks for liking my blog, you are the first. I have been behind in keeping it up, but now I am motivated to work it some more. I like your post on chickens as I am planning to have some once I can get set up ($). Nice job!
Funny that I should get directed to your blog today because our chickens are coming home for the first time this afternoon! We’ve finished their coop and have all of the supplies. I’m sure I’ll have questions for you shortly. Thanks for the chicken blog. It’s great! Looking forward to reading your others.
Great post! I had blue Jersey Giants and loved for all of the reasons you listed but they brought a herd of rats and we had to get rid of them. Sad day. We get all of our meat, poultry, eggs and even some veggies from our friend, Jack Ford of TAJ Farms in Fallbrook, CA. Can’t beat it!
I used to raise chickens. Thank you for this article. It was refreshing to read, and brought back a lot of memories. My hubby and I are considering raising some more, pending finances and space. Love the site! Keep up the good work!
I so want some chickens! But our neighborhood association rules won’t allow it. 😦 Great, informative post!
Reblogged this on Hwaairfan's Blog and commented:
Plus you can be more sure of the eggs you, eat and the early morning wake-up call helps put you back in touch with the full meaning of life!
My daughter just rented space in a house in Berkeley Ca. that is in the process of becoming an urban farm with chickens. I passed on your this post to her. Thanks for all the great details big smile :).
Thanks for liking my post. Love your farm. I used to live on a farm when I was growing up in Hong Kong many years ago. We raised chickens and sold eggs to support the family. My father lost his job and we could not afford to live in the city. I had good memories of the chicken farm. Now I can visit your farm. 🙂
It’s so nice to read your blog and know there are so many other people out there who just want to know where their food comes from, and actually make it happen. You really are less disconnected when you have to pick out supper from the backyard 🙂 We have dual purpose chickens too, and we got a few roosters for eating when the time comes. But like you, we’ll find out whether we were meant to be meat eaters or not soon enough 🙂
We’re hoping to purchase some chickens pretty soon so thanks for that information, it was very relevant and helpful.
I agree. Raising chickens and having fresh eggs each day is wonderful. A slice of God’s goodness.
This is some great information! We are building a chicken tractor…and I can hardly wait to have chickens!!!!! I also have my husband going out to get supplies for a worm bin today – thanks for the tutorial! It has been on my mind a while, and after reading your post, it is too easy! Getting it done! Cheers Soulsby farm folks!
[…] a tie between Why Everyone Should Own Chickens and Let’s Build a Worm […]
We finally did it!!!!!!!! thanks y’all!!!!
http://xericstyle.wordpress.com/2012/11/04/xericstyles-new-feathered-friends/
awe! 1st egg today! This is so exciting – can you tell we are excited??!! Haaaa! http://xericstyle.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/you-mean-eggs-dont-come-from-the-store-anymore/
This got me interested in chickens! Learned a lot from this article. Very informative in what I need if I want to get started raising them. It would be great to have the fresh eggs!
Hola from Ecuador.. It seems like in San Clemente, every other household has chickens ( and a rooster)..small world, we lived in Seven Hills OH before retiring here and my brother and family live in Hudson..great site !
this is absolutely right. chickens are suuuper low maintenance. I have 12 chickens myself and I can agree that I couldn’t eat them, not only because I treat them better than the dog at home but also because (but not as important) they aren’t all that big compared to broilers (even free-range ones).