Do You Really Want to Live With Chickens?

May is International Respect for Chickens Month. I thought I would share my thoughts on raising my chickens to enable you to make the right decision for yourself. Do you really want to live with chickens? In this article I will be detailing the joys and woes of living with chickens. Chickens are very smart and many people don't give them credit for their intelligence.

     I live in a rural community and as I am in the country the only person I had to ask about having chickens was the owner of the property.  If I lived in the city my mail box is affiliated with I would come under the jurisdiction of the local police department. There have been lawsuits filed in the US for disturbing the peace (from crowing roosters), for too many chickens on too small a piece of property and smell pollution (due to the odor coming from the coop or from disposal of the manure chickens produce.
     Do you have room enough for your chickens? According to ChrisnTiff, writing for Backyard Chickens the minimum space to raise happy chickens is approximately 4 square feet per bird. He further states that his chickens are free ranged during daylight hours and are provided with 2 square feet per bird inside the coop. 
     Do you want to have free range chickens? According to the United States Department of Agriculture the definition of free range/free roaming is: Producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside. That being said while they are to be allowed access to the outside, it may only be a cement floored area. They may only be allowed outside a few times a week, and sometimes not at all. It is up to the discretion of the owner how often they are allowed outside. The USDA doesn't have inspectors to check all the small egg producers in the United States. I know of at least one producer of eggs that claims his organic eggs come from free range hens. I have seen his coop and in all the time I have lived here, I have never seen him let his chickens outside. The only free range they have is the floor of the coop they are in.
     Your Coop: Do you have a secure place for them to live where predators will not harm them? Where I live in Minnesota we have dogs, cats, rats, eagles, red-tailed hawks, peregrine falcons, owls, coyotes, raccoons, skunks, and opossums. In other parts of the state there are also wolves, timber rattlesnakes and cougars. You need a secure building to close them in at night. It should be a complete building with a solid floor, with roosts for chickens above the ground to keep them away from predators that might attack during the night. If your chickens are not going to be free range they need a closed-in area outside to take recreation, sit in the sun, eat grass and hunt bugs at their leisure. 
     Roosts in the coop: When we moved here the highest roost in the chicken house on the property were only five feet off the ground. Coyotes can jump that high and an enterprising raccoon, skunk or opossum can easily climb that. I've seen a raccoon fifteen feet up in the air in our barn. The original roost are still there, but now my chickens have additional roosting spaces that are ten, twelve and fourteen feet in the air. 
     The floor of the coop should have several inches of litter to keep the chickens from walking in their own manure. I would advise 2 to 4 inches of litter depending on the size of the coop and the flock and the regularity of cleaning. We use pine shavings for the floor of our coop and when they are old, they are removed and placed in an area outside where they can compost and be used the next year in our vegetable garden. You might be able to use shredded newspaper, but I don't know what the long term effects of the ink on the chickens might be. In hunting for bugs in the coop our hens throw the shavings all over the floor and sometimes even taste them.
     You need to have electricity in the coop to heat water in the winter months and for a heat lamp if you have older chickens and the nights get below freezing for prolonged periods of time in your area of the country. Your coop should have insulation for cold winters. Windows will allow the chickens to get sunshine if the weather is too inclement and they can't go outside.
     Chickens need to have fresh water and food every day. Grit needs to be provided  for their crops (where their food is ground) as they have no teeth. Feeding eggshells and oyster shells are good to keep the shells of the eggs from breaking or ending up with eggs without shells. Do you want to feed organic food or corn? If you purchase bagged whole or cracked corn from a store you won't know if it is regular corn or GMO (genetically modified organism) or GEO (genetically engineered organism) unless you call the manufacturer, and they may not be able to tell you. If you purchase your corn from a local farmer, he can tell you what he grew. Chicken food should be stirred in metal cans with a tight fitting lid. Rats and mice can chew through a plastic garbage can or drum and can leap high enough to get into a 5 gallon bucket. Chickens should not be given raw soybeans, there is a poison in the hull that can kill chickens.
     What kind of chickens do you want to have? There are many varieties, sizes and colors; too numerous to name here. There are egg layers and meat producers (roasters, broilers). I have egg layers: barred rocks, leghorns (both red and white), bantams or bantys, Araucana, and mixed breeds. Chickens that are raised for meat production grow quickly and can have challenges walking, flying and moving around due to their weight. This can make them more vulnerable to predators. 
     You can buy chicks from a local feed store or order them through the mail. If you want hens only or a certain breed of chicken you will pay a premium for them. You can adopt chickens from an adoption service, there are many of them looking for homes these days. The advantage to this is you will know the chicken's sex, health and may even get some of its history.  Chicken Run Rescue is located here in Minnesota and they adopt chickens out to loving homes if they are properly equipped to handle them. Check the Internet for adoption agencies in your state.
     I check the local ads in our electric co-op and on Freecycle (though Chicken Run Rescue disagrees with that). Our beautiful Rocky came from Freecycle. Most of my chickens come from a local auction barn. I feel good about saving chickens from ending up on the menu in a restaurant (a local chef goes to the auction weekly) or someone's dinner table. The first batch of six chickens I bought cost me 25 cents each. They were white leghorns with no feathers on their backs from the base of their necks to their tails and many of them were missing tail feathers too. I remember the auctioneer's comment that "Someone will be making lots of chicken soup or stew this year." It never happened. I have never intentionally killed any of the chickens I have been lucky enough to bring home. I have paid up to $4.00 a chicken. I never understood why a farmer will buy chicks in the spring and get rid of them in the fall when they are adults and perfectly good for egg layers for several years. Our Araucana is closing in on 13 years of age, I've had her since 2000. While she slowed down in egg production and didn't lay an egg a day in the last few years, then stopped laying completely last November; she is still a member of the flock. She was a good producer and has just as much right to live here as any other hen or rooster in the flock. 
     Clipping wings: Many commercial chicken farms large and small use practices I do not condone. Wings are clipped to keep chickens from flying. Chickens can fly and maybe producers do it to keep them from roosting too far from the ground where they cannot be captured easily. If the chickens are free range and being chased by a predator, they will not be able to get away. 
     Debeaking is the barbaric practice of cutting the top beak of a chicken to keep it from pecking at eggs, or the other birds. It seems to me that this practice is done because there are too many chickens in one place. My flock is currently 35 chickens including 7 roosters. There are spats from time to time, but the only thing that eats eggs in my hen house are the rats that steal into the coop. 
     Clipping Spurs: We don't clip the roosters' spurs either, again this is a defense mechanism. While our roosters will spar from time to time, they don't fight to the death. The young roosters are the ones that usually start the fights, testing their mettle and trying to find their place in the pecking order of the flock. We had a wonderful Barred Rock rooster named Rocky that we adopted. Rocky stood about 18 inches tall and until he came along the goats bullied the chickens unmercifully. They would chase the chickens and butt at them. 
     During the first days we had Rocky there weren't any issues. One day Sabrina, our youngest goat (about 50 pounds) came up behind Rocky just after we let the chickens out for the day. She butted him square on the butt. Rocky spun around and launched himself at Sabrina. I was standing right there and couldn't tell you if he connected with Sabrina or not, he was that fast. Sabrina spun 180 degrees and took of across the yard at a gallop. We haven't had a problem between the goats and the chickens since. If we had clipped Rocky's spurs, we might still be having problems between the chickens and the goats.
     Henpecking: I believe that henpecking is again a sign of unhappy chickens that are overcrowded. Our girls have spats from time to time; they don't last long. It is usually the younger hens trying to steal a piece of food or a worm they feel might entitled to and the older hens are just letting them know what their place in the flock is. After all, if you worked hard for something would you want your younger sibling claiming it for their own? I'll bet not.
     The reality of egg production: Do you want to sell your chickens eggs? I read an article recently that stated several hens can lay 1400 eggs a year. By my calculations you would need four hens to accomplish this. The reality is that not every hen is going to lay an egg every day. In my opinion you will never recoup the monies you expend in the labor, time, care, feeding, losses and vet bills you put into your chickens. Eggs laid need to be collected every day to keep predators from eating them. I recently made the mistake of leaving 2 eggs in the hen house overnight and the next morning they were not there. I know rats got them because if the chickens had eaten them there would have been left over egg in the nest box. Eggs need to be candled unless you are collecting every day to make sure there is not a chick developing inside. If eggs are dirty they need to be washed then dried. Eggs need to be graded for size and put in containers suitable for resale.
     Nest boxes: If you have laying hens you need nest boxes for them to deposit their eggs in. Hens don't lay their eggs at the same time, they can lay from morning to evening. When my flock was smaller, Steven made me two sets of nest boxes. One was made from a reclaimed piece of furniture, all we did was add a perch for easy access. The other one is a splendid piece of work from reclaimed wood. It consists of four tiers of nest boxes with perches, and has a solid back, sides and bottom to keep the hens comfortable. We put pine shavings or fresh grass in each one. Each nest box is a 12 inch cube with an open front. The perches run the width of the nest boxes on each level from side to side and are made of 1x1's. This keeps the hens from getting their feet stuck between the perches.
     Do you want to let your chickens hatch chicks? If your answer is yes, you need a rooster for fertilization of the eggs and roosters crow. You may think they only crow at daybreak, I'm here to tell you, they will crow in the middle of the night if they feel the need. In an urban setting this may be upsetting to both you and your neighbors. If your chickens are free range, a hen may not choose to stay in the coop to lay her eggs and hatch them out. A hen may go out every day with the other chickens to lay her eggs outside and then when she feels she has enough, she will set on the eggs outside until they hatch. 
     I have personal experience with this happening. The first time it happened to me, I discovered a hen that I thought had been taken by a predator coming across the yard leading 12 chicks back to the safety of the coop. It took several hours to corral the hen and all her chicks and get them back to safety. I had another hen that lost a chick to a rooster that swooped in on her procession back to the coop and killed a chick by grabbing it around the neck and breaking its neck by shaking it once. I rescued the chick, but his neck had been broken and he died in my hand. A third hen was taken by a fox and we found her nest of three eggs abandoned after we found a trail and a pile of feathers the fox left behind.
     The process of hatching eggs: It takes 21 days for a chick to hatch. Mark your calendar the day your hen begins to set to keep track. Begin checking for chicks around 21 days after she begins setting. Caution should be taken here, as the hen will defend her nest with clucking, scratching with her feet, pecking with her beak and flying at you with wings outstretched to make herself look larger. We have bantys that go broody every year and they are the best nest defenders I know. 
     If other hens lay eggs in the nest box leave them be. If the eggs fit under the hen she'll try to hatch them. We had two bantys that went broody last year and they were successful at hatching many eggs that were larger than their own. If a larger hen lays an egg, it will become a full size chicken when adult. The size of the hen setting on the eggs has nothing to do with the size of the adult chicken unless the eggs laid are banty size to begin with.
     Taking Care of the Chicks: The chick will have a reserve of egg yolk for a day or two after they are born, then chick feed should be provided along with fresh water. The hen will take care of her chicks for several weeks. After the chicks are born you need to provide a safe place in which for her to do so, as the roosters and other adult chickens may try to eat the chicks. I have used a rabbit hutch and last year I used a wire ferret cage. 
     When using a wire cage you need to make sure that the feet of the chicks will not fit through the wire mesh. They could break a leg. Put bedding on the floor of what you chose to use and make sure that it is not too deep. We lost a chick last year due to suffocation after its mother sat on the hay it had burrowed under while playing. We were unable to save it. The waterer should be small enough that the chicks won't drown in it. Your local feed store will have waterers suitable for chicks. You can get a feeder base that will screw onto a mason jar (I use quart jars). You want to look for a feeder base that you can take apart for easy cleaning, in case it gets pooped in or on.

You should check with your local police department to make sure you are allowed to have and raise chickens where you live.


For more information on raising chickens see:

Backyard Chickens

Chicken Run Rescue

Mother Earth News The Chicken & Egg Page