Posted on 02/11/2023 6:36:18 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Raising Chickens 101: How to Get Started
Raising chicks is exciting! Knowing how is just as important. This beginner’s guide to raising chickens is the first article in our Raising Chickens series. Let us help you “start from scratch,” so to speak!
Why Should You Raise Chickens?
There’s a lot to like about raising chickens in your backyard. The eggs are a real temptation—tastier and fresher than any store-bought eggs, and better for baking, too. The shells, along with the chicken poop, can be tossed right into the compost pile. Much of the day, the birds entertain themselves, picking at grass, worms, beetles, and all of the good things that go into making those yummy farm eggs. Plus, with their keen eye for insect pests, chickens make for great gardening companions.
Remember, though: Nothing good comes easy!
Things to Consider Before Getting Chickens
First, check local town ordinances to ensure that keeping chickens is even allowed in your neighborhood or if there is a limit to the number of chickens you can keep at once. The last thing you want is to invest time and money into preparing for chickens and then find out that you can’t even keep them!
Make sure you have the space for a henhouse or a full-size chicken coop. It has to hold a feeder and water containers, a roosting area, and a nest box for every three hens. A proper coop should be large enough that you can stand in it to gather eggs and shovel manure comfortably, but a simple henhouse can be quite a bit smaller. Plus, any housing must be sturdy enough to keep your chickens safe from all the predators out there! Here’s how to build a chicken coop in your backyard.
Chickens need food (and water) daily. Feed is about $20 per 50-pound bag at my co-op, but prices vary depending on your location and the quality of the feed. How long a bag lasts depends on the number of chickens that you have.
Hens will lay eggs through spring and summer and into the fall, as long as they have 12 to 14 hours of daylight. Expect to collect eggs daily, or even twice a day.
All year ‘round, you’ll have to shovel manure. Yippee!
If you go away on vacation, you’ll need a reliable chicken-sitter—and they can be scarcer than hens’ teeth!
Continues:
https://www.almanac.com/raising-chickens-101-how-get-started
https://bestbookshub.com/best-raising-chickens-books/
Lovely chart. The local feed store where I get peanuts for the outdoor animals has a “Crazy Chicken Lady” that I adore. Every spring she brings out the baby chicks that she only sells after strenuous investigation of prospective parents.
I’ve been watching Cupid’s Kitchen, a Chinese drama about cooking, and made a few food music videos, but I have to admit that I avoided the clips of chickens and ducks as they included the heads in the recipes. I was horrified by a friend who came for Thanksgiving once and brought a duck with its head still attached. Sensitive to the look on my face, she rushed into the kitchen and “fixed” the problem by putting the head in her purse.
Cupid’s Kitchen - No Sugar Tonight - The Guess Who - the chef refuses to have sugar in ANY recipe in his Michelin kitchen.
Cupid’s Kitchen - Hit Me With Your Best Shot - Pat Benatar - the apprentice he’s training mercilessly is cheated on at every stage of the cooking competition
So which ones are you getting? We did meat birds two different years long ago. Never again. We have a good source on eggs and chicken thankfully. This will be a very popular thread. I see on our local town fb page more people getting chickens all the time.
from Grandmother Catharine Burnett's book, Hot Shots
from Grandmother Catharine Burnett's book, Hot Shots
Wow. IBTF
in before the fiftieth
61° in HARTFORD CT on Friday. Extended autumn continues ...
Another thing to be aware of with chickens is the infamous “Pecking order”.
Those hens can be very mean to each other.
“Sensitive to the look on my face, she rushed into the kitchen and ‘fixed’ the problem by putting the head in her purse.”
Now THAT is a True Friend! :)
Thanks, Pete! I am just dying to get seeds started but my planting calendar WARNS me not to start the first thing until Match 4th for my Pepper Plants. They are always so slow to germinate - even with bottom heat and all my other tricks.
I know, I know! Patience in all things, Grasshopper! :)
Wife has “toasted” our seed starting dirt.
We’re ready...
I actually have that first chart as a poster in my kitchen. I have one for Dairy Cows and Fruits & Veggies from that same line in my office. :)
The coop construction in the barn will be longer than anticipated, but that’s OK. Beau is doing a TREMENDOUS job on getting the barn cleaned out - but when it warms up again, he’s going to fill in all of the (empty!) manure gutters with cement, so the flooring in there will all be level and we don’t have to mess with ‘bridges’ and other trip hazards. It was the Milking Parlor in the lower level of the barn, so I’m sure you know what I mean.
Either way, he’s got some really great ideas/plans and I’ll just let him run with it. He likes chickens. I know he’ll end up being The Chicken Whisperer around here! ;) (He’s already the Cat Whisperer; I do everything for those cats, but who do they run to when they see him? Yep.)
So, it will probably be NEXT spring, and I’m going to ask the two closest neighbor ladies if they want to split a box of 50 chicks from Murray McMurray Hatchery out of Iowa. I’ve always used them for chicks when I sold eggs in a big way back in the day.
My favorite breed of all time is the Buff Orpington. I also like the Barred Rock hens. Both are brown egg layers and the Buffs can also go into the stew pot when necessary. ;) They both survive Wisconsin Winters just fine, and lay all winter, too.
Sounds like great plans, and you must be the mule and dog whisperer.
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