Raising Chickens in Your Backyard

Raising chickens in the backyard might seem like an odd proposition to most city folk, which includes a lot of my friends and all of my neighbors, but keeping chickens is pretty easy and has many benefits. However, before racing out to your local feed store for a sweet, peeping fluff ball, you need to be a little prepared.

Legalities

First and foremost, find out your city’s ordinances about raising chickens. A lot of communities allow backyard flocks of chickens, but with rules on quantities and types. The City of St. Petersburg allows residents to raise up to five hens, but no roosters. If your city doesn’t allow chickens, you can get the laws changed. Alicia Rheal and Brian Whiting from Madison, Wisconsin organized a group to change the laws in their area. After their success at changing the laws in Madison, they began Mad City Chickens and Urban Chickens websites to help other city chickens keep their homes. Also, check out the Pinellas County Citizens for Backyard Poultry website for excellent, detailed information on getting local laws changed. It can be done.

Depending on the proximity of your neighbors and your relationship with them, you may want to mention that you’re getting some new pets. Roosters can be quite loud, but hens really aren’t that noisy if they’re kept happy. They love to announce to the world that they’ve just laid an egg, and they’ll let any other chicken in the neighborhood know when a predator is in the area. But, for the most part, they’re pretty quiet. Most of the ordinances I’ve come across don’t allow noisy roosters anyway, so noise shouldn’t be a problem. If you are concerned, remember that your chickens are probably not as noisy as the neighborhood dogs; chickens roost quietly from sunset to sunrise; and a dozen eggs now and then pacifies even the most difficult of neighbors.

Buying Chickens

Once you’ve found out your legal limits you need to decide how many and what kind of chickens to buy. Are you buying for egg production, meat production, or just the joy of watching these turnip brains do some of the silliest things? No one here is quite ready to butcher anything so we raise chickens for their eggs and comic relief. Check out McMurray’s or Meyer’s hatcheries catalogs for good information on the size, temperament, egg production, and appearance of the many breeds available. I have Rhode Island Reds because that’s what the local feed store had for sale when I went to buy them. Reds are very easy birds to raise from chicks, and fairly inexpensive.

If you live in an area that doesn’t allow roosters, pay the extra to get birds that have been sexed to ensure they are all females. To give you an idea of how much fun it is to figure out a baby chick’s gender, the job was featured on the show “Dirty Jobs” and had something about squeezing the chick until it pooped. Not a job for me!

When deciding how many chickens to buy, keep your ordinances and your needs in mind. How many can you care for, how many eggs can you eat, and what will the law allow? By the way, mature hens will average two eggs every three days for the first year. Production may slow by about 20% after the first year.

Equipment

Before you get your chicks, you will need a feeder, a waterer, food, and a safe place to keep the babies indoors for the first two weeks. We keep new chicks in a plastic bin (no lid, of course), lined with shavings, and set up on a table to keep the dog’s nose out of where it doesn’t belong.

Chickens, like most birds, can be a bit messy with their food and water. Also, as the chickens grow, they will want to roost on anything they can, including the tops of the feeder and waterer. Hanging a covered feeder and waterer from a chain should keep the girls from roosting on top and soiling their food and water and prevents the birds from scratching at their feed and throwing it everywhere.

There are many schools of thought on chicken feed. I prefer to use a commercially prepared feed supplemented with a healthy supply of kitchen scraps, scratch grains, and pasturing. Baby chicks should be fed a starter feed until they begin laying eggs. Medicated and plain starter feeds are available. I’ve used both with no difference. The medicated variety will give you peace of mind if you are concerned about disease. Scratch grains and vegetable scraps can be introduced after the chickens begin growing their adult feathers, but the babies will grow best on the nutritionally balanced feed.

Chicken Coops

While your chicks are growing indoors, begin work on your outdoor coop and hen house as well as a larger feeder. Check the internet for coop ideas. We put our first one together out of scrap wood. However, my husband enjoyed building it so much that he improved on the design and now sells chicken coops.

There are some important things to consider for your coop and hen house. Each chicken needs a minimum of 2 square feet of space. However, if they are going to be completely confined to the coop, you’ll want to give them more space to move around. We let ours run around the yard for an hour or two each day.

You will also need to incorporate nesting boxes and roosts into the hen house’s design. You do not need as many nesting boxes as you have chickens. They will share nests, but make sure at least half of your chickens can nest comfortably at the same time. They’ll need a bar set high in the hen house to roost on at night. And above all, make sure the coop is secure against predators. You’d be surprised how many predators live in the city. We’re visited by hawks, ospreys, possums, and the neighbors’ cats all the time. Any one of those would love your baby chicks for dinner.

Caring for Chickens

Handle your new chicks everyday. This is very important. When we get new chicks, every morning I transfer the chicks to another box, dump the soiled litter into the composter, then rinse, dry, and re-line the bin before returning the chicks. Several times each day, I just pick them up and hold them for a few minutes, checking for illness or injury. Be wary of little hands though. Baby chicks can be fatally injured quite easily.

After your chicks are about two weeks old, you can start taking them out to the coop during the day, but bring them in at night for another two weeks. Other than that, just keep their feeder and waterer full and their bedding dry, and they’ll be healthy and happy.

Once the chicks are living in the coop full time, line the hen house and nesting boxes with pine shavings. Toss a handful of scratch grains into the litter every once in a while. The chickens will scratch and turn up the litter to find the grains which keeps the litter dry and smell- disease-free. About three inches of pine shavings can last over a month with a small flock. At cleaning time, toss the waste in your composter. If you don’t compost, at least spread the litter in your flower beds. You won’t ever need to buy Miracle Grow again!

Feeding chickens can get time consuming if you mix your own feed. I use commercial feed with no problems. Use a starter feed for chicks and when they start laying eggs, change to a laying feed that has 15% to 18% protein and includes calcium. Feed com in crumbles or pellets. Once you start with one type of feed, stick to it. For creatures who will try to eat any bug or rock they happen to dig up, they get pretty finicky about the feed in their dishes!

In addition to their regular food, chickens need grains and greens. Scratch grains and kitchen scraps cover these requirements. When I pick turnips or carrots from the garden, I give the chickens the tops. The really love these greens, but what they love the most are broccoli and cauliflower leaves. If they get into the garden, they disseminate all of the broccoli and cauliflower plants. They’ll also eat leftover bread (not moldy please), lettuce, spinach leaves, celery tops, watermelon rinds, apple peels and cheese (I kid you not). 

Believe it or not, that’s really all there is to raising chickens. Feel free to post any questions you have in comments. I'll see what I can do to help! Now, what are you waiting for? Start enjoying some yummy, fresh eggs of your own!!

Here are some websites to help you with more information and with coop designs.

BackyardChickens.com is an excellent site for useful and practical information.

Here’s an helpful article from Mother Earth News with instructions  for building your own hanging feeder.

Thanks for stopping by!

Grace and peace be yours in abundance,

Betty

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