About a year ago I convinced hubby that we needed our own chickens. I grew up having chickens and wanted our boys to have the same experience. Plus I think fresh eggs are so much better than store bought!
Chickens are relatively easy to raise. We picked up our chicks when they were about 4 days old. They do need to be in a warm place for a few weeks. We kept ours in a huge box in the garage under a heat lamp. The chicks need to be fully feathered and about 6 weeks old to be free of the heat lamp. When we brought the chicks home we kept the temperature at 85 degrees. We slowly reduced the heat over the weeks until the chicks were doing well with 70 degrees. they grew and the Spring weather warmed, we were able to let them outside to roam. We used the heat lamp at night for several weeks.
At about 6 weeks old, it was warm enough for the chickens to be out out into the coop. My hubby built the coop from scrap wood he found at construction sites. We did have to buy some of the supplies but we did use a lot of re-purposed material. We kept the chickens in the coop until they were three months old. We wanted to make sure our dogs were comfortable with them before we let them roam in the yard. Amazingly, the dogs and chickens get along perfectly! Our chickens are now free range but we do lock them in the coop every night to protect them from predators.
Chickens don’t start laying eggs until they are about six months old. We are currently getting 5 to 6 eggs a day. Our girls even laid pretty well through the winter months.
Chickens are really easy to feed. We feed them some grain and all of our leftover produce. Since they are in the yard everyday, they also eat a lot of bugs. We are hoping that we will have a lot less ticks this year- they can be a big problem in our area.
We do not have a rooster. I had bad experiences with roosters when growing up- they can be mean! Our six girls do just fine on their own. They are sweet with our boys and provide wonderful eggs for us!
If you have the space, I encourage you to give chickens a try! If you are not the chicken raising type, you might be interested in entering to win a year’s supply of Better’n Eggs and AllWhites.
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