I have had lots of people ask me questions about raising chickens. For us it is a very affordable way to get organic range fed eggs and chicken. I am definitely no expert, but my mom is. So, she has been kind enough to type up a ton of information about chickens. It is way too much information to put in one post, so I will break this up into several posts for you guys to enjoy.I will do my best to answer any questions that you guys may have, but I will probably have to defer to my mom. She knows more than I could ever hope to know about chickens. She does mention local stores in these posts, but I am sure that most of you will find similar stores throughout the country.

What if my neighbors don’t want chickens? There are ordinances against animals in some areas. The city of Winston-Salem allows chickens in a back yard, but there are certain restrictions on how far they must be from your neighbors property. Roosters are noisy.  If you have close neighbors, you can just raise hens. You will have plenty of eggs that way and can always buy new chicks when your hens are worn out.

The key to happy neighbors is to keep the smell and flies down. You do that by keeping the area clean. We use fly paper to trap the flies and it works really well. A dozen eggs periodically really keeps folks happy. Some restrictive covenants do not allow chickens at all. In that case, maybe you could find someone who would be willing to raise your chickens for you if you contribute to the feed costs. We sell our eggs to friends and make a little money to pay for feed. Egg money won’t pay for all of your feed, but it will if you supplement with forage, scraps and milk.

I’ll be glad to help anyone in the Winston Salem area get started. We’ve learned a lot from our mistakes!

I recommend….

Web sites

http://www.backyardchickens.com/

www.homesteadingtoday.com

Book suggestions

The Encyclopedia of Country Living

Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens

Click here for Part 1 – Where Do You Get Your Chickens

Click here for Part 2 – How Do You Feed Them

Click here for Part 3 – How Do You Get Started

Click here for Part 4 – Types of Breeds

Click here for Part 5 – Chicken Houses and Predators

Click here for Part 6 – Do Chickens Save You Money

I have had lots of people ask me questions about raising chickens. For us it is a very affordable way to get organic range fed eggs and chicken. I am definitely no expert, but my mom is. So, she has been kind enough to type up a ton of information about chickens. It is way too much information to put in one post, so I will break this up into several posts for you guys to enjoy.I will do my best to answer any questions that you guys may have, but I will probably have to defer to my mom. She knows more than I could ever hope to know about chickens. She does mention local stores in these posts, but I am sure that most of you will find similar stores throughout the country.

Can you actually save money raising chickens? Yes and no. The first year, definitely no, unless you already have a chicken coop. The cost of fencing, housing and the chickens will be more than you would spend at the store. The second year, you probably will break even if you can begin to grow some of the feed for your hens.

Your best plan is to build a coop as cheaply as possible. You don’t need a palace. They will be fine with used lumber. I’ve even seen a great looking coop built from free wood pallets. Patty the Garden Girl (Google on the web) has wonderful videos of how she actually raises her chickens on top of her raised garden beds at very little cost.

You will read all kinds of things on the internet about how to build coops and the “must haves” for feeding. Yet, our ancestors raised chickens on cracked corn, milk and foraging. My father sometimes laughs at the feed that I buy. The chickens ranged all over the farm and ate what they could find. True, they did not lay as many eggs and perhaps the feed to meat ratio was not as good, but they were healthy and you did not spend a fortune on raising chickens.

We buy the feed to get things going really well the first year. Now, the second year, the chicks are raised by the hens and I don’t even worry about buying the special feed for chicks. We sometimes buy one bag of starter/grower to throw to them, but they love running all over the orchard with the hen and seemed to ignore the expensive feed. The last several chicks that were hatched were raised just on scratch and whey. They foraged with mom and seemed to do fine.

Tomorrow’s post will be about neighbors and additional resources.

Click here for Part 1 – Where Do You Get Your Chickens

Click here for Part 2 – How Do You Feed Them

Click here for Part 3 – How Do You Get Started

Click here for Part 4 – Types of Breeds

Click here for Part 5 – Chicken Houses and Predators

I have had lots of people ask me questions about raising chickens. For us it is a very affordable way to get organic range fed eggs and chicken. I am definitely no expert, but my mom is. So, she has been kind enough to type up a ton of information about chickens. It is way too much information to put in one post, so I will break this up into several posts for you guys to enjoy.I will do my best to answer any questions that you guys may have, but I will probably have to defer to my mom. She knows more than I could ever hope to know about chickens. She does mention local stores in these posts, but I am sure that most of you will find similar stores throughout the country.

What special needs do chickens have? They have a lot of predators. Dogs really like chicken. I had no idea there were so many wild dogs that roam until I had chickens. A chicken wire fence will not keep out a dog. You need welded wire of some sort. At night weasels, raccoons and fox will steal chickens so they must have a secure house to live in. A raccoon can open so many different kinds of latches so it needs to be something that is hard to open. Hawks will kill even larger chickens and carry away smaller birds. We stopped raising bantams because they were fair game for the hawks and we got tired of supplying supper every night. If there are large trees the hens will hide under the trees for limited protection from hawks. No, you cannot kill hawks in the state of North Carolina. It is illegal.

There are lots of different designs for chicken houses. You can use an old dog house with a run on it for just a few birds to a more elaborate hen house. They must have shelter from wind in order to stay warm in the winter. In North Carolina it really does not get cold enough to worry about them freezing, but you must give them fresh water daily that is ice free. We keep a child’s wading pool in the chicken run that we fill regularly (or the rain fills it) and keep a stock warmer in the middle of it to avoid having to haul water every day. I’ve seen on several chicken forums folks who are using an automatic dog waterer. That might work as well. We buy the metal waterers from Tractor Supply because we have not had great luck with the plastic ones. The metal ones will and do rust, but seem to last longer.

Tomorrow’s post will be about saving money with chickens.

Click here for Part 1 – Where Do You Get Your Chickens

Click here for Part 2 – How Do You Feed Them

Click here for Part 3 – How Do You Get Started

Click here for Part 4 – Types of Breeds

I have had lots of people ask me questions about raising chickens. For us it is a very affordable way to get organic range fed eggs and chicken. I am definitely no expert, but my mom is. So, she has been kind enough to type up a ton of information about chickens. It is way too much information to put in one post, so I will break this up into several posts for you guys to enjoy.I will do my best to answer any questions that you guys may have, but I will probably have to defer to my mom. She knows more than I could ever hope to know about chickens. She does mention local stores in these posts, but I am sure that most of you will find similar stores throughout the country.

What breeds to buy……….

It depends on what you want. White Leghorns are the queens of egg laying. They are also somewhat high strung, however, and we were concerned about that around small children. There is almost no meat on the bird so they are stewing hens only if you plan to eat them.

Meat birds are the larger breeds like Cornish, Cornish Cross and even the Freedom Rangers we raise. The Freedom Rangers forage and we started our experiment this past year to see how well they will breed and continue the flock. The meat is the best we have ever tasted.

Cross Breeds….. Those for meat and eggs. Rhode Island Reds, (but the roosters can be quite mean), Barred Rocks and Buff Orpingtons…….They lay well and are good for meat. We have raised both barred rocks and buff orpingtons and prefer the Buff Orpingtons for raising their own young and being more docile. They seem to have better meat production as well.

Do you need a rooster for eggs?

No, but you do if you want to raise your own chicks.

Tomorrow’s post will be about chicken houses and predators.

Click here for Part 1 – Where Do You Get Your Chickens

Click here for Part 2 – How Do You Feed Them

Click here for Part 3 – How Do You Get Started

I have had lots of people ask me questions about raising chickens. For us it is a very affordable way to get organic range fed eggs and chicken. I am definitely no expert, but my mom is. So, she has been kind enough to type up a ton of information about chickens. It is way too much information to put in one post, so I will break this up into several posts for you guys to enjoy.I will do my best to answer any questions that you guys may have, but I will probably have to defer to my mom. She knows more than I could ever hope to know about chickens. She does mention local stores in these posts, but I am sure that most of you will find similar stores throughout the country.

How to start with chickens……

I recommend buying two year old hens from a farm. They will be cheaper that way. They won’t lay as well as younger birds, but still have plenty of eggs to lay and will be experienced at raising their own young. The chicks are around $2 to order, but we like to have our own hens raise our chicks. It is a lot easier on us and the hens do a better job than we can. We started with some older hens and a rooster from a friend who wanted to down size for the winter. (Feed costs will increase in the winter due to the lack of forage.) These hens laid eggs, but not as many as younger hens, but they also hatched chicks for us in the spring. We bought chicks originally just for meat birds. Later we learned that we wanted a more docile breed than we had been given because of the grandchildren. At that point, we ordered buff orpington chicks from Ideal. The issue with ordering from a hatchery is that you must order a minimum of 25. We didn’t mind because we wanted a lot of chickens for eggs and eating.

Tomorrow’s post will cover specific breeds you can get and advantages and disadvantages of each.

Click here for Part 1 – Where Do You Get Your Chickens

Click here for Part 2 – How Do You Feed Them