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Friday, March 23, 2012

Home Spun living Blog series: Chickens 101

Welcome to my new blog series,
"Homespun Living"
On Fridays, I will be posting about different aspect of handmade living .
The first subject I will be covering in this series is raising chickens.
This series focuses on raising hens for eggs.

Are you a crafty type person who likes :
Sewing
Gardening
DIY Projects?
Do you want to be even more self- reliant?
Why not raise some hens?

WHY RAISE CHICKENS?
  • Eggs that are healthy and delicious for your family.
  • It's pretty simple to do. If you can raise a dog or cat, you can raise chickens.
  • Most suburbs, cities, and towns allow a small flock of hens. 
  • You don't need a rooster to have hens who lay eggs and roosters aren't allowed in most towns because they are so noisy. I have one but I live out in the country.
  • When you read about what goes on in factory farms you will not want to eat their eggs...
  • A fun and rewarding educational experience for your children. There is nothing like needing eggs for a recipe and going out to the hen house to gather them with your little one!
  • Chickens create the world's best fertilizer for your garden.
  • Chickens in your yard eat ticks, mosquitoes, and other pesky bugs.
  • Chickens can be raised in even small backyards.
  • Chickens can be hilarious to watch and each one has a different personality.

BEFORE YOU GET STARTED
Zoning:
Before you get started you need to find out what the zoning ordinances are for raising chickens where you live. Contact your animal control office or your city hall to find out. Most places allow a few hens but if you want more than a dozen hens or want to add a rooster to your flock you may need a permit.

Neighbors:
If you have neighbors you may want to discuss your chicken raising idea with them before you get started. You don't want to ruffle any feathers!

Space Requirements:
Chickens need about 10 square feet of outdoor space per bird. Plan to start with at least two hens. They are social creatures and don't do well alone.

Time Requirements:
If you want to start with chicks you will need to devote about a month of intense supervision to raise them. But once they are old enough to be outside maintenance is relatively simple. Plan on about 10 minutes a day for chores like raking bedding, gathering eggs, and putting out fresh food and water. Set aside a couple of days a year for larger chores like removing and replacing the deep litter bedding and disinfecting the coop.

Next Friday I will be discussing how to get your first coop set up!

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8 comments:

  1. How perfect is it that you are posting about chickens?! We just moved into an old house in a little town, with a big backyard... which I am trying to convince my husband that it needs some chickens! Keep posting, because I need all the ammo I can get.

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  2. Fresh eggs changed my life! They taste so much better than anything else.

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  3. This is cool. Raising chickens is on my list of DIY goals for my home. First, I need to start growing tomatoes :) I'm looking forward to reading more in this series. Oh, just out of curiosity, where did you find the cute graphics with the pink lines paper/floral thing...so cute :) :) :) Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather :)

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  4. You taught this old country girl something she didn't know. I was always under the impression that you had to have a rooster to have eggs. Now maybe hubby will let us have a few chickens. Not that we'd eat the the chickens. I don't think either of us could kill one anyway.

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  5. Fun! I can't have chickens in my yard (even though the neighbors do! but that is them...) but someday I want to live in a rural community and I DO want chickens. Even ducks. And a goat or two. Just to start with...I plan on having a rabbit rescue shelter, too. House Rabbits are my passion. There are crazy cat people, crazy bird people; I am a crazy bunny person.

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  6. Justine we love fresh eggs and raised them for years. Right now we aren't but we are getting them from a young girl who loves chickens.

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  7. I'm in between flocks right now...the last batch has died out and I'm waiting for our local farm to have more ready. As a family of four, we find that 6 laying hens provides a more than adequate number of eggs for our needs....and they ARE the best eggs on earth! Nothing like fresh laid!

    They are pretty easy to care for, too. Can't wait to see what else you've got to share!

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  8. Thanks for sharing such information with us! I am really pleased to see such kind of post on your blog! I really enjoyed in through out all the time i have spent on it!

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