INTRODUCTION

WHY RAISE CHICKENS?

Pesticide-free lawn care

Chickens love your leftovers

Free vegetable and flower garden tilling

Kick up your composting

Every pet has a personality

GETTING STARTED

Free Range

Chicken Coop/Chicken Run

Chicken Tractor

STANDARD CHICKENS VERSUS BANTAMS

ALL NATURAL EASTER EGGS

PICKING YOUR HENS

Brown Hyline

Ameraucana or “Easter Eggers”

Buckeye

Leghorn

New Hampshire

Orpington

Wyandotte

DAY OLD CHICKS VERSUS “POINT OF LAY” CHICKENS

CHICKEN GROOMING

Dust Baths

Molting

Wing Clipping

HOUSING YOUR CHICKENS

FENCED FREE RANGE CHICKEN COOP

CHICKEN COOP WITH BUILT IN CHICKEN RUN

SIMPLE CHICKEN TRACTOR

CONCLUSION

A Message From Simple Self-Sufficiency…

Other Titles

Raising Chickens In Your Backyard: A No-Fluff Guide To Chicken Breeds, Coops, Runs, Tractors And More

Copyright 2012 PAXMAN LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this book may reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Disclaimer:

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INTRODUCTION

Eggs used to be simple. You fed a chicken. In reward, it laid an egg. Today, it’s easy to feel like you need a Certified Egg Consultant to guide you through the grocery store selection. Do you want the eggs from vegetarian fed hens, the Omega-3 Enhanced eggs, pasteurized eggs, antibiotic and hormone free eggs, locally grown eggs, or the plain white eggs for $2 per dozen?

If you think all those options sound good, healthy, and desirable - you’re right. Best of all, there’s one simple, surprisingly affordable way for you to get antibiotic and hormone free eggs from vegetarian fed hens who will deliver Omega-3 Enhanced eggs. Raise the chickens yourself.

Chickens are great, low maintenance pets. They don’t need to be brushed, walked, or entertained. Happy chickens just need you to gather their eggs once a day, feed and water them a couple times a week, and change their roost bedding once a month. You can feed them kitchen scraps, eat their eggs, and use their bedding for compost. You won’t find a more environmentally friendly pet.

WHY RAISE CHICKENS?

Pesticide-free lawn care

Wild chickens don’t eat grain. They eat bugs and grass and all the other things wild birds eat. Your chickens will absolutely love earwigs, grubs, beetles, roaches, or any other pests that live in your lawn. While pecking for bugs, their beaks and claws will help aerate the soil. When they’re out of bugs, they’ll cheerfully eat the grass. Once they’re done with the grass, their droppings are great organic fertilizer. You can replace your lawnmower with a “chicken tractor” and end up with the best looking yard on your block.

Chickens love your leftovers

Chickens can eat just about anything people can - and then some. They’ll eat grain, but they absolutely love your kitchen scraps. Get yourself a lidded bucket and throw in all those carrot tops, potato skins and apple cores as well as all the greens in your fridge that sat a little too long. Chickens don’t mind if that spinach is wilted or the green beans have brown spots. You’ll find your eggs taste a little bit like the rest of your kitchen. When raising chickens, feed your birds extra fruit and the eggs come out a little sweeter. Be careful, though. Feed them garlic and onions and your eggs will scare off vampires.

Free vegetable and flower garden tilling

Prepping the ground each spring can be back breaking work - or you can set up a temporary fence around the area you want tilled and let the chickens you raise roam free for a couple of weeks. They will cheerfully eat every bit of plant matter they can get their beaks on. They’ll feast on pesky bugs. Once they’re done, you have a freshly tilled, well-fertilized garden area and your chickens will have bellies full of rare treat foods. Everybody wins.

Kick up your composting

Chicken droppings are rich in nitrogen. Mix the droppings, your roost bedding and leftover eggshells into your compost for a rich, organic, fertilizer that will make your garden the envy of the neighborhood. Best yet, it’s pesticide and chemical free, making it perfect for vegetable gardens.

(Free Range Chicken rooting around in compost)

Every pet has a personality

If you’ve owned cats, dogs, rabbits or hamsters you know every animal has a personality. For every stereotypical hand pecking chicken there’s a cuddler who wants to roost in your lap. Raising chickens gives you the same well-documented therapeutic benefits as any other pet but with the added bonus of tasty eggs.

GETTING STARTED

Backyard chicken coop laws vary by county. Before you get too excited about raising chickens, Google “[your county] by-laws backyard chickens.”

In general, most counties have girls-only rules. You can usually keep between 6-12 hens in your back yard but no boys are allowed. Roosters don’t just greet the dawn. They keep going all day and half the night. Understandable noise ordinances keep them out of urban environments.

A solo chicken is a broody chicken. Happy chickens live in flocks. At minimum, you should commit to raising three chickens. How much space each chicken needs depends on how you plan to house them. There are three main options.

Free Range

Free-range chickens live outdoors year round. You fence off an area of your yard where they can roam, add feed and water buckets, then mostly leave them to their own devices. This sounds great in principle. The problem is all sorts of predators see your chickens as a tasty treat. Local dogs, raccoons, skunks, and other predators will see your happy free-range chickens as a nicely packaged snack. For their own protection, when raising chickens you need a safe, durable building where they can sleep at night.

Chicken Coop/Chicken Run

A chicken coop is a nice warm place with nesting boxes where the chickens you raise can lay their eggs. It’s a literal roof over their heads during bad weather and a safe place to sleep at night. Chickens don’t like to be cooped up all day, though. In order to let them stretch their legs, most chicken coops are attached to a chicken run. This can be as minimal as some chicken wire staked to the ground or as fancy as you want to make it. Think of it as building your chickens their own house with their own little yard. During the day, they’ll hang out in the chicken run. At night, you shoo them back into their house and lock it up to keep the predators out. The biggest disadvantage of a chicken coop is it can get kind of smelly.

Chicken Tractor

Chicken Tractors are a direct response to the smelliness of chicken coops. Instead of building your chickens their own house, you essentially move them into a mobile home. A chicken tractor is a predator-safe chicken enclosure on wheels. Every day or two you push it into a new spot on your yard.

Chicken tractors have a lot of advantages. Instead of smelly poo buildup you have a gradual scattering of natural fertilizer. A few chicken droppings are a good thing. A month’s worth in one place is horrible.

Chickens who live in a mobile tractor will do all your yard work. Simply push the chicken tractor in a set pattern so your chickens feed on a new patch of yard every day. They’ll keep your grass trimmed and your lawn bug free.

Moving the chickens around every day gives you the best of both the free range and coop worlds. Your chickens get to stretch their legs and explore a new setting every day while still being protected from predators at night.

STANDARD CHICKENS VERSUS BANTAMS

You have two choices when it comes to raising chickens - the standard breed we’re all used to or their little sisters, the bantams. Adult bantams are only ⅓ the size of a standard chicken. On top of that, they’re quieter and more docile. This makes them great pets for families with small children.

However, smaller birds lay smaller eggs. Bantams also lay fewer eggs, often only one a week. You’ll need a much larger flock in order to keep up with a normal family’s egg needs.

While smaller, more docile birds are great for kids, they’re also even more tempting bait for predators. Feral cats or an aggressive crow can take down a bantam. Odds are good that no matter how well you try to protect them, at some point a hungry local predator will break into your bantam cage. The sweet natured birds within will simply blink in surprise and try to cuddle their new friend. Standard chickens will do a lot better job at defending themselves.

If you want a cuddly, miniature bird for kids to play with, go ahead and include one or two bantams in your flock. They tend to get along well with the bigger birds. What bantams lack in egg production they make up for in cuteness.

ALL NATURAL EASTER EGGS

If you decide to raise standard chickens you’ll discover both the chickens and their eggs come in a rainbow of colors. The chickens in your backyard flock don’t necessarily all need to be the same breed. You can mix it up in order to get a nice blend of chicken personality types, decorative feathers, and different colored eggs. A diversified flock gives you the best advantages of many different breeds.

Most of us have seen white and brown eggs at the grocery store. Some people think brown eggs are healthier than white - probably because brown bread is healthier than white. Egg nutrition has everything to do with what the chicken is fed and nothing to do with the egg color. Araucanas chickens lay pale green or blue eggs. Welsummers lay a deep reddish brown. Dorkings lay cream-colored eggs. White Leghorns will lay familiar grocery store style white eggs while Wyandottes, no matter what they’re fed, will lay familiar brown grocery store eggs. No matter what color the shell, the healthiest eggs come from the healthiest chickens. Raising chickens yourself means you know exactly what goes into every egg.

PICKING YOUR HENS

When raising chickens, every breed has advantages and disadvantages. Typically, you have to find a balance between egg production and friendliness. This is one of the top reasons to have a diverse flock. The chicken who curls up in your lap probably won’t be the one keeping you stocked up on eggs.

An “average” chicken will lay 5-7 per week. However, average egg production assumes a grain fed diet. Chickens living off your kitchen scraps and lawn are eating naturally instead of being fattened up. This means they’ll enjoy a nice, diversified diet that keeps them lean and healthy instead of turning them into egg laying machines. That’s a good thing, because a flock of 4 “average” chickens will produce 20-28 eggs per week. If that seems like an intimidating quantity, don’t waste your time fattening your chickens up. Let them eat naturally and enjoy something more like 3-4 eggs per chicken per week.

Hens trade quantity for quality as they age. You’ll get fewer eggs from older hens, but the eggs they do lay will be larger. Most breeds of chickens live 5-7 years. They’ll produce their first eggs around 6-7 months old and their last ones at anywhere from 3 to 6 years, depending on the breed.

There are a lot of popular breeds of backyard chickens. When deciding what chickens to raise, consider an heirloom or rare breed. The heirloom chickens typically don’t lay as many eggs but make up for it with more diverse colors and greater sociability. If you only need a dozen or so eggs per week, heirloom chickens are a great way to help keep genetic diversity alive without being overwhelmed by factory farm quantities of eggs.

Here are some of the most popular and easily available breeds of chickens.

Brown Hyline

For two years these will be some of the best egg laying chickens you can find. However, they can live up to ten years. Once they’re done laying eggs they’re still useful for yard work, compost production, and keeping your other chickens company

Ameraucana or “Easter Eggers”

These chickens earn their nickname from the blue, green, and other colored eggs they lay. They’re typically easy to handle and not too aggressive, but can be a little standoffish around humans. They lay average to above average quantities of eggs.

Buckeye

These are some of the friendliest birds you can find. They’re typically docile, easy to handle, and fit in well with other breeds of chickens. They’ll lay an average quantity of brown eggs.

Leghorn

You can find white, brown or red leghorn breeds. All of them are champion producers of large white eggs. However, they’re known for being flighty and a little antisocial when dealing with humans.

New Hampshire

While they don’t keep up with the leghorns in egg production, New Hampshire chickens are notably more social. When their humans are around, they’ll typically want to be close by, treating you as part of their flock. They produce an average quantity of light to medium brown eggs

Orpington

These birds were originally bred as meat animals, but they’ve proved to be pretty decent egg layers as well. They tend to be docile animals who fit in well with the rest of a flock. They lay average to slightly below average quantities of brown eggs.

Wyandotte

These hearty dual-purpose chickens do well in cold northern climates. They’re mostly docile while also being aloof to human contact. They lay an average quantity of light brown eggs.

DAY OLD CHICKS VERSUS “POINT OF LAY” CHICKENS

You typically have two choices when buying chicks. “Point of lay” chickens are around six months old. They’re ready to start laying eggs within a month or two of bringing them home. They’re hearty, don’t need a lot of extra attention, and can be moved right into your chicken coop or chicken tractor without any kind of transitional phase.

However, since they were raised by a farmer, that means they were socialized by someone other than you. They’ve only known one home and it wasn’t your backyard. This means when raising point of lay chickens they’ll go through a brief teenage rebellious phase before settling into their new home.

If you decide to raise day old chicks you’ll have the pleasure of holding tiny, fluffy chickens small enough to fit in a teacup. They’ll be socialized by you, which means regardless of breed they’re more likely to see you as part of their flock and be more social when around humans. However, like any baby animal small enough to fit in a teacup, day old chicks need a lot of attention and care. You’ll want to keep them indoors (honestly, a cardboard box will do fine) and very warm for the first few weeks. While they’re still small, you’ll need to be hyper vigilant about predators any time they’re outside. Most people agree the cuteness factor and chance to socialize the chicks yourself makes up for the hassle. They’re ready to start living outside full time in about six weeks.

Either way, your new pets should be dirt-cheap. Day old chicks are available for $6 or less while point of lay chickens range from $15-25.

CHICKEN GROOMING

Dust Baths

Dogs need to be brushed, cats need their claws trimmed, and chickens need dust baths. Dust helps keep mites and lice out of your chicken’s feathers. They absolutely love to claw up the ground then get as dusty as they possibly can.

If your chickens are free range they will quickly pick a patch of dry ground for their dust baths. Let them have fun. If you keep your chickens in a coop or a chicken tractor, you’ll have to provide them with a homemade dust bath. This can be a fresh tray of nice dry soil, free of organic material, which you’ve dug up from a corner of your own yard. If you live in a really fertile area where you can’t find a grass-free patch, try a 1:1 mix of sand, diatomaceous earth (available at pool shops) and fireplace ashes or road dust, depending on the season and availability.

Put your dust in a wood or metal box at least a foot deep by a foot and a half wide. Fill it ⅔ of the way with your dust mix. Even if the dust is loose, your chickens will instinctively claw at it and break it loose. Put it as far as possible from their food so they don’t end up mixing dirt into their dinner.

You don’t want chicken droppings, loose feathers, or other random gunk building up in your dust bath. Make sure to change the soil at least once a week. Dump the old mix on your compost pile so the droppings can do you some good.

Molting

Chickens shed their feathers once a year. When they do, the poor things end up looking pretty bedraggled. When they're new to raising chickens, a lot of beginning ranchers confuse molting for being sick. The opposite is true. The healthier your chicken is, the faster she’ll shed her coat and grow a new one. When your chickens start to molt, add sunflower seeds, nettles or comfrey to their feed to help them grow a new, glossy coat.

A hen won’t lay eggs while she’s molting. Give her plenty of extra feed and make sure she has access to her dust bath. Once she’s grown in new feathers she’ll be back to her old routine.

Wing Clipping

A lot of people don’t realize that chickens both can and do fly. You keep them grounded by clipping their wings. Once your chicken finishes molting, all you need to do is get a pair of sturdy scissors and clip the flight feathers. You’ll find them at the inner tip of the wing. Snip the feathers about 2 inches out from her skin. Only clip one side. This doesn’t hurt your hen, but it does unbalance her enough that she can’t fly. She won’t be thrilled with the process, but luckily you only need to do it once a year.

HOUSING YOUR CHICKENS

This is the fun part. People take to building chicken coops and chicken tractors the same way they take to building tree houses and campsites. Good intentions for making something minimally functional always need a little more of this and a tiny bit of that. One day you wake up with an amazing piece of backyard architecture.

Don’t worry. If you feel like your grand chicken coop plans are getting out of hand, you’re not alone. People have built chicken coops to look like medieval castles, Doctor Who’s Tardis, colorful gypsy wagons, giant eggs, giant beehives, or a Trojan Horse. If you love building, your imagination is the limit. Think of all the wonderfully crazy cat castles people keep indoors. Now imagine what you’d do with more space and your neighbors watching.

More classic looks include a simple A-frame house, a miniature classic red barn, an oversized doghouse or an oversized birdhouse.

You can buy plenty of pre-made chicken coops and chicken tractors. However, by building your own you can save a lot of money, save big items from landfills, and have a lot of fun with personalization.

You’ll need at least 2-3 feet of indoor space per chicken. This is where your hens will roost at night. You’ll also need another 4-5 feet of outdoor space per chicken. The more space they have the happier they are.

Remember, as much fun as you have building them, fancy chicken coops are for the benefit of people. Chickens don’t really care what their homes look like. Before starting on an epic building project, take a look around your own garage. It’s super easy to transform an old plastic kid’s playhouse into a fully functional chicken coop. A busted old dryer makes a great nesting box. All you really need when raising chickens is a safe place for your hens to sleep at night, plenty of room for them to run around during the day, and a comfy box where they can lay their eggs.

Pre-fab chicken coop kits cost anywhere from $500-$1500 depending on size and features. Alternately, you can build your own for under $400 while also keeping plastic out of landfills. New urban chicken ranchers are best off erring on the cheap, recyclable side. You’ll learn so much your first year of raising chickens. If you build a coop before bringing your chickens home, within a year you’re likely to tear everything down and start from scratch based on your life experience. Save a step and save some money. Build your first simple, cheap coop out of material destined for a landfill.

We walk you through three super simple, environmentally friendly designs.

FENCED FREE RANGE CHICKEN COOP

You’ll need:

- A used plastic kid’s playhouse

- Chicken wire

- Seven posts at least 4 feet tall

- Lock

- Pet screen

- Milk crates

- Screwdriver, screws, duct tape

Step 1:

Pick an area of your yard at least 10 x 10 feet. This is where your free-range chickens will live. The more area they have the happier they’ll be.

Step 2:

Plant a post in each of the four corners. Your post can be any sturdy wooden thing that holds up a corner. Old bedposts from a broken bed, slats from a broken dresser, table legs, broken chair backs, actual fence posts - pretty much whatever you have available to hold up one corner of a fence.

Step 3:

Once your four corner posts are securely in the ground, pick one side of the fence and designate it as the front. This is where you’ll put your door.

Step 4:

To make your door, pick your “front” wall and plant two posts in the middle of it, about 3 feet apart. Take your chicken wire and wrap it all the way around your posts, leaving the door area free. You should end up with three solid walls of chicken wire and one wall with a hole in the middle. Make sure to nail or screw the chicken wire down so it is firmly in place.

Step 5:

Now take the pet screen and use it to line the interior of your new fence. Secure it in place as close to the bottom of the fence as you can. This is to make sure neighborhood cats and predators can’t sneak a paw inside the fence and take a swipe out of your chickens. You don’t want to come home from work and find your pets injured.

Step 6:

You’ll want a simple door so you can get in and out of the coop. Feel free to build a real door, but you can also get away with stretching chicken wire over the designated door area. Secure it to one side. Line the “open” side of the chicken wire with duct tape so it won’t damage your hands. Add a couple of C shaped hooks to the door’s interior top and bottom. Hook an open end of your chicken wire into the C shaped hooks and presto - you have a simple door easy for human hands to open but hard for devious paws.

Step 7:

Plant your children’s playhouse in the middle of the fenced in area. This is your new chicken coop. Your chickens will sleep here at night and lay their eggs in the nesting boxes within.

Step 8:

Cover all the playhouse’s openable windows with more chicken wire. Screw the chicken wire in place nice and tight then outline the borders with duct tape. The duct tape is mostly to keep either you or your chickens from accidentally injuring yourselves on any sharp edges where the chicken wire was cut.

Step 9:

Line the bottom of the playhouse with a mix of straw, used coffee grounds (this helps with the smell), grass clippings, fallen leaves, or whatever organic material is seasonally available where you live. Your chickens will cheerfully dig and scratch through it before bedding down. In addition to giving them something to play in, the straw mix collects their droppings. Every few months you’ll need to clean the whole thing out. Simply shovel everything into a wheelbarrow, hose the playhouse down, and refill with a new straw mix. The old straw mix now makes great compost.

Step 10:

The milk crates are about to become your nesting boxes. Fill them with straw or your choice of nesting mix and put them in one corner of the playhouse. Once a day, check the boxes to see if your chickens have left you an egg.

Step 11:

Get a lock to seal the playhouse door. Remember, this is to protect your chickens from predators. Every night, round the chickens up so they’re all safe and secure in the playhouse, and then lock them in. Let them out when you get up in the morning.

You’re done!

Your chickens will create their own dust bath in some dry patch of their free-range coop. All you need to do is clear away the eggs once a day and refill their food and water a couple times a week.

You can find a used children’s playhouse on Craigslist or EBay for under $200. If you shop garage sales during the summer you can often find one for under $100. The posts should cost you less than $10 each. Just find something sturdy to anchor your fence. The pet guard and chicken wire should be new and fully intact, but luckily those are both cheaper than a used playhouse.

CHICKEN COOP WITH BUILT IN CHICKEN RUN

If you’re worried about your chickens being eaten by predators or if your work schedule won’t let you get home to lock them in their playhouse every night you can use a lot of the same tools and techniques to build yourself a chicken coop with an enclosed chicken run. Sure, your chickens will be happier if you collect their eggs every day, but an enclosed coop and run gives you the freedom to load up their feed and water then leave them to their own devices if you need to spend a weekend out of town.

The biggest difference between this and the free-range chicken coop is that every single part of it will be enclosed in chicken wire.

You’ll need:

- A used plastic kid’s playhouse

- Milk Crates

- Used shipping pallets

- Chicken wire

- Scrap wood

- Lock

- Screwdriver, screws, duct tape

Step 1:

Start with a used plastic kid’s playhouse destined for a landfill. These things have great second lives as chicken coops. Whichever side has the largest door is now the outside. Think of it as the human door where you can go in and out. A lot of playhouses have multiple doors at multiple heights. If yours only has one door then cut a chicken sized door on the opposite side. This will be the entrance to your enclosed chicken run.

Step 2:

Use the chicken wire to line the interior of all your windows. Duct tape any rough metal edges to the plastic in order to prevent you or your chickens from accidentally getting cut.

Step 3:

Use whatever scrap wood you have available to build a triangular frame. Old wooden shipping pallets are great for this. They’re usually available for free outside groceries and big box stores. You want the triangle to be as open to the air as possible. The easiest way to do this is make the base as wide as the playhouse and the pointy top end as tall as the highest window.

Step 4:

Once you have a sturdy open triangle at least ten feet long, line all three sides with chicken wire and secure it in place with both screws and duct tape. Yes, you should line the bottom. The chickens will still be able to reach the ground but having that extra bit of fencing in place will keep clever predators from digging a hole and getting into your chicken run.

Step 5:

You now have a triangular frame with chicken wire on three sides. Attach one side of it to the plastic playhouse. Use screws and chicken wire to make sure there are no open areas where predators can sneak in. Use duct tape to fill in any gaps and help secure the chicken run in place. Go ahead and enclose the open end with more chicken wire.

Step 6:

Now line the bottom of your playhouse with straw bedding mix, put your straw stuffed milk crates in one corner to give the chickens a place to nest, and add a lock to the outside human door. You should have safe, happy chickens with plenty of access to the outdoors.

SIMPLE CHICKEN TRACTOR

A chicken tractor doesn’t need anywhere near as much space as a free-range area or a chicken coop with a chicken run. However, you absolutely must make it a priority to move your chickens to a new patch of land every day or two.

The simplest chicken tractor is basically a wire mesh cage with an enclosed area at one end. You’re trying to mimic a free-range environment as much as possible.

You’ll need:

- Two used plastic dog kennel/carriers

- Chicken wire

- Scrap wood

- Lock

- Pet screen

- Screwdriver, screws, duct tape

- Wheels

Step 1:

Build a simple rectangular frame about four feet wide by six feet long. Use whatever scrap wood is available. Used shipping pallets work fine. Remember, the goal here is for the sides to be open to the air. This lets your chickens have the whole outdoor experience without the pesky predator risk.

Step 2:

Line your rectangular box with chicken wire. Secure it in place with screws and cover the screwed areas with duct tape to keep any sharp edges from cutting you or your chickens. You should now have what looks like a big, open-air box with chicken wire walls.

Step 3:

Use some extra wood to create a platform at one end of the chicken wire box. This is where your dog kennel/carriers will live. You want solid plastic cages with an openable door on one side and plenty of ventilation. These will be your new nesting boxes. Securing the kennels in place makes it easier to move the whole chicken tractor from day to day.

Step 4:

A lot of chickens find a dog kennel/carrier a cozy place to both roost and nest. Fill the carrier with straw mix bedding. Every day, check it for eggs. Once a week, simply empty it into your compost pile and refill the carrier with fresh straw mix.

Step 5:

Make sure you can open and close the end of the chicken tractor where the dog kennel/carriers live. At night, try to coax your chickens into the carriers and latch them shut. This will provide them with extra protection from predators. In the morning, simply push your chicken tractor another 4 feet so your chickens are on a new patch of ground. Open the dog carriers, let the chickens out, and check for fresh eggs. It’s that simple.

CONCLUSION

Raising chickens in your backyard is only growing in popularity. Most metro areas where you’re allowed to keep backyard chickens have thriving Meetups and Backyard Chicken clubs. They’re a wonderful resource for day-to-day advice as well as a great place to meet other people who keep chickens for pets.

Backyard chickens require less maintenance than dogs, are easier to raise than exotic fish and are hands down one of the most environmentally friendly pets you’ll ever own. Your backyard chickens won’t add to the waste and commercialism that are part of big box pet stores. Instead, they’ll fertilize your lawn, enrich your compost, and give you tasty, wholesome, clean eggs.

Getting started can cost as little as adopting, vaccinating, and spaying or neutering a kitten or puppy. However, once you have a flock of chickens in your backyard, don’t be surprised if you find yourself building whimsical chicken castles where you can show off your creativity to the neighbors. Raising chickens in your backyard is so easy you end up with plenty of free time to invest in the sheer fun of having a flock.

Thanks for reading our book on raising chickens in your backyard. If you want to learn more about chicken coops and how to build them, this is the book we recommend most for your extended education: Click here for the Simple Self-Sufficiency recommendation, "Building a Chicken Coop"

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

WHY RAISE CHICKENS?

Pesticide-free lawn care

Chickens love your leftovers

Free vegetable and flower garden tilling

Kick up your composting

Every pet has a personality

GETTING STARTED

Free Range

Chicken Coop/Chicken Run

Chicken Tractor

STANDARD CHICKENS VERSUS BANTAMS

ALL NATURAL EASTER EGGS

PICKING YOUR HENS

Brown Hyline

Ameraucana or “Easter Eggers”

Buckeye

Leghorn

New Hampshire

Orpington

Wyandotte

DAY OLD CHICKS VERSUS “POINT OF LAY” CHICKENS

CHICKEN GROOMING

Dust Baths

Molting

Wing Clipping

HOUSING YOUR CHICKENS

FENCED FREE RANGE CHICKEN COOP

CHICKEN COOP WITH BUILT IN CHICKEN RUN

SIMPLE CHICKEN TRACTOR

CONCLUSION

A Message From Simple Self-Sufficiency…

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