Chooks in the Yard

Rhonda over at down---to---earth is hosting a kitchen table discussion this weekend about keeping chickens. Here is my contribution:

Growing up, my grandparents always kept chickens, and having chickens of my own always seemed like a lovely, even idyllic, idea. Like most people, though, I lived in apartments and rented houses when I was younger, and keeping poultry really wasn't possible. Nevertheless, I still fantasized about having my own chickens. Sometime during the 90's, Organic Gardening Magazine did a cover story on chickens, and I must have read that article a dozen times over the years. Finally, decades later, I live in a home where I can have my chickens.

The purchase of my first set of chicks from the feed store not so coincidentally happened the spring the man & I had been trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant one more time, so raising those babies was a real joy for me. If you think human babies grow fast, just wait until you raise some chicks! You bring them home when they are about 2 days old and they are cute little fluff balls that suddenly fall asleep where they stand, their little beaks dropping to the floor as they snooze . Within days, though, they start to grow wing feathers & then tail feathers & in just a few short weeks, they go from looking like dandelion fluff to scraggly mini-hens.

I don't recall exactly how old they were when I put the girls into their coop for the first time, but I do remember being nervous about "my babies" all by themselves out there in the wilds of the back yard. We all adjusted quickly, though, and at about the same time that summer they began to lay their first eggs, the man and I discovered that we would be welcoming one last child into our family.

We've had our flock of 8 hens (2 Buff Orpingtons, 2 Barred Rocks, 2 Partridge Rocks, 2 Black Australorps) for almost two years now & unless I'm shooing them off the deck so they won't dig in my potted herbs, watching them scratch about in the yard through my kitchen window still fills me with happy contentment. Rhonda and many others have written extensive guides for how to keep & care for chickens, so I thought I would list some of the joys & of realities of keeping a flock in a backyard environment.

The Upside

• Chickens are beautiful, funny, endearing creatures. If you grew up with them around, seeing them perform their endless scratch and peck ritual will make you feel happy inside and like your home is home.
• The eggs they provide are of far superior quality than the ones available at the grocery store. The yolks will be richer in color, and the whites will be firmer. Depending on the breed of bird, your eggs may be quite a bit larger than those typically sold in the stores.
  
• Keeping your own chickens, like growing a garden or purchasing meat from a local farmer, is one more way to opt out of the evils of factory farming and all of the literal and psychic poisons it produces. Just a little research on how those poor wretched animals are treated could easily put you off of eggs (or meat) for life.
• People you know-- at work, neighbors, friends, family-- will be beyond pleased to receive the gift of home grown eggs. They will even offer to pay you for them. Put this to good use and work out a bartering system. We trade our extra eggs for honey.
• Just like food grown in your own garden, preparing a meal that includes eggs from your own chickens just makes you feel good-- less dependent, more self-sufficient, and more connected to the realities of food & where it comes from.
• If you have children, they will enjoy all of these benefits, too, but will also like having chickens because they are fun to watch (and chase, sometimes). Some chickens are quite friendly, especially if they were hand-raised, and will let you pick them up and pet them. Chickens are just plain entertaining. I dare any child not to laugh when a flock of chickens swarms the deck to gobble down the dogs' food!
• Older children, like our two teen boys, can take on much of the responsibility of caring for chickens-- checking their food & water daily & collecting eggs (oh, and cleaning out the coop!). How many teens really know-- really know-- where an egg comes from? My older boy saw a chicken lay her egg one day up close & personal. A little dose of reality in their increasingly virtual world is a good thing, in my opinion.
  
• Chickens are like compost machines. You put in kitchen scraps & garden castoffs that might normally go into the garbage, and they produce ...
  
• Fertilizer, and lots of it! All those smelly fir shavings from the coop go into my compost pile to make black gold for my garden.
  

The Realities

• Don't let the idyllic image fool you-- chickens are messy animals. For the first year, we let our eight hens free range in our backyard. Our lot is 1/2 acre & the backyard is a good half of that or more. We have left it mostly in its natural state, with evergreen trees and native underbrush and only small patches of unmanicured grass. In other words, I wasn't too concerned about the chickens scratching up my prize roses or anything. However, after a year they had nearly devastated the yard-- they dug holes for dust bathing, scratched up almost all the grass & greenery looking for food, and there was chicken... manure... everywhere-- in the grass, on the picnic table & benches, on the deck, etc. It was not a pretty picture. It got to the point where my then two year old boy would respond to anything yucky with, "Ew, chicken poo!" I finally said enough & we put a fence up so we could keep them in a run while the yard recovered. Now we let them out into the yard to free range about once a week. I love seeing them in the yard. I don't love picking "Ew, chicken poo" out of the soles of my sandals!
• Along the same lines, chickens make an insane mess of their coop. It will need to be cleaned out frequently, especially during the rainy season, if you have one, as the litter will never dry out completely and wet chicken litter smells to high heaven.
• Sometimes chickens eat eggs. Sometimes they get over it. Sometimes you just have to live with losing an egg now & then.
  
• We have been lucky, as our dogs-- a daschund/chihuahua mix and a shepherd mix-- get along fine with the chickens & they can all run around the backyard together with no problems. Your neighbors' dogs, though, or resident coyotes, raccoons, foxes, etc, do pose a significant threat to your birds. I don't recall where I read it, but someone once characterized chickens as "food on legs". They don't have many defenses & are prized dinner for many predators. "Chicken wire" will keep your chickens in, but will not keep anything that wants to eat them out. Be prepared to build a substantial enclosure to keep them safe.
• We live in an area that is designated as rural and farmland. Even so, we live in a subdivision of residential homes. People in the neighborhood are pretty casual and no one has said anything negative to us about our chooks-- probably because everyone lives far enough apart that they are not bothering anyone, and we only have hens. If you live in a community with strongly enforced covenants or small lots, do your research before bringing chickens into your yard, and consider talking to your neighbors first.
  
• Even though they will keep eating as much as always, your hens will slow down & even cease egg production during molting, during very cold spells of weather, and as they age. We keep a light in their coop year 'round, which helps, but the eggs are still feast or famine, much like a garden. I hate buying eggs from the store, but occasionally it is still necessary. We haven't decided what we will do when the girls become too old to lay dependably. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
  
• Finally, keeping chickens is not cheap. I've never done the math, but I'm pretty sure that the 80 lb bags of feed & bales of fir shavings, not to mention the lumber & fencing that went into their coop & yard, cost significantly more than the eggs our chickens produce are worth. Especially if they are not free-ranging, chickens eat a stunning amount of crumble, and the smaller your flock, the less cost-effective the whole endeavor becomes.
  

The Bottom Line
I love having chickens. They are an extension of our garden, adding life and productivity to the little slice of earth that is our yard. They are a small but reassuring insurance policy against our dependence on the consumer marketplace for food. They are funny and sweet and entertaining to watch. They are, however, also animals that require a significant investment of work, money and time. I am happy that my baby girl will be growing up with chickens in the yard so that she will carry on the picture in her mind of how a few hens pecking & scratching beneath the fir trees means home.