Will Getting Chickens
Ruin My Life?
Seven Questions Answered for the Curious & Concerned
Dr. Dixie Dillon Lane
Sometimes, when I have the pleasure of taking a leisurely trip to the grocery store all by my lonesome, I wander wistfully down the dairy aisle and dream of the good ol’ days, when deviled eggs appeared at every potluck and home cooks whipped up frittatas and lemon meringue pies with innocent abandon. That is, when eggs were under a dollar a dozen.
And then I thank my lucky stars that I have chickens.
Do you have chickens? If not, I bet you have thought about getting some. Six-dollar-per-dozen egg prices will do that to you.
But conversations with chickenless friends have taught me that while the prospect of cheap, nutritious eggs appears attractive, the process of providing for and raising hens appears daunting. The common concern seems to be that raising chickens is a fool’s errand, which will leave you standing in a giant pile of chicken manure with nothing but angry neighbors, an empty wallet, and a fox-emptied coop to show for your efforts. In this view, chickens might very well ruin your life.
But will they really?
In reality, while the initial setup period requires a few days’ labor and moderate startup costs, there is nothing easier than raising chickens thereafter. Mature, well-housed hens require almost nothing from you and provide many benefits, including but not limited to eggs. In my ideal world, almost everyone would have chickens. They are just that wonderful.
Nevertheless, it is unwise and impractical to commit to a chicken experiment without first thinking through the problems and questions surrounding the project.
So earlier this month, I asked one hundred and twenty-eight of my very closest friends a question by e-mail: what concerns and questions have kept you from getting chickens? I have distilled their responses into seven simple questions, questions that are in no way insurmountable obstacles to a future of chicken-owning bliss.
Perhaps you share some or all of these questions. So please allow yours truly, whose earliest memories include watching a rooster lean down from its perch on her dad’s shoulder to take a drink from his coffee cup, to offer you seven reasonable, honest, and practical answers to help you discern whether raising chickens may, in fact, be right for you.
1. How can I possibly afford one of those fancy coops?
Answer: You can’t.
Let us begin with what may be the most dispiriting problem of all: the intimidating aura and price of those fancy, beautiful, and extremely expensive coops that are for sale all over the internet.
How can someone concerned about the price of eggs possibly afford one of these?
Well, he probably can’t.
That is, you personally might be able to find a way (you can always take out a second mortgage), but it would most likely be a waste of money. The reality is that most pre-fabricated coops on the market today for under $1500, even the very pretty ones, are in reality either very flimsy or impossible to clean, and they are also almost always far too small. These coops are by-and-large entirely useless, and I shudder to think of what chicken life would be like inside them. Hens do need a little breathing space as well as some space to peck about in the dirt and stretch their legs, and you cannot expect even two or three of them to live in a tiny, constricted, and dark place like the inside of most of these coops.
It is worth noting also that chickens actually need two structures: a henhouse (often called a coop) and a run, a safe place for them to range. Some pre-fab coops come with a tiny attached run, but we can do better. If you have a five-to-six-foot fence around your yard or you are in the country and are unconcerned about predators, you may be able to just let your hens roam freely when they’re not locked in the henhouse, but it is nice to have a smaller, fenced-off area just for them. Chickens can hop a three-to-four-foot fence even if you clip one of their wings to make flying difficult, but they do not do it often. Still, it is better to have a tall fence, if possible.
We solved this problem in our own yard by simply attaching hardware cloth and chicken wire onto and above our existing garden fence, with tall posts at the corners, and creating the run by giving up part of the garden. Our run also has its own gate which is not part of the garden fencing, which we made using pre-made gate hardware from the hardware store, a very easy process. It was also fairly simple, though labor-intensive, to create new stretches of fence where needed using basic posts and hardware cloth and chicken wire.
Here you can see in the background the wooden garden fence and the wire chicken run fence that we added onto it. The large structure is, of course, the henhouse:
Setting up the run was time-consuming but did not require much skill, all things considered. The worst part was digging the post-holes. Get a friend to help you.
The run doesn’t have to be all that big for a small flock; ours is about 14’ x 20’ and could probably support several more chickens. In the winter, we let the hens out into the garden for a few hours each day to eat the bugs and weeds in there, as well.
So don’t worry if you can’t afford a fancy pre-fab coop and a tricked-out run installed by a fencing company. Your poultry-related budget, whether paltry or plentiful, would be better spent on building your own adequate henhouse and run than on buying poor-quality impersonations of these.
2. How can I build a henhouse when I have no time and lumber is expensive?
Answer: This is the hardest and most expensive part of raising chickens, but the results last for years and require very little further investment.
Once your chicken set-up is complete, it will practically run itself, so it is best to just accept that you will have to put in some work and money on the front end to build a decent coop and run.
Although this takes some time and resources, it is not as hard or expensive as it seems. While you probably should not use free wood that may have been chemically treated (such as pallets), if you keep your eye out you might be able to find a neighbor or friend who knows how to get some pine boards or plywood on the cheap. And your henhouse roof can just be painted, rather than tiled or shingled like in the movies; you can paint it again every year until one year somebody on your street is getting rid of extra roof tiles or shakes, at which time you can finally have your dream coop roof. In the meantime, if you can afford pressure-treated plywood for the roof, go for it; but if not, regular plywood is fine and is easily replaced over the years. (Do not use pressure-treated wood in the main part of the coop. The chemicals are not good for the birds, should they peck at the wood.)
The investment in some adequate building materials at the beginning of your chicken adventure is a small price to pay for years and years of eggs, but there’s no need to build a chicken palace.
We have already discussed building a run, but the henhouse itself requires a few more skills. If you are not handy with tools, consider asking friends to help you find a plan for a coop online or design one, and then probably to help build it, too. You can pay them now in pizza and later in eggs. It does help to have some basic carpentry skills, but this is also a great project on which to learn! If you do not already have a cordless drill and a saw, well, you are going to need those things in the future, anyway. You may as well accept that you are now a grown-up and just buy them. You can use them to make bookshelves later.
Stay away from plans for coops that look like children’s playhouses or Victorian mansions. You do not need complications. All you need is a large wooden box with a chicken door (small) and a human door (big enough for you to reach through to collect eggs and clean the coop) and a few air holes. If the henhouse is small enough, some people just put the (angled) roof on hinges instead of making a human door.
If you have twelve or more chickens, you might like to make this box room-sized, but if you have fewer, you can get away with something quite a bit smaller. Three square feet per chicken is plenty if they also have a decent run. We chose to put our box on legs (with a ramp for the chickens) so that we could stand comfortably while reaching in, but you certainly do not have to do this. Here is the very table-like base, which we eventually placed on top of four large bricks so that it was not in direct contact with the dirt:
You will also need a roosting bar (allow about 8 inches per chicken; they like to huddle together) inside the coop. A two-by-two board or sturdy tree branch nailed a few inches above the coop floor works just fine.
Additionally, you will need to create designated spots within the coop for egg-laying. Called nesting boxes, you’ll need at least one for every four hens. We have six chickens, the maximum allowed us by our town, so we have two nesting boxes. You can actually even just use a cardboard box, cut down so the chicken can step in and out of it, or you can mark a space off inside your coop with some extra boards. Make sure there is a divider between boxes; most biddies like their privacy while laying. Here you can see our nesting boxes at the far end of the half-constructed henhouse:
Place sand (mixed grain size is best) on the coop floor and pine shavings in the nesting boxes. Each morning, when you let the chickens out into their run, use a kitty litter scoop to scoop up the droppings beneath the roosting bar, letting the sand fall through the holes back onto the floor. The droppings (and used sand or shavings) can go right into the compost pile. Replace the sand and shavings when they seem to be getting low, every few weeks or months.
As you can see, it is a bit of a process, but it can be quite an enjoyable family project that results in a wonderful sense of accomplishment and pride, not to mention a great deal of hands-on learning.
3. Will predators eat the chickens (and my investment)?
Answer: This is unlikely if you take a few simple protective steps.
You will need to consider three types of predators: those that dig (dogs, foxes, snakes); those that fly (hawks); and those that open doors and latches (raccoons, careless humans).
For diggers, the solution is simple. First, dig a one-to-two-foot-deep trench right where you are going to put your chicken run fence. Sink your ¼” hardware cloth (some predators can get through chicken wire) into the trench and then refill the trench with dirt. Congratulations — you’ve thwarted the diggers! Here a helpful child illustrates dragging a pickax to mark the line for our trench:
For hawks and other avian predators, if you are in a busy neighborhood setting or you have an outdoor dog, you are unlikely to have a problem. However, if you are in a rural or quiet area, you may wish to cover your run with wire.
For those predators who have opposable thumbs, make sure all the doors to the run and henhouse are locked with carabiners. Raccoons cannot work carabiners, but they can work many standard latches and locks. The carabiners are also a good reminder to humans to always close the doors securely. You cannot leave a door accidentally ajar if you lock it. You will leave the chicken door to the henhouse open during the day, but if you lock your biddies in at night with the right kind of fastener, they will be quite safe.
4. How do I raise chickens legally?
Answer: Check with your local chicken guy.
Town and county zoning boards sometimes have funny regulations about chickens. These are often based on early-twentieth-century efforts to distinguish newly self-important towns from the farmlands just outside. Check with your town or county offices to see if there are any limits on the number of chickens you may have in your location and whether there are any requirements about coop size and location. Do this before you start making plans.
Our hometown requires that a drawn plan be submitted to the town before a coop is built and then that the coop itself be inspected by the town “chicken guy” before any hens move in. It is fussy, but it does help prevent problems caused by irresponsible chicken owners who create neighborhood messes, treat hens inhumanely, or lose their chickens so often in the neighborhood that the chicken guy has to come out and catch them.
Most local chicken guys just do not want to have to come catch your chickens or deal with your neighbors’ complaints. It is worth finding out what the regulations are and following them so that you can enjoy the benefits of chickens without causing trouble.
5. Will my neighbors be mad?
Answer: Not if you don’t keep a rooster.
Do not keep a rooster. Just don’t do it. Roosters are for farms. If you are in town, roosters are not for you.
If you do keep one, everyone will hate you. Roosters are loud and energetic (even when not as over-caffeinated as the one on my dad’s shoulder). And they are, of course, notorious early risers. You may even catch a houseguest on his way to the coop with a bucket full of water in which he plans to drown the rooster, as someone I know once did.
The only other concerns neighbors tend to have are about wandering chickens (but you will keep yours fenced, either in your yard or in a run, unless you are way out in the country) and about smell. I have found, however, that if you are a humane owner who gives your chickens adequate space, there is very little smell unless you are actually standing inside the run. Have a kid (or yourself) scoop the droppings out of the henhouse every morning and you will not have any major smell problems. Unless you have too many chickens in a too small run, you are unlikely to have to remove their manure from the run itself; it just integrates itself into the soil over time.
It also never hurts to give your neighbors a few eggs from time to time and to let their children pet and feed the chickens. Play your cards right, and your chickens will only make you more popular!
6. How do you feed chickens properly without spending a fortune?
Answer: In feeding chickens, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Once you have built your coop, your main cost going forward will be feed. Sources on the internet will tell you that you must buy very expensive organic feed and treats and that you should not give your chickens very many scraps (about 10% of all their food, max).
I say: do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
You do not need perfect chickens with a perfect diet and you do not have to please bloggers who treat chickens like children. You just need healthy chickens who are humanely treated. In the morning, put out their feed and make sure they have plenty of water (you can take your choice of feeders and waterers, and you can also choose to leave the food and water out inside the henhouse during the night). Make sure they have a little shade (even just from the shadow of the henhouse) so that they don’t get dehydrated, and make sure they have a big enough run that they can supplement their diets with bugs and seeds. And if you are very clever, you can even put your compost heap right inside their chicken run. Then, when you dump your scraps in the heap every day, the chickens can eat what they like and the rest will turn into compost. This cuts down considerably on feed costs, but the feed is still available and the chickens may eat it freely.
Obviously, do not put out chicken meat or unwashed eggshells or raw egg for the chickens to eat; the former can lead to illness and the latter to chickens developing a taste for eating their own eggs before you can collect them. It is very hard to cure a chicken of the habit of breaking and eating eggs once they have acquired the taste.
Do also put out some crushed oyster shells in a small feeder as supplemental calcium for hens who are of laying age, about six months and older. One small bag lasts for months and only costs $5 or so. While not strictly necessary, this extra calcium helps create strong eggshells and prevents egg breakage in the coop.
It is really unnecessary to worry much about the exact ratios of what you are feeding them, as long as there is always feed and water available. And if you cannot afford organic feed, you are still doing just fine. Your chickens will be getting good bugs and seeds and scraps as part of their nutrition, and you’ll still be getting eggs that are far tastier and more nutritious than storebought ones. Teach your children to throw extra weeds and dandelions and watermelon rinds into the run and don’t give it another thought.
7. How many eggs will you really even get?
Answer: Plenty, and of good quality. And during the breaks in laying, you will still be reaping many other benefits.
When you first buy your chicks, you will want to keep them indoors in a large box or cage with a simple feeder, waterer, and sand or shavings. A heat lamp is a must for the first few days, but then should be removed so the chicks do not become overheated. Cover the box with an old window screen or some chicken wire to keep adventurous chicks from hopping out. Chicks will be ready to go into their outdoor coop whenever they begin to get their adult feathers (usually at about nine weeks). You will need to continue feeding them chick starter feed until they begin laying at around six months, when you can switch to layer feed and start providing oyster shells.
If you have a small flock and have chosen breeds that are known to be good layers, once laying is well-established you can expect to get about one to two fewer eggs each day than you have chickens. So if you have six chickens, in the first couple of years you will likely gather four to five eggs most days, except while the chickens are molting or during the winter months, when laying decreases. As long as they are not otherwise stressed, chickens lay or do not lay in response to how much daylight they experience, so some chicken owners use artificial lamps to keep chickens laying through the winter. But God designed hens to get a bit of a rest each winter, which I suspect is good for them and for the quality of their eggs. Chickens cease laying well after about three years; you may wish to consider culling your flock and introducing new pullets (young hens) every year or two to keep production up.
Unwashed eggs can be kept on the counter for weeks, as they are protected by an invisible layer on the outside of the shell. Wash the eggs immediately before use. Once washed, they must be stored in the refrigerator.
It is, then, true that egg production will vary throughout the year. Sometimes you will be flush with eggs; occasionally, you may have to supplement your diet with storebought eggs. But the flush times are more common than the lean ones, and the eggs that come provide excellent nutrition. If you cannot afford grassfed meat or organic vegetables, homegrown eggs are a wonderful way to make sure at least one high-quality source of fat, protein, and minerals is part of your family’s diet.
Please also remember that getting eggs is not the only benefit of raising chickens. Spending time with these soft, beautiful, affectionate, easily-tamed creatures can bring joy to the whole family. I love to drag a chair into the run and have my coffee while watching the hilarious antics of our hens; nothing is funnier than a chicken! And the chicken chores — freeing the hens and cleaning the coop in the morning and collecting the eggs and locking up at night — not only are extremely quick and easy, but can be done as well by a five-year-old as by an adult. Raising chickens provides excellent lessons in responsibility for children as well as tangible rewards for children’s labor (happy chickens, yummy eggs). It connects the whole family with nature and the life cycle and also helps introduce beneficial bacteria into children’s immune systems, strengthening them for a lifetime.
Finally, chickens provide excellent manure and can help control bugs and diseases in the garden through winter grazing, leading to more plentiful and more nutritious garden produce (just do not let them into the garden in the growing season unless you are feeling daring). And while raising chickens for meat is another project altogether, when it comes down to it, there is no more respectful way to honor the life of a well-treated older hen than to help her nourish the family in yet one more way when her life is at its end.
In conclusion: No, getting chickens will not ruin your life. If you can commit to mustering a moderate amount of time, manpower, and money on the front end to build the coop and raise the chicks, you will reap tremendous benefits with little further work for years to come. Chickens are no trouble at all, make efficient use of your scraps, teach your children character, provide endless entertainment, and will give you, freely and regularly, the gift of beautiful, orange-yolked, nutritious, delicious eggs.
So why not give them a try?
