About my chickens

A few weeks ago I wrote about my beekeeping activities. This week I’ll start telling you about my chickens. There is a lot to tell!

People often ask why I raise chickens. The simple answer is that I like to know where my food comes, and I like to know that my food is raised humanely. I don’t know of any way to be absolutely certain about humane conditions unless I’m doing it myself.  

So about 5 years ago I got interested in raising chickens for meat and for eggs. As usual, I did a lot of research before getting any chickens. 

What I learned is that chickens are easy to keep and have few health problems if raised correctly. I decided that my chickens would free range most of the day (once the dogs were up), but realized that I needed to protect them from foxes, coyotes, and other predators at night.

Here’s a picture of my solution to the predator problem.

All night and in the morning until the dogs are put up, my chickens are protected by an electric fence around their houses. The house on the left is where most of the chickens sleep at night and where the hens lay their eggs. The hoop house on the right is additional roosting space; I also use it to house baby chicks until they are big enough to mingle with the older chickens.

The electric fence and both chicken houses are portable, so I can move the chickens to fresh ground every week. This is much healthier than a traditional setup where chickens are raised and live in a chicken yard that has to be cleaned every few months. When my chickens get stinky, I move them to another location.  The houses can be hooked onto the tractor, the truck, or my John Deere Gator utility vehicle for easy transport. The electric fence folds up and can be easily carried.

Most days I let the chickens out after walking the dogs, and they free range over our property during the day. Chickens are happiest when they can peck, scratch, and forage. My chickens eat bugs, lizards, small snakes, seeds, and other tasty tidbits they find. Here are some pictures of my happy foragers.

 Next week….Breeds and types of chickens