Hellobee

Keeping a backyard flock of chickens is becoming more and more mainstream with each passing year. I’m reading about folks who have them everywhere from subdivisions to New York City backyards. You’ve probably heard of the massive Avian Flu outbreak earlier in 2015, where over 50 million birds were “depopulated” due to the illness, causing a rationing of eggs. I won’t get into food politics, but of those millions of birds, only 20 backyard flocks were affected. Why? The disease is destroyed in sunlight. And CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) are massive buildings where hundreds of thousands of birds are packed together under artificial lighting, which means that when sickness hits, it spreads like wildfire. Which is why I think it’s an excellent idea to keep your own happy flock of egg layers to supply your family with healthy, hearty eggs.

Now the easiest way to get started with chickens is to find some laying age “pullets” on Craigslist or through your local farmer’s market. This is what I chose to do with my first hens, and it worked really well. For about $15-25, you can find hens that are hardy and adaptable.

Once I felt I had the hang of things, I looked into mail-order options. I frequent Murray McMurray Hatchery because they have a great variety of heritage and rare breeds, fantastic customer service, and an excellent survival rate. Baby chicks don’t eat or drink the first two days of their life, so as soon as they hatch they’re packed together into ventilated mailing boxes for warmth and sent via 2 day post. It’s always fun to take your kids to the post office to pick up a peeping box of fluffy chicks! I’ve only had one bad experience, when the “guaranteed 2 day shipping” from USPS took four days, and there were several losses. I was extremely upset, because human negligence cost these sweet little babies. So definitely keep that in mind should you consider mail-order chicks.

Once your babies are home, they need to “brood” for about a month. In the natural world, mother hens keep their babies under their wings for warmth until they’re big enough to sustain a safe internal body temperature. Without a mama, you have a nice warm box with a heat lamp. With an automatic waterer and feeders, you can refill them twice a day and keep everyone fueled and hydrated. This is an excellent task for children to help with. While there is a salmonella risk with baby chicks, it’s exponentially smaller in home environments with much less crowding and cleaner conditions. I changed the bedding every three days and put it in my compost (chicken manure makes fantastic compost rich in nitrogen), and we were meticulous about hand washing and not touching faces when handling the chicks. It was also a very good lesson in using gentle hands, because the birds are so fragile at this age.

This process can be as fancy or as simple as you like. I built a brooder from scrap lumber, with 2 x 10s and picket fence pieces for free. I let my kids paint and decorate it. All you need to brood is a box (some even use rubbermaid totes), a heat lamp, bedding, “chick starter” food, and a watering system. This one was about $3 at the feed store, and I ended up swapping the plastic out for a larger mason jar because they fit the base.

I’ll warn you that during the first month, there will be losses. Not very many, typically, but it’s almost guaranteed you’ll lose at least one or two. I order 10% more than I need with the expectation of losing some or selling the extras should they do well. So if you’re not ready for that aspect of animal husbandry, buying older pullets is the way for you!

To keep chickens, all you need is food, water, and shelter. Again, you can get as fancy or simple as you like. There are some really gorgeous coops out there, and hundreds of free plans to build your own. The rule of thumb is to have 1 square foot per bird for roosting, and 5 square feet per bird for the “run.” For a long time I had a 5×5 coop with three roosting perches, which comfortably fit 9 birds. This garnered me anywhere from 6-9 eggs a day. Now I’ve upgraded to a 7×11 coop with room for 10 roosting perches, and plan to increase my flock in the spring when it’s warmer. The style and expense of the coop is up to you. I have a large automatic dog waterer that I refill about once a week, and I prefer to bring them a scoop of laying ration every morning to keep scavengers away. There are some great automatic feeders out there, which would mean these pets are practically maintenance free! Feeding and watering once a week sure beats the twice a day dogs and cats require. I like to get my kids involved with refilling the water, at their age the hens are a little too excitable at feeding time and tend to do a lot of jumping and flapping. Older kids would have no problem with this chore.

Let’s have a quick money breakdown: I prefer to buy H&H Feed here in Texas, which is a gmo-free non-soy based food. The laying ration costs $25.50 at my local feed store. I use roughly one bag every six weeks for my 10 hens. With the number of eggs they produce, it amounts to $2.15 per dozen. The current rate for Vital Farms eggs, which is a free-range, humane egg company that contracts with local farms, is over $7.50 per dozen! This is a huge savings for the equivalent quality of eggs. Even conventional eggs at the moment with the ration are about $2 per dozen at my local grocer. Given that the quality of my homegrown eggs are vastly superior in taste and nutritional value, I’m really happy with the costs and benefits.

When my kids are about 6, I’m planning to offer them to start taking over all the feeding and watering with the option of selling the eggs at $5/dozen, which is the going rate at our farmer’s market. Even with the monthly cost of food, they would be able to pocket about $2.85 per dozen, which would be a considerable amount for that age. It’s a valuable lesson in finances and enterprise, and I’m hoping we can manage to pull it off. If not, the boon of fresh eggs is that properly stored they can last for 6 months or more, which means we have an ample supply to make it through the winter when laying is significantly lower due to the cold temps and shorter daylight hours. Some folks use artificial lighting to keep laying up, but that also lowers the longevity of your hen’s laying years. They’re typically “spent” after 2 years, according to conventional standards, though they can keep laying for 5 years or more and live up to 10, some more than that.

To keep this post from being a mile long, I’ll wrap it up with some kid-friendly breeds. First of all, NO ROOSTERS. Roosters are aggressive in their protection of the flock and are easily a danger to small children. They have spurs and use them. Plus, many town ordinances prohibit roosters because of the noise. Hens are really quiet, and surprisingly clean. I have no issues with smells or noises. You can choose many breeds for a variety of egg colors. I love Americaunas because they lay gorgeous blue green eggs and are extremely kid friendly. My girls run up to them and pick them up to carry them around. They’ll also hop in your lap for pets and cuddles. Buff Orpingtons lay gorgeous brown eggs, and Marans have an almost burgundy reddish brown. Leghorns lay white eggs, and Rhode Island Reds or Production Reds are also calm breeds that lay an egg nearly every day of the year! There are more breeds than I could possibly talk about here, but those are my top favorites. I’m planning to pick up a few Polish this spring because they have adorable puff balls on their heads. The hatchery I order from always includes a “free rare breed” with every order, and we’ve netted some fun fluffy-footed chickens from that.

I hope this was an interesting primer on chicken keeping with kids, and that you are inspired to look into your own local ordinances to see if these easygoing, productive pets are in your future!