What can I say about chickens? They’re my favorite! I love how sweet and cute they are as chicks and then their personalities shine as they grow older. Plus, they poop breakfast! I mean, what’s not to love!?
With that said, you are probably here to learn about chickens and how to raise them. Well, you’ve come to the right place because this post is all about raising chickens for beginners.
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Where Do I Start!?
So, you decided you are finally getting chickens but have no idea where to start!? The first place to start is to research the breed of bird you want. Yes, chickens have different breeds and different purposes.
You will need to begin answering a few questions such as are you looking for laying hens? Meat birds? How many eggs are you looking to produce? Do you want a certain color egg? What is the weather like in your location? Do you want a rooster or just hens? Are you looking for a dual purpose bird?
This may seem a little overwhelming at first, but you will want these questions answered so you can choose the right breed for your backyard.
The Breeds
There are many breeds out there that are fun to have for their egg colors and their beautiful feathers, but today I am going to just cover the most popular breeds.
If you are living in the north and have chilly winters, you are going to want to find a breed that is cold hardy, meaning it can withstand the cold temps and some will continue to lay eggs throughout the cold and dark days of winter.
Cold Hardy Breads:
- Plymouth Rock
- Brahmas
- Ameraucana
- Buff Orpingtons
- Rhode Island Reds
- Welsummer
- Australorp
- Dominique
- Chantecler
- Wyandonette
- Speckled Sussex
Egg Layers
If you are looking for egg layers and want the most bang for your buck, you can find breeds based on their average yearly egg count. Most hatcherys will provide this information in their catalogs or online. A google search will also help with this information. But to get an idea Ill share the best eggs layers.
The Best Egg Layers:
- Isa Brown – 350 eggs per year (recommend for new chicken owners)
- Rhode Island Red – 300
- Ameraucana – 300
- Leghorn – 250 – 300
- Plymouth Rock aka Barred Rock – 280
- Speckled Sussex – 260
- Australorp – 250
- Delaware – 200+
- Orpington – 200+
Meat or Dual Purpose
Maybe you are not interested in egg layers, but instead you want to raise your own meat. Some breeds are designed specifically to be raised as meat birds and are ready in as little as 6 – 8 weeks. Others can be used as ‘dual purpose’ chickens that will be raised to lay eggs but also can be consumed if needed or wanted. Look to a local or online hatchery to find which breed is best for meat and/or dual purpose.
Meat or Dual Purpose:
- Cornish Cross – Meat
- Freedom Ranger – Meat
- Dark Cornish – Meat
- Rhode Island Red – DP
- Plymouth/Barred Rock – DP
- Orpington – DP
- Dominque – DP
- Brahma – DP
- Delaware – DP
- Australorp – DP
The Coop
Once you find the type of breed you would like to raise, you will need to figure out how many you want to raise. Based off the number of chickens you raise, and plan to raise in the future, is how big you are going to want the coop.
Each chicken needs roughly 4 square feet of space to be comfortable in a coop. So you want to plan for how many chickens you will have and include some extra space in case you plan to add more to your flock in the future. Word to the wise: You will add more to your flock – it’s called chicken math – 4 chickens can easily turn into 20! Trust me lol!
Roosting
Along with space for each individual chicken, you will want to include space for roosting. Roosting is the act of a chicken resting, it is how they sleep in the coop. You won’t seem them on the floor of the coop unless they are possibly laying an egg.
You want to be sure to add enough roosting space and roosting bars for each chicken as they spend most of their time in the coop on the roosting bars.
Flat Surface
When building your roosting bars you want to choose wood that is at least 2 inches wide for the chickens to rest on. They like a flat surface to rest their feet on. As well as providing at least 10 inches of space per chicken. Depending on the temperature, the chickens may be up close to one another and you will have plenty of extra space. Still, you want to provide as much room for resting as you can.
Height
Another thought to keep in mind is how high off the ground you want the roosting bars. Chickens will jump up to the bar but they will also need to jump back down. You should go no higher than 3 feet off the ground when installing your bars.
Nesting Boxes
The next thing you want to consider is how you are going to provide nesting boxes for your egg layers. Personally, we use old, plastic flower pots for our nesting boxes. Chickens aren’t picky when it comes to where they lay their eggs, ours have laid on the coop floor after fresh straw has been laid, outside the coop, and even under the leaves of a bush!
Even so, you want to provide a space dedicated to egg laying. I have seen flower pots, milk crates, wooden built boxes. Really it is your preference as long as it is comfortable and soft for your hens to lay their eggs.
Food and Water
You will want enough space in your coop to feed and water your girls. There are many ways you can do this and Pinterest is a great source for ideas. You want to make sure there is ample space so that when the food and water go everywhere, because it will, that there is still dry space in the coop until you can get it cleaned up.
Coop Floor
Now I have seen debates on what you should use for the coop floor and honestly, I am not sure what you should use and I think it is just your preference.
For us, we use straw and pine shaving on the coop floor. Before we lay down straw, we use Lime on the floor to help eliminate odor and clean up from the manure that can build up. You have to be careful and use the correct lime or else you can harm your chickens. This needs to be animal safe, and you need to cover it with straw or the like so that it does not come in contact with the chickens as it can irritate the skin.
When you lay down the straw, you will use more than you think is needed, just fill the coop. As the chickens come in they will play and pack down the straw to their liking. There is nothing like coop cleaning day when the girls get back in the coop and are so happy with a clean home again!
Extras
Along with the space, roost, and nesting boxes, you want to be sure to have the coop fully closed off from predators while also providing ample venting. Chicken wire is a great source to use to cover and block off any predators from getting inside the coop. Venting should be wide enough to let in fresh air but not wide enough for any predator or even a chicken to get out. The venting is usually near the top.
Chicken Run
Depending on where you live or personal preference you may choose to free range or enclose your chickens.
Free range means to let your chickens free on your property to forage and explore the land. They are not enclosed at all and can roam where they please.
A chicken run is a pen of sorts that is connected to the coop and it allows the chickens to explore and roam that particular area without being free to roam all over the place.
If you choose to free range, you do not have to worry about catching your chickens at night as they have a sense of getting themselves back to the coop at dusk. They have a built in “GPS” as I like to call it.
If you use a chicken run, you will want to decide if you want to enclose the entire run or just put up fencing. If you put up fencing you will want it at least 6 – 8 feet tall as chickens can jump up to 6 feet and they will get out. Yes, I know this from experience. Not fun watching all your chickens roaming the yard after you worked hard on fencing to keep them in.
We choose to enclose our chickens as we live in the village of a small farming community and although we can have chickens, we weren’t too thrilled to see them 3 houses down in the neighbors backyard. So, we enclosed them. We chose to use Critter Fence (if you use code AMYSTONE you can save some money on your order). A few reasons we love this fencing is it wasn’t expensive, super easy to install with some TPosts and it works great for our girls!
We did no enclose the top of our run, but we have unfortunately have had some hawk attacks that if we did enclose, we wouldn’t have suffered some losses. This is up to you though.
Feed and Water
We get all of our supplies from Tractor Supply for our girls. From feed to feeders, chicken wire and Tposts even all of our chickens the first go round, we get everything there.
Again, I don’t think you need anything fancy for chickens feed, we bought a plastic feeder and it has been the same one since the beginning. We also got a plastic waterer and we have replaced at least 2 since getting chickens 2 years ago.
In the winter the water will freeze and when trying to break the ice, the waterer will break as well. This year, I decided to get a rubber feeder and use it for our water. It works SO well! When the water freezes, all I have to do is pick the rubber feeder up and drop it back down on the ground and wa-la! Fill er back up and you have fresh water again.
Snacks
I love taking our girls out snacks especially during the winter for an added boost of vitamins while there are no bugs for them to snack on.
Usually, I will crush up eggshells, read this post here, and feed them back to the girls. This is great source of calcium.
Chickens are not hard to raise at all! You will need to pay attention their comb color, feathers, feet, and behavior from time to time, but they are such a joy to have. Be careful though, they are a gateway animal! You will want more and more and it all starts with some backyard chickens!
Until next time,
