are away. Unlike cats or dogs, a flock of chickens can’t be boarded with a veterinarian or kennel. Whether you travel for work or vacation, you’ll need to employ someone to come to your coop to gather eggs, feed and water the flock, and open and close the coop door while you’re away. Fortunately, as the chicken-keeping movement gains momentum in cities across the country, more and more knowledgeable chicken sitters are offering their services. For a small fee, they’ll keep an eye on your flock and know what to look out for should a problem occur.
Finally, if any of these responsibilities seem burdensome or an ill fit for your lifestyle, consider sharing the weight with others. Whole neighborhoods have been known to get in on the action of keeping chickens, with great results. Starting a flock with neighbors helps to distribute the costs and responsibilities of keeping chickens, and there will always be extra sets of eyes, ears, and hands to pick up chores, troubleshoot issues, and swap egg recipes.
You can spend as much or as little on a coop as you’d like.
Expenses
Many assume that if they keep a few chickens, they’ll get “free” eggs. But if you’re doing it right, keeping chickens is not free. While day-old chicks are rather cheap (cheep!) compared to other pets at $3 to $5 per chick, there will be start-up costs in the way of housing, equipment, bedding, feed, and supplements. The latter three items will be continuous monthly or yearly costs as well, so budget accordingly. To some degree, spending money is necessary if you want to keep healthy chickens.
By far, the coop is often the largest expense. You can spend thousands of dollars on a deluxe chicken coop with all the bells and whistles, or you can get creative and retrofit an old shed or doghouse with found or recycled materials—or something in between, of course. It’s really up to you, your budget, and your skill set. As long as the coop keeps your birds safe from predators and the elements, and it’s strong, sturdy, and gives them a place to lay eggs and roost at night, they won’t mind what the coop is made of or how much it costs.
Like any pet, chickens require a continuous supply of feed that will accrue a regular (usually monthly) cost. The thought of chickens foraging in the backyard (for free) is certainly idyllic, but it’s not realistic. Laying hens have specific nutritional needs, and if they aren’t met, their health will surely suffer. Feed costs vary widely depending on the brand of feed you choose and the number of birds you keep. (There’s much more on feed and supplements in chapter 7.)
The hard lesson that many excited, new chicken keepers learn in the first few years is that you don’t really save money on eggs by keeping chickens. If you’ve been buying pastured, local eggs from the tailgate market or nearby farms, you likely have an idea of what eggs from healthy, humanely raised chickens actually cost. In that case, you may see a small savings. But if you’re transitioning from 99¢ per dozen for factory-farmed eggs bought at the grocery store, it may be several years before you start to see a difference in your food bill. Even so, many keepers, myself included, feel that when the true costs are weighed, the effort is well worth the price.
Your chickens will need a coop that properly protects against predators as well as inclement weather.
Space Requirements
Chickens need room to roam. How much, exactly, depends on how large your flock is. The jury is still out on precise numbers per bird, but a good rule of thumb that many chicken keepers follow is to provide 4 sq. ft. (0.4 sq. m) of coop space per bird if they free-range daily and 10 sq. ft. (0.9 sq. m) of space per bird if they are confined to a coop, pen, or outdoor run full time. You can’t really give a chicken too much space; in this area, more is definitely better.
The only hard-and-fast requirement is that the space be located outdoors. To be a chicken keeper, a backyard space is a must. A small flock could conceivably live indoors and have their basic needs met, but I wouldn’t recommend this route. Raising chickens indoors would deprive them of their very nature to scratch, dig, peck, and dust-bathe. And giving laying hens a better life is one of the reasons we get into chicken keeping in the first place.
Time Requirements
We’ve touched a little on the basic time requirements needed to tend to a small flock of chickens. There will be a few (very easy) daily chores but also some (moderate) weekly maintenance, and once a year or so, there will be a (rather messy) coop cleaning. For now, be prepared to devote some time to your coop’s maintenance and chicken care.
Chores aside, when you share a life with chickens, there will be some lost time that goes unaccounted for: watching baby chicks in a brooder, spending time in your garden as your flock follows you around, and watching young pullets lay eggs. These are the “chores” that make all of the poop scooping worthwhile.
Peeps, Pipsqueaks, and Poop: Kids and Hygiene
Chickens and kids can—and often do—get along famously. Many of the small chores needed to properly care for chickens are perfect for little hands. Children are often endlessly entertained by chicken antics, and raising chickens for eggs offers valuable insight into where our food comes from.
To make the most of this relationship, though, children will need adult supervision in several areas. The most important factor is hygiene. Chickens aren’t the neatest and tidiest pets there are, and anyone tending to them will become quite accustomed to navigating around their waste. Proper hand washing should follow any contact with chickens. Wearing appropriate chicken attire (such as muck boots) for anyone working or spending time in the coop is also a must. By creating a hygiene routine for children directly involved in chicken care, everyone can rest assured knowing the poop stays outside where it belongs.
Kids are fascinated by animals, so it’s only natural they will want to help tend the chickens.
Four-Legged Flock Members: Other Pets
Another consideration for the pre-chicken keeper is other pets. If you already share your space with and care for other animals, you’ll need to consider how well they will fare with chickens and how well chickens will fare around them. Indoor birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, amphibians, and other similar critters are usually quite compatible with a flock of chickens—mostly because they never cross paths. Other barnyard animals, such as horses, goats, pigs, and cows, were practically made to cohabitate—whole books have been written on successful pasture rotation including ruminants and chickens, but I won’t cover that in this book. Other poultry, such as turkey and ducks, on the other hand, can share some nasty parasites with chickens, putting the health of all at risk, so do your research before integrating flocks of poultry.
Generally, cats do not pose a viable threat to most adult chickens. Outdoor cats may cautiously interact with free-range chickens, but there are rarely major conflicts. On the other hand, cats do pose a threat to small chicks and even some fully-grown bantams. Even a seemingly timid house cat can cause serious harm or death to either. Chicks brooded indoors around house cats should be properly protected: Predator-proof the brooder so that cats can’t jump into it or reach in and claw at the chicks. If at all possible, brood chicks in a separate room where you can close the door and keep cats away completely. Introductions between the species can happen with your supervision, but the two should never be left together unattended.
While cats have a fairly predictable set of hunting behaviors, dogs are an entirely different matter. Some dogs are very aggressive toward animals they perceive as prey and wouldn’t hesitate
