If you’re thinking about getting started with backyard poultry you’re not alone. Thousands of people across the country are starting their very own backyard flock and you can too!

There are many advantages of having your very own backyard flock, and you no longer have to live on a farm to enjoy these benefits. Chickens provide families with fresh, nutritious eggs. Chicken manure is a valuable addition to your compost bin and adds needed nutrients to your garden’s soil. Chickens also help reduce your household food waste, because they eat a variety of table scraps. They also eat insects helping to reduce your backyard insect population. While it may be surprising to some, chickens make great pets!  In fact, they are amusing to watch and bring enjoyment to the whole family!

The first thing most people think of when starting a backyard flock is the loud crow of a rooster at daybreak every morning. Well, I have good news for you. You don’t need a rooster to have fresh, nutritious eggs. You only need a rooster if you want little baby chicks running around the backyard.  In fact, the hens may actually lay better if there is no rooster around to disrupt their routine.

The second thing people think of when starting a backyard flock is the odor. Yes, chickens can stink if not properly taken care of, just like any other animal including dogs, cats, rabbits, and hamsters. Proper maintenance can significantly reduce, and even eliminate the odor caused by keeping backyard poultry. It all comes down to responsible pet ownership. Now that we disproved the top two myths regarding the keeping of backyard poultry, let’s get started!

So what’s the first step before you start your journey of keeping backyard poultry? First, you need to check your local laws to see if keeping backyard poultry is allowed. You will not only need to check the county and city laws, but also your neighborhood covenants if you have a homeowners association. Many cities across the country are changing their laws to allow their residents to keep a few hens in their backyard. If backyard poultry is allowed, you then need to spend some time reading and researching what cost and care requirements you should expect when keeping backyard poultry. Then, you need to decide if you’re going to hatch your own baby chicks, purchase them from a local farm or breeder, or order them from one of the many national hatcheries. This will determine what equipment you will need to get started.

Hatching baby chicks from an incubator is fun and educational for the whole family. I highly recommend it for anyone with children. Though hatching eggs from an incubator has its occasional challenges, it’s well worth it.

Just as we try to buy our fresh produce locally, buying your fertilized hatching eggs, or baby chicks locally can become a fun day trip. The wealth of information you can get from the local farmer or breeder can be priceless and may also save you time and money.

Many purchase day old baby chicks from hatcheries all across the nation. They are delivered directly to your local post office for pick up. The baby chicks can survive up to three days from the nutrition they receive while inside the egg before they hatch. This allows shipment to almost all locations across the country. One advantage from ordering your day old baby chicks from a national hatchery is they will sex the baby chicks for you. If you don’t want any roosters, you want to purchase pullets, female chicks, rather than cockerels, male chicks.

Once you have your baby chicks they will need a special home for the first few weeks called a brooder. The main purpose of a brooder is to keep the baby chicks warm and dry. Brooders can easily be made from almost anything. Many use an old cardboard box, while some use their bathtub. I prefer a 45 gallon Rubbermaid bin for the average homeowner, but the GQF Poultry Box Brooder is a gem! Baby chicks also require a heat source in the brooder. A light bulb or heat lamp can provide sufficient heat.  An important note is to allow the baby chicks to self regulate their temperature as needed by providing them with enough space in the brooder to move close to or away from the heat source. There are many choices for brooder bedding, but cedar shavings should NEVER be used.

Depending on the temperature the chicks will be ready to go outside at around six weeks old. This brings us to our next topic, the chicken coop. Just like a brooder, a chicken coop can be as simple or as extravagant as you want it to be. I have kept many chickens using just a large breed plastic dog house. Though coops designed for chickens are more user friendly, the design of the coop should not make much difference in the number of eggs you get from your backyard flock. The coop and run need to provide  a fresh supply of water, dry source of food, shelter, and protection from predators.

Chickens have many predators. I always tell people that there will always be something that will love your chickens more than you do. You will need to protect your chickens from predators that come from above and below. The more common predators you will encounter from above include hawks and owls. Any type of netting across the top of your coop, and run area can solve this problem easily. Predators from ground level or below include raccoons, opossums, weasels, foxes, and even neighborhood dogs and cats. Hardware cloth attached around and below the coop works well for some, but a good strong fence buried about a foot deep is another option to deter digging predators. Some even burry old roofing tin about a foot deep around the chicken pen to keep digging predators out.

Once you have your coop and run established keeping backyard poultry can be fun and rewarding with minimal work. Owner’s responsibilities include keeping a constant supply of feed and water, gathering eggs daily, and cleaning the coop and run as needed.

If you have ever thought about starting a backyard flock of chickens there is no better time than the present to join thousands of others that are enjoying the benefits of keeping a small backyard flock.

Please visit the Backyard Poultry with the Chicken Whisperer blog often because I will be starting an educational series called “Chicks are Easy”. This also happens to be the title of my book I hope to release this fall. I just hope the title does not make the book find it’s way into the “Relationships” section of the book store! Thanks for stopping by!

Chicken Whisperer

As far as I know, this past Saturday, April 11th was the biggest baby chick giveaway ever conducted on the face of the earth. It all started about three weeks ago when the owner of America’s Web Radio, David Moxley came to me with the idea of giving away baby chicks to promote backyard poultry and living a more self-sustaining lifestyle. We decided to have the event in Roswell, Georgia, where an Atlanta Pet Chicken Meetup Group club member was currently battling with City Hall regarding the keeping of backyard poultry. I knew I needed a few things to make this event a success including a location, volunteers, and of course baby chicks!

Bill Greenwood, owner of the Greenwood’s on Green Street restaurant gave the thumbs up to have the event at his location. Once the location was set, I posted the event on the Atlanta Pet Chicken Meetup Group’s website and had over 50 members volunteer to help. I then contacted the national chick hatcheries that were already sponsors of the “Backyard Poultry with the Chicken Whisperer” radio show and told them about the idea, and they were all on-board. I wanted to make sure I did everything possible to ensure the people picking up the free baby chicks had access to all the information they would need to properly care for their new pets, so my wife, Jen, worked about three days creating a “Chicken Stimulus Package” brochure that included a baby chick care guide, brooder information, supply list, local feed store locations, avian veterinarian contact, and list of sponsors. I even got a couple of feed stores to donate four 50-pound bags of chick starter feed in case the new chicken owners could not get by a feed store over the weekend.

The first 100 baby chicks arrived about a week before the event, but thanks to my new GQF commercial brooder I received about 10 days earlier I had a great home for them. The next 800 arrived the following week, and 600 found their way into a custom built brooder I had built in my garage, and 200 went to a club member’s home. My wife and I dipped 700 beaks into feeders and waterers. It was a sight to see!

The morning of the event we had 5 club members arrive at our house to help gather the baby chicks and place them back into the shipping boxes they came in. Then, off we went to the “Chicken Stimulus Package” event. The event started at 8:00 am and lasted until about 1:30 pm. When I arrived with the baby chicks there were already about 50 people in line waiting to pick out their new backyard pet chickens and there was a steady flow of people showing up all day. There were three stations/tables people had to navigate. The first table was an education table. Here, participants would receive an educational brochure to look through and ask questions about keeping backyard poultry. We had experienced chicken owners manning this table as well as a certified avian veterinarian. The second table was an information collection table. Here, the participants had to fill out a Georgia Department of Agriculture form that requested their contact information. We also had chicken owners manning this table to assure accuracy. The third table was the table they were all waiting for. The third table was where they would pick out their baby chicks and receive the free bag of starter feed. This table was manned with chicken owners that had experience identifying the different breeds. Once they received their baby chicks they would walk past an area where they could see examples of brooders they could set up once they got home with their new baby chicks. We had about 50 volunteers from the Atlanta Pet Chicken Meetup Group helping all who attended. Jeff Miller with Shady Roost Coops was on-site with a chicken tractor display, and Greg Haney with City Coops was also sharing information about his coop designs. America’s Web Radio was broadcasting live during the event and fun was had by all. Donations from the event were donated to cancer research.

Overall, I think the event was a success. Only one family has contacted me regarding the return of their baby chicks. Just as stated in the brochure, we took the baby chicks back and will find “forever” homes for them soon. Many have suggested that we make this an annual event or even travel across the country scheduling “Chicken Stimulus Package” events in all the major cities. I’m just eggcited that another 600 chickens have found their way into Atlanta backyards!

Hello,

Ever since I got my 3 chickens, who I love, I've had rat problems. I've never had rodents before and now I can't get rid of them. I've used poison and traps. These are HUGE Norway rats that come where the food is! I'm afraid that my chickens are going to eat the poison, even though I try to put in where they don't go.

Monica
Atlanta, Georgia

Dear Monica,

I'm sorry you are having a rat problem. This is nothing new to chicken owners, and we all handle this problem differently. There is only one reason why the rats are there, and that's food. First let's talk about food storage. The only container that I have found that will keep rats out is a galvanized metal trash bin. You can find these at your local hardware store. If you have a raccoon/opossum problem as well you can bungee the lids closed to keep them out. A large heavy rock works pretty well too!

Be careful not to spill food when you’re filling the chicken feeders because that will attract the rats right to the source. I know this is easier said than done. I know that we are all taught to keep a constant supply of food available for the chickens. If this constant supply is not kept inside a rat-proof coop at all times (and who has one of these?) then you're going to have some problems. Also, try not to feed the chickens in the yard by throwing food on the ground for them to scratch at. This is just asking for trouble when it comes to rats.

Many rats dig under coop walls and fencing to access the food. One solution for this problem is to dig a small trench (8-10 inches deep) around your coop where the food is located, and bury pieces of tin roofing material cut to size so the rats can't dig under. Hardware cloth nailed or stapled under and around your coop works well too.

One product that a friend was telling me about just this week is called Tom Cat Poison. You mix this poison with water and put it in a one quart chicken waterer. Once your chickens are safely secure in their coop at night set the Tom Cat Poison out for the rats to drink. Then remove the Tom Cat Poison in the morning before you let the chickens back out of the coop for the day. This will dramatically reduce your rat population.

If it takes just feeding your chickens once a day, and giving them just enough food to eat, and no leftovers you may have to start doing this. Norway rats have been known to jump as high as 8 feet so keep this in mind as well when storing food.

I'm sure there are many other ways to control rats around your chickens, and maybe some of our readers can tell us what's worked for them. Good luck, and thank you for your question.

Chicken Whisperer