Monday Book: Keeping Chickens

If you read my last post about wishing for more hours in a day to do all the things I want to do, you know I started a crazy new project involving chickens. I started by buying a book that caught my eye at Lowe’s, and it was every bit as good as the cover made it seem. Keeping Chickens by Jeremy Hobson and Celia Lewis has taught me much. I love good DIY books and how-to books; give me a good book about something and I feel like I can do anything. Keeping Chickens has all the good stuff about buying chickens, the pros and cons of chicken ownership, feeding, breeding, health and maintenance, housing, and on and on. The most valuable section, though, is the 40+ page chapter on breeds, complete with lovely color pictures of over 70 of the most popular breeds, and their strengths and weaknesses.

Here are some things I didn’t know about chickens: They have earlobes; the color of the egg is almost always the same color as the earlobe (red earlobes=brown eggs; white=white, and some chickens can lay blue, pink, yellow!). Chickens can make good pets. They can’t fly. Bantams are miniature chickens. Some people show chickens the same way people show dogs (I won’t be going there). Baby chicks need heat for about 4-6 weeks.

Good reasons to have chickens: They lay eggs. Sure, I could buy eggs at the grocery store, but that’s less fun than collecting them in my own little chicken coop. They provide meat – although if these chickens seem like pets, I really don’t see us killing and eating them. They fertilize and aerate your lawn, and eat bugs. They’re fun to watch.

After reading the section on chicken breeds, we chose a variety of chickens – hopefully all hens – that would make a colorful and entertaining flock. I chose breeds that said they were great with kids (not mean at all) and made good pets, were good breeds for beginners, were not flighty (as in, wouldn’t jump the fence and get eaten by the neighbor’s dog) and would be fine if they didn’t have free range. I intend to let them free range around the backyard, but if that doesn’t go well, I want to be able to confine them to the coop. We got one of each of these: Australorp, White Plymouth Rock, Barred Plymouth Rock, New Hampshire Red, Gold-Laced Wyandotte, Welsummer, and White-Crested Black Polish; and two Buff Orpingtons. Oh yes, you’ll be seeing photos of my flock.

The coop: Once we brought home the chicks, I started working on a coop. I found a design online (actually there are hundreds of designs online), an a-frame chicken tractor.

A chicken tractor is a coop on wheels that you can move around the yard so they don’t ruin any one spot and the benefits to the lawn can be spread out. The top segment has a plywood floor and walls, a roost, a gangplank for them to get out, and is covered with pine shavings. Soon I will add nesting boxes, although there will be no eggs until they’re about 5 months old. The bottom section is open to the ground, about two feet high, and the walls are chicken wire. There is also a door in the bottom part, so if they are confined to the coop, they have either the inside or the ground level; they will stay in one of these two areas until they’re full grown. Judging by how fast they’ve grown so far, I think it won’t be long. I discovered that chicken poop smells REALLY bad, so the seven bigger chicks – pullets now, I guess – moved to the coop last night as soon as we finished putting up the chicken wire. Now my house smells better, and only the two little ones are still in the brooder pen in my dining room.

I have some more reading and more work to do on the coop, but the bulk of the work for this project is over. Keeping Chickens was an invaluable book, and I highly recommend it if you’re thinking of getting chickens for your backyard.