Ohhh, Sweet Chickens!! Raising little feathery friends!!

So, you've found your land or even maybe just want a couple of backyard Chickens to supply eggs. That's awsome. Let's talk about some things that have been good and bad about raising chickens. 

Chickens for the most part are a great starter animal when you first begin your self sufficient life. Realistically, they manage themselves and are pretty self resilient. However, they have yet to figure out how to get their own water! 

Chickens breeds!

We currently have 26 chickens, considered a small flock. 24 hens and 2 Roosters. Even with this small of a flock we have integrated different breeds. There are currently Rhode Island Reds, Easter Eggers, Plymouth Barred Rocks, Buff Orpington, Silver Laced Wynodettes, Black sex Links, and black austrolops. 

Living in Iowa with our constant changing weather, chosing a breed was based off extensive research in what breed can handle our harsh winters and hot summers. 

I encourage you to do your research on the different breeds of chickens before you buy. As we have found some breeds are more docile while others are more aggressive. For example, our Buff orpington Sunshine (see picture below) will let you hold her and will get mad when you try to put her down.  While our Rhode Island Reds want nothing to do with us humans and have actually tried to peck my boots when cleaning their coop. 

Chicken fun facts!

They absolutely love to scratch around their bedding or even the dirt in their run, let them. 

If it is warm outside and they are breathing with their mouth open ans wings are pulled away from their body they are hot. Find a way to cool them down. 

They like to sleep off the ground, it's a natural instinct for them to sleep higher up so predators can not get them.

They eat grits (rocks) to help them better digest their foods. 

They enjoy taking dirt baths, yes they bathe in dirt, it aids in the prevention of parasites that otherwise would rob them of their health. 

Little food producers!

Now we all know chickens are our source for eggs and meat. However, not all chickens are meant to be eaten for meat just the same not all chickens are to be used for egg production. Even with that, there are some breeds who are dual purpose essentially designed to be both meat and egg producers. 

In our little flocks case our feathery babies are safe from the air fryer... for now. We purchased our babes for their primary function of laying eggs and we collect the eggs and use them as protein. 

If you are in search of a bird for meat, you would be looking more so for the Cornish variety or Broilers. Now remember with meat chickens they must be dispatched at a certain age or they will develop to much fat on their meat and it won't taste the same. Typically I believe the average age of a meat chicken at time of slaughter is around Broilers are nine weeks and Cornish or Cornish cross are eight to ten weeks.

Depending on your particular breed that you have raised and then harvested for meat with depend on their weight after slaughter. One of our dearest friends, her meat chickens that she raises and then sends of to be harvested, typically her whole chicken weigh in about 15 to 16 lbs. Let's be honest that could easily be some meals and the best chicken broth ever or even bone broth of we are really adventurous. 

Eggs, now we are used to eggs being in the stores as either white or brown eggs. Neither one is better for you than the other, it's all in how the chickens are raised and handled. Now for our girls for instant they get layer feed and are let out in the run to feed on bugs and whatever else their little hearts desire. 

We actually do not give them added calcium such as oyster shells in their diet, but we do give them fresh greens from our garden we can and we will also give them veggies that have been destroyed by some other source (that is not my child). 

Something to consider with your eggs that you will gather as your chick's get to laying age is how will you deal with the abundance. It is true that unwashed eggs can sit on the counter for up to two weeks. If you have access to a freeze dryer you could make powdered eggs for emergency situations. Or and this method so happens to be my favorite, water glass them. Water glassing is an age old method of using pickling lime and water in an air tight container of some sort that is large enough to hold your eggs and the water/lime mixture. Then simply just store it away in a cool dry place. This method has been around for a long time and the taste of the eggs do not change. 

Chose your breed lightly!

One thing that has been learned the hard way is that you must chose the breed of chicken you raise with a lot of research. For our homestead, we needed to find chickens who are both heat and cold tolerant. We just went through a heat wave with 7 days straight of 100+ degree days.  All of our girls survived those high temperatures and then some, but it was scary and very touch and go. Then we hit winter, and that brought another round of harsh weather for our little girls. We live in southwest Iowa, while we did not get a ton of snow, we did suffer through a week of extremely cold weather (-35 degrees), add this with the snow blizzard that did come in for several days, it was rough!  Please please please do research for your specific area and climate when choosing your birds! 

Closing thoughts! 

Let's close on this thought, as you are starting out with raising any kind of animal, start small. Please, do not get more than you can handle at one time. Our recommendation would say start with 5 and see how they fair and how you are able to manage them. Then perhaps you add another 5 and so on, but please do not fall into the thought that you need 15 or 30 chickens. We will always take emails with questions or even comment down below and answer any questions that you may have. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this and as always we hope this post is helpful and insightful to you. 

Stay tuned as we will be adding videos on YouTube soon to go along with our blog posts!!