Homesteading with Chickens

A simple addition for your homestead (city or country) is chickens. They are easy to come by, easy to raise, and easy to enjoy! This is a picture of our coop. If you are in the city, it would be best to have a chicken tractor which is a movable coop. See our coop on the left. We have made a recent revision to it that isn’t pictured here. We raised the water cups a little higher because they’d get grass clippings kicked up into the water cups. This has worked great. The water system we use is a 5-gallon bucket that is suspended at the end of the coop and we have a tube that goes from the bottom of this bucket down to the water cups. The water is fed by gravity with pressure regulators. This has been great and allows us to leave them for the weekend without having someone come over to check on them. Chickens need access to water at all times. Depending on the size of your chickens and how hot the weather is, they can drink up to 2 cups of water daily. The nest boxes & roosts are at the top. This allows us to collect the eggs from the outside, without ever going into the coop. We generally let our chickens roam daily, but this isn’t a requirement. They really enjoy getting out and happy chickens produce lots of good eggs. To the left is a picture of them going through one of our gardens before the Spring planting season. This allows them to eat the weed seeds, take dust baths to remove/prevent mites and lice, turn over our soil and remove some of the winter crop cover (we use rye grass).




Our Anatolian/Pyreneese dog, Anna, is seen in the photo protecting her flock while they are taking their dust bath. There’s not a lot to protect them from here, but once we relocate to our hobby farm, she’ll be busy. This is the time of year to get your baby chicks. You can either get them from local folks, your local feed store, or order them. This year we ordered ours because we were looking for a certain type of chicken.



We got Delaware chickens this year (see pic above). This chicken originated from the U.S. and is suited for meat or egg production. Yes, we will be incubating some of our eggs and butchering our own chickens this year. We did quail last year and it went well but those birds are so tiny! But, remember our philosophy? Start small and grow with time. Back to our new chickens – the Delaware breed is a historic breed and is considered critically endangered. This brings me to write about our latest venture in homesteading. We have made the decision to start selecting breeds that are endangered, yet good producers, in order to participate in the preservation of more than ourselves.

Before adding chickens to your homestead, check your city codes (if you care). Most cities will have a code against roosters but the larger your city, or the more high dollar homes it has, you’ll find ordinances against having any type of poultry. Most of the time, you can give it a shot and if no one complains, it’ll be just fine. If you have a privacy fence and keep your coop clean and move the chicken tractor around at least weekly, no one will even know you have these birds. But, of course, I can’t recommend that you break the law – just take this information and use it how you need to.

There’s so much more to tell you about chickens, but this is a good start and hopefully you are thinking about adding them to your backyard. They pay for themselves even if all you do is eat their eggs. If you sell them or butcher them, you’ll come out ahead. It’s a great investment that your broker won’t tell you about and it’s even tax free!