So last year my friends Jeff and Melody hooked me up for the first time with my own chickens to take
care of and I'll tell you what! When people say they're the gateway drug to homesteading
they are not joking! You will fall in love way faster than you ever thought possible.
Now admittedly, I live in a kind of suburban area. I don't have a homestead like I dream of
for myself out in the country right at this moment and so I want to just give you kind of
a little walk around of my chicken coop and give you some ideas of how to get started if you live
in an urban or suburban area where you might just have a little shrimp-sized yard to work with
but you want to have chickens for your own self. Let's take a look around!
If you're even thinking of getting into raising your own chickens, you're going to find a myriad
of sources out there that have all kinds of information that's going to be helpful,
but can also complicate a relatively simple topic. It's actually far more simple than I
ever expected or thought it would be. Let me start by introducing you to my four wonderful chickens.
The biggest one here I call Big Mama and I'll just warn you right now; you often take the name of one
chicken and give it to another one, and I did have a a different chicken that was my Big Mama, and
she was wonderful, and she was huge, but she ended up being a rooster, and here in town we can't have
roosters so I had to give that one away. So the next biggest one inherited that same name and so
I call this big black one Mama for now, just because she's sort of the mother hen and of course
she lets everybody know it! There is a definite pecking order and she is definitely in charge!
Then next to her I have three "littles" and so I've got Chicken Little. And when I was a child
we read the book the little children's book about Chicken Little and the Sky Is Falling,
and I loved that book and so this one is named after that Chicken Little;
and then I have Arnold. I don't know where I came up with that name he's actually the most
recent uh chicken that I acquired when I gave Big Mama away, they traded for Arnold and uh so
this is Arnold and he used to be the runt but now he's best friends with Mama so everything is good.
and then I have Little Miss, and she is just kind of the little girl of the batch.
Somehow she seems just a little bit more feminine and I delight in watching her
as she uh somehow is the only one that looks extra girly to me so she's Little Girl or Little
Miss. That's my four chickens and I'm delighted to introduce you to them! Now if you're looking for
the kind of chicken that you need, boy, do your research, because there are so many and there
are some that are excellent at laying eggs but they're terrible for meat and you kind of want one
that's going to be for both. At least that's what I would recommend so that once they have produced
their eggs and finished that life span that's of usefulness they actually could then be used
as good meat that you could feed your family so if you're looking for that rhode island reds are
a good one sussex are good ones for that um and also i would mention buff orpingtons the only
thing about them they're good for eggs and meat but they are so cuddly and sweet you're gonna when
you see pictures of people holding their chickens it's usually a buff orpington because they're just
cuddly and friendly and they love people and so it's very hard to butcher one of those because
you've already fallen in love with it so keep that in mind and be careful when you pick what
kind of chicken you want and there are about a thousand other kinds that you could choose from
all colors of eggs mine lay little white eggs and big brown eggs and i love both and they're both
amazing so i'm i'm not picky at all about what i get from these chickens they're just the best
when i was little we had chickens we had bruiser and cheaper just two chickens a big old chicken
house and they were free range so they kind of just took care of themselves and would climb up
on top of the roof and and sit there when they needed to get away from predators incidentally
at some point the predators did get a hold of them anyway because we lived out in the wilderness and
it was perfect uh for the pickens so one of the things that you learn quickly is that you need an
enclosure for your chickens and the four chickens that i have have this wonderful enclosure that my
friend jeff and melody uh built and he had raised chickens by the hundreds and hundreds evidently in
his past careers and so he knew what was needed and i really liked the way he thought this out
i live in a suburban area like i mentioned before so you've got kind of a minimal space to work with
you've got you've got to make them happy you've got to keep them calm oh my she is letting us know
she's there and we'll give her some treats here in just a minute but what i've got right here is
almost 20 feet probably i should measure it exactly probably 18 to 20 feet long and about
four feet wide it's covered all the way around on all all sides and even over top with that chicken
wire so there's no chance that predators can get in in fact when he laid the foundation of this he
even dug down before he put chicken wire into the ground below because the chickens love to scratch
they love to dig and get in there and it's a good thing that they put chicken wire all the
way down into the ground because surely these guys would have dug them themselves out if if
that hadn't been there so that's the first thing is make sure you've got an enclosure
that's going to keep them away from predators but you'll also notice this one has a great
amount of roof but also open air because the chickens love to be out in the sunlight even
on rainy days if it's nice enough they love to get out and just feel the wind in their wings and so
they're out here in this enclosed area without any roof over it for most of the good afternoons
i love the way this one is designed because it has a little part down below that when i have a
broody chicken or if one of them really starts pecking at somebody else i can tuck them away
in their own little sequestered environment for a few days and they usually calm down and figure out
that life is better when they can be with the rest of the gang it also has this wonderful back on it
that you'll notice was strategically made with kind of slider sides here so that these boards
can be slid up and off it is a booger to try and clean when you're wanting to deep clean everything
and so having these boards be able to slide up and actually come out and then go right back
into place is a fantastic way to have this made and then of course i love the way these
nesting boxes are for every four chickens you want at least one next nesting box but they like to be
choosy picky choosy so even though i only have four chickens they like having two nesting boxes
so that if they're mean or or irritated that day or moody they can choose the other box
or whatever gets them excited about being able to pick which one they go in is is
an excellent way to keep them happy about ninety percent of the time they all choose the same side
they all want this this right hand side at the moment and sometimes i'll find even two of them
in there cuddled up together laying their eggs or protecting eggs but each morning i just come out
the wonderful clean astra turf that's on the on the bottom of these makes them not even need to
build a nest there they they don't do a lot of defecating in there or anything it's kept clean
and every now and then i'll just take those astro turf palettes out shake them off real good and and
get any debris out of them and put them right back in so it's very easy for me to keep this up and to
keep it clean but every morning i come out collect the eggs out of there and then i just check on
them the chickens love to be checked on and talked to and some people even set up radios with talk
radio so that they can always hear a human voice i don't do that but i do come out and visit them
at least twice a day and give them a little bit of a story or a little visit and conversation
if you can't have free range chickens then you're going to need some sort of a feeder and i'll just
leave this right here and say whatever kind you need to come up with there are a
myriad of versions of chicken feeders out there and i'm gonna let you come up with what works
best for your situation it's actually costing me i would say less than twenty dollars per month
to feed four chickens really well probably less than fifteen dollars if i was
safely guessing but this producer's pride that i get at tractor supply they have a 16
layer feed and these are many pellets my chickens are small enough they really like the minis
they don't like the crumbs but you can when they're little you can actually
get the same stuff in crumb form or you can get it in bigger pellet form
my chickens are right there in between and they really like these mini pellets and then just to
keep their diet kind of well-rounded i went ahead and got these scratch grains it's hilarious i mix
them in with their food trying to help them not notice but they are not as excited about
the scratch grains i thought that they would be thrilled and i threw a whole bunch out there and
it is good nutrition for them and they do eat them but much slower pace for sure okay here we go
today i'm feeding them just scraps from inside that are completely random i had
some bean cherries that were starting to go bad and i have a whole bunch of green beans that i
can't eat fast enough and those are starting to go bad so the tips and the and the bad beans i throw
out here for them there are almost no chicken no scraps that you can't feed them but there are a
few exceptions and i'll let you do the research on that i know you can't feed them potato peels
you don't want to give them green tomatoes and a few other things to just be aware of that could
actually taint the taste of the eggs if you fed them like garlic and onions and things like that
so anyway most of the scraps you have inside that you don't throw in the compost pile are perfect
for throwing out here and the chickens just go crazy but it's it's funny the favorite things
that they like are often right out of my yard so i'm feeding them today some of the purslane
that i have growing in every random flower pot and all through my yard and in the driveway
it's everywhere this year and so thankfully they love the purslane and i can't eat it fast enough
so a lot of it goes to them and their other favorite thing i've discovered that just
beats everything i've ever put in their mouths and that is the little faux strawberries that grow in
the grass i don't know where you live if you have those but around here in tennessee we have plenty
of those little faux strawberries and boy do they love them and fight over them but it's a fun fight
and usually they don't hurt each other so back to how the whole structure was built because
this really is just an excellent way to build it you want a perch for them outside and so
this has a nice long perch that they sit on and stare at me if i don't visit them often enough
and to take in the sunrises and sunsets they'll come out here and perch on that they love ramps
they love little staircases some people even dangle from a long rope like a whole head of
cabbage as a treat for them and it'll take them about a week to just peck that little cabbage
to death and they love toys like that that they can kind of banter back and forth and play with
but also they definitely need one or more perches inside so that every night they don't want to sit
on the ground they don't go into their little nesting boxes they want to sit on those perches
and cuddle up all together in a big huddle and sleep that way whether it's winter or summer
so you definitely want to make sure you have a couple of little perches like we've got in here
you're also going to want to have good water for them and plentiful water they do not need to go
without water even for a day if you miss a day and somehow they are left thirsty it can make them
stop producing eggs for a couple of weeks even after that so don't give them that kind of stress
what i have noticed is that there are probably a hundred or more different ways that you can
water your chickens and one of them is just in a bowl on the ground the thing is is they like
to wade a little bit and wash their feet off and when they do that they get all kinds of
feces and feathers and every kind of mud thing in that water so you got to keep
it clean and so there are better options than what you see that i have here today my actual
other waterer that i had gotten from tractor supply they were out of the little parts i needed
but it actually hangs and then it has almost like little nubbins or nipples that they can
uh get themselves water from uh underneath that and you can go to tractor supply and
get something like that for yourself right now all i've got is this other watering
thing that it does great it just is something that i do have to actually clean out
a lot more often than i thought i would have to the other thing i should mention that you're going
to want to make sure you've invested in unless you can harvest your own pine shavings if you
have a lot of pine trees around but tractor supplies where i get mine get them wherever
you have an ability to and you might be able to get them cheaper at some garden supply place but
pine shavings are going to just be a fluffy insulator and it's going to keep it clean
it gives the chicken something to kind of nestle into they love that it keeps away mold it's just
something that you're going to want to make sure that you have plenty of because every time you
clean the coop out you're going to spread a fresh layer of this all through that area
that is covered from the elements so that they have a nice place to make their nests and also
warmth in the winter and all of that so make sure they have good water make sure they have good food
they need a shelter over their head but they also need
an area to get out and about out further away from that shelter and you're going to want to make sure
they have plenty of cage around them so that no predators can get to them and that's about all
you need to do literally they are if you get the right kind of breed they they're quiet they take
care of themselves they look after each other they are relatively maintenance free without too much
trouble and they produce so many eggs it's amazing so i get right now one egg per day from all four
chickens that comes to two to three hundred eggs per chicken per year just this week i pickled
70 eggs and there are a myriad of other ways that i preserve them i i dehydrate eggs i freeze
some eggs i you know i i put some in lime water to preserve for a couple of years i freeze dry
eggs raw eggs to last for up to 20 years can you believe that so i freeze dry a whole lot of eggs
and then i eat some every single day so there are all kinds of ways that you can use them and
and it's amazing how quickly they build up but they also are great gifts to give to neighbors
and friends that come to visit you um i want to just invite you to think outside the box because
if you did think that it was going to be difficult to have chickens because then you couldn't travel
well i've never had a problem with neighbors not volunteering to sure i'll check on the chickens a
couple of times a day and get the eggs for myself while you're gone and it makes everybody happy so
don't think that that is going to be a huge thing unless you live clear out in
the country and you really truly have no one that could come and check on them for you
all right i know there's so much that i couldn't cover in this episode but at the very least i hope
i just wet your appetite for the idea of maybe exploring getting some chickens for yourself
it could be one of the best decisions you make for the days to come
until i see you again though will you make sure that you've subscribed so you get notified
each time that we have a new episode coming out would you share this with somebody that you love
and would you take the time this week to intentionally go out
and be a blessing to someone else we'll see you next time thanks for joining us bye bye
hey there before you go i would love to share a quick word of scripture this is out of the new
testament in the holy bible it's in the book of romans and it's chapter 8 verse 11 it says this if
the spirit of him who raised jesus from the dead dwells inside of you he who raised christ jesus
from the dead will also give you life life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you
incredible it's amazing and it's getting dark out there so would you go out and glow
you