So did my Nanny and Papa, and as does every other respectable farm in the world.
But when my Aunt Katura and Uncle Dave built a coop in their backyard a few years back and got some chickens, duckies, and guineas of their own, I thought that was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. And then my very best friend did the same thing at her little family's new house outside of the city were we grew up. My sister-in-law and her husband also have a nice big free range flock at their place. My husband's good friend and his sweet wife live in a beautiful wooded area way south of here and they have this fantastic hand-built primitive coop complete with a nice little brood right next to their cabin. And most recently I discovered that two of my favorite people from high school have found each other's hearts, in addition to a flock of sassy Buff Orpingtons that absolutely adore the ground their humans walk on.
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| Justin with our niece and some of her family's chickens |
The old school stereotype of chicken-keeping being limited to full fledged farms like Old McDonald's, I've found, is more-or-less over. People with just a couple acres...people with less than a quarter acre (!) are keeping chickens for fresh eggs and/or a meat source with integrity, and making it look easy and fun all the while.
That being said, since nearly everyone special in my life who's lived outside of big city limits has experimented with backyard chickens at some time or another, and typically with much success, my husband and I were never doubtful about the notion of eventually trying it out for ourselves.
When exploring the option of moving from our apartment in the city to the rural nearby county where Justin grew up, my first romanticized small livestock dreams were more-or-less limited to keeping dairy goats. After visiting some petting zoos and watching some YouTube videos, I grew to love the idea of having some fuzzy, quirky milk producers right outside my front door. They would provide us with endless entertainment, and dairy for consumption and for making our own soaps and lotions--I was sure of it. I went so far as to buy a few books about keeping goats, insisted on going to flea markets every weekend to look at the different breeds for sale, and completely lost my mind with excitement every time we passed a property with the playful little animals jumping and grazing about. I was also hellbent on having a cashmere goat so I could spin my own yarn from its fur, and then crochet all of our textile needs with it.
I know, I know; lofty goals and sky-high naivety. That's Cara for you.
I know, I know; lofty goals and sky-high naivety. That's Cara for you.
Anyway, once we actually got our house and acreage in the country, and after doing some very serious research and having some very serious conversations with experienced goat-keepers, I learned that I needed to start smaller, livestock-wise...especially considering (until recently) the only animal I've successfully kept alive is my little black cat Wednesday, and taking care of her is an absolute breeze. I only suffered from minor heartbreak when I learned I wouldn't have any goats any time soon.
To be perfectly honest, even though I'd read a few books I still knew next to nothing about animal husbandry outside of giving them fresh water and feed daily, keeping their habitat clean and free of predators, and being at least marginally prepared for illnesses and injuries. It sounds straightforward and perhaps I *did* have the gist of things, but it's all quite a bit more complicated in practice. There are the across-the-board money issues, considerations for the space you're willing to allocate to your animals, and then actually building all of the necessary fencing and covered shelter (A LOT of work). And all of that has to be done before you ever think about what breeds of animals you want, and finding a trustworthy place from which to purchase them.
After assessing the old metal shed on our property as a potential chicken coop, checking out our finances, spending a good bit of time with my sister-in-law's chickens, and obsessively researching poultry, the husband and I were finally confident enough to give the chicken thing a go.
Before we ever went and picked out our first bird we had to make sure we could give them the closest thing to a palace to live in that we could, and that's where the aforementioned old metal shed comes into play. After living at our new place for a couple months, the weather and our motivation was reasonable enough to tackle the clean-up and preparations associated with turning this apparent POS and total eye sore of a shed into a reasonable habitat for animals.
We started by pulling all of the branches and debris off the roof, spray painting the outer walls to cover the rust and lighten the color (I insisted on Tiffany blue, and my husband was sweet enough to oblige), and cleaning out all of the garbage and ground cover left by the former owner.
Once we got through the gross, grueling stuff, it was time for us to figure out a design for an attached run, and how we would go about building and placing roosts and nesting boxes. Mind you, my husband and I have very limited carpentry experience (we'd only built a small rabbit hutch prior to this), but reasonable enough design skills and basic knowledge of power tools, so we felt confident enough to get the job done.
The run design I must attribute entirely to Justin. He did most of the building by himself too (I was dealing with a bout of bronchitis during the time he had to work on the construction) and did an absolutely fantastic job, if I may say so. I took it upon myself to construct some primitive ladder-style roosts out of privets (horrendously invasive in these parts, so we were glad to cut a few down for this purpose) and twine, and they actually turned out super sturdy and just the right size to pitch in the corner of our coop.
While we spread the entire project out across late spring and through the summer, the total building time was only about three days. Granted we were lucky enough to already have a structure on our property to use as a coop, but it needed A LOT of work in order to be habitable, even by birdbrains. The bottom line: if we could do it, you probably can too.
Now comes the really exciting part: buying your waterer(s), feeder(s), feed, bedding, and finally, your chickens!
Around the time we were ready to get our chickens, Justin's sister and her husband had become a bit overwhelmed with their flock. They'd bought some hatchlings in the spring and, on top of the chickens they already had, ended up with way more birds than what they really wanted. Because of their predicament and our readiness to take on a flock, they were kind enough to let us come pick out some pullets and cockerels to get us started.
At this time, we really don't know much about breeds, so we just picked out birds based on size and color: one solid white handsome cockerel, one big white pullet with black tail feathers, one iridescent black pullet, and one little bitty white pullet. Four in total, and we felt comfortable with the idea of only having one boy, because our intentions are for egg production, not breeding.
Well, a couple days later after everyone seemed to be settled in, I started to become very curious about what breeds my chickens might be. I knew none of them were the same, but I also didn't know a thing about crossbreeds, either. I created a profile on BackyardChickens.com, posted some photos of my babies, and inquired of those with a more experienced eye what breeds I had.
To my surprise, I found out very little about the breeds, but DID learn without a shadow of a doubt from anyone that read my thread, that I actually had 3 cockerels and 1 pullet--not the opposite.
We were feeling a bit defeated, silly, and frustrated at this point, but were inspired to start doing a lot of specific research about sexing young chickens, and studying breed characteristics. BackyardChickens.com proved to be a fantastic resource for this.
After having our first four birds for a week, we decided to go to our favorite flea market and pick out a couple more pullets, to balance out our ratio. It's suggested that you should have one male chicken per every three female chickens. We were way off, so we went to the market and picked out a couple cute barred rock pullets and took them home with us.
A week later, we went back to the same flea market and purchased a couple beautiful French Black Copper Marans pullets and brought them back to the coop. At this point, we had all eight chickens that we still have today.
Now that they've gone through an adjustment period, established a pecking order, gotten over a respiratory infection, and become quite comfortable in their coop, we've turned them out to free range and they absolutely love it.
I must say, it was quite challenging and even a bit stressful at first, especially when they got sick, but now we get endless enjoyment out of our little flock even though we haven't gotten our first egg. Hopefully this is because they're still young, and not because their maturity was stunted when they got sick or because we, in fact, have eight cockerels instead of three and five pullets.
We're learning more every day and are constantly thinking of ideas to improve our coop design for the love and health of our chickies. Right now we're working on a plan to weatherize the old shed in preparation for next January and February's harsh winter weather.
In reading this post, I hope that if you've been considering getting your own backyard chickens, I've given you a fairly realistic overview of what you're getting into. Please look out for future Backyard Chickens posts regarding:
To be perfectly honest, even though I'd read a few books I still knew next to nothing about animal husbandry outside of giving them fresh water and feed daily, keeping their habitat clean and free of predators, and being at least marginally prepared for illnesses and injuries. It sounds straightforward and perhaps I *did* have the gist of things, but it's all quite a bit more complicated in practice. There are the across-the-board money issues, considerations for the space you're willing to allocate to your animals, and then actually building all of the necessary fencing and covered shelter (A LOT of work). And all of that has to be done before you ever think about what breeds of animals you want, and finding a trustworthy place from which to purchase them.
After assessing the old metal shed on our property as a potential chicken coop, checking out our finances, spending a good bit of time with my sister-in-law's chickens, and obsessively researching poultry, the husband and I were finally confident enough to give the chicken thing a go.
Before we ever went and picked out our first bird we had to make sure we could give them the closest thing to a palace to live in that we could, and that's where the aforementioned old metal shed comes into play. After living at our new place for a couple months, the weather and our motivation was reasonable enough to tackle the clean-up and preparations associated with turning this apparent POS and total eye sore of a shed into a reasonable habitat for animals.
We started by pulling all of the branches and debris off the roof, spray painting the outer walls to cover the rust and lighten the color (I insisted on Tiffany blue, and my husband was sweet enough to oblige), and cleaning out all of the garbage and ground cover left by the former owner.
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| Notice we took the big metal doors off so the coop will open out into the run. We're rethinking this now that winter is approaching, but we needed some better doors anyway. |
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| Justin and our tomcat Doobie--almost done! |
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| My privet branch roosts. |
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| The finished coop & run, before the chickens moved in. |
Around the time we were ready to get our chickens, Justin's sister and her husband had become a bit overwhelmed with their flock. They'd bought some hatchlings in the spring and, on top of the chickens they already had, ended up with way more birds than what they really wanted. Because of their predicament and our readiness to take on a flock, they were kind enough to let us come pick out some pullets and cockerels to get us started.
At this time, we really don't know much about breeds, so we just picked out birds based on size and color: one solid white handsome cockerel, one big white pullet with black tail feathers, one iridescent black pullet, and one little bitty white pullet. Four in total, and we felt comfortable with the idea of only having one boy, because our intentions are for egg production, not breeding.
Well, a couple days later after everyone seemed to be settled in, I started to become very curious about what breeds my chickens might be. I knew none of them were the same, but I also didn't know a thing about crossbreeds, either. I created a profile on BackyardChickens.com, posted some photos of my babies, and inquired of those with a more experienced eye what breeds I had.
To my surprise, I found out very little about the breeds, but DID learn without a shadow of a doubt from anyone that read my thread, that I actually had 3 cockerels and 1 pullet--not the opposite.
 |
| Our White Plymouth Rock cockerel, Captain. We never doubted that this was a boy! |
After having our first four birds for a week, we decided to go to our favorite flea market and pick out a couple more pullets, to balance out our ratio. It's suggested that you should have one male chicken per every three female chickens. We were way off, so we went to the market and picked out a couple cute barred rock pullets and took them home with us.
A week later, we went back to the same flea market and purchased a couple beautiful French Black Copper Marans pullets and brought them back to the coop. At this point, we had all eight chickens that we still have today.
Now that they've gone through an adjustment period, established a pecking order, gotten over a respiratory infection, and become quite comfortable in their coop, we've turned them out to free range and they absolutely love it.
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| The first day we let them out to free range. |
We're learning more every day and are constantly thinking of ideas to improve our coop design for the love and health of our chickies. Right now we're working on a plan to weatherize the old shed in preparation for next January and February's harsh winter weather.
In reading this post, I hope that if you've been considering getting your own backyard chickens, I've given you a fairly realistic overview of what you're getting into. Please look out for future Backyard Chickens posts regarding:
- Coop designs (including nesting boxes & perches)
- Our experiences with breeds & behaviors
- Dealing with illnesses
- Free ranging
- Feed and treats, etc.
Happy chickening.
Much love,
Cara
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