Owning a small flock of chicken is the new trend nowadays and city dwellers are discovering the delights of raising their own chicken. This article tackles the basics of raising and maintaining a few chickens in an urban setting.

But first, what are the benefits of raising hens? Well, there are many.

Aside from being an excellent source of food hens will help you in your pest control, to grow a healthy garden and can even be a pet to your children. Since insects, including potentially harmful insects like grasshoppers, fire ants, ticks, termites, fleas, flies are all food for the hens they act as a means of natural pest control.

Chicken are even known to kill and eat scorpions! So, when you have chicken you can stop spending money on dangerous chemicals and let the chickens do the work for you for free. Another side benefit of raising your own chicken is the chicken manure you’ll get for your garden which when mixed with other organic materials like saw dust, wood chips makes for an excellent and natural fertilizer which can even outperforms the commercial fertilizers.

But make sure that you mix it with some composting material because it is too potent by itself. One of the best benefits of raising chicken is that it can give a hands-on learning experience to your children and chicken are gentle enough to be considered as house pets.

Of course, the main and most obvious benefit of raising chicken is the steady flow of fresh eggs. Home grown eggs are much better than the eggs you purchase in your local grocery store and as a rule almost always taste much better mostly because those eggs come from chicken farms where chickens are commercially raised and the main concern for the farms is mostly the profits and not the quality of care or even feed provided to the chickens.

Determine how many eggs you can consume and give away or sell in a day and limit your flock to that amount considering that each hen will lay one egg approximately every 24 hours. Do not make the mistake of raising too many hens.

The first step in starting your chicken farm is by collecting information about local rules and regulations regarding raising chickens within city limits like the number of chicken you are allowed to keep etc. Mostly this information can be had by making a phone call to your city hall or by simply checking their website.

Roosters are usually banned in most cities due to the nuisance they create but since you don’t need them anyway this is not much of a problem. Once you get your legal issues straight its time to buy the chicks.

You can buy one day old chicks in spring at your local feed store. Before purchasing the chicks do make sure that they have been vaccinated against Marek’s disease and Coccidiosis and that they come from a flock which has been tested for Salmonella.

Chicks are too small to be kept in chicken coops right away and should be kept in small pen or box with wood shavings and some heat source like a heat lamp. Gently handle the chicks every once in a while so that they can become accustomed to humans.

The feed store can help you about what to feed your chicks. Once the chicks are about 30 days old they would start to feather and at this time they can be transferred to their coop which would be their permanent home.

The coop should have nesting boxes for the hens to lay their eggs and roosts where they would sleep. Chickens require about 8 to 10 square feet each and should be waterproof. They should also have a door large enough for humans to enter and small windows which can be opened or closed depending on the weather.

A fence in “yard” connected to the coop is also necessary so that the chickens can roam about without being threatened by predators like dogs, cats or raccoons. You can expect to start collecting the eggs after about 4 – 5 months from the date you purchase the chicks and once you reach this stage the only task left for you would be to feed the chickens, clean the coop and collect the delicious eggs.

Like many, you too, must be wondering about the most fruitful procedure of raising chickens. Now a day, due to the spiraling cost and growing concern about the manner of production; food is becoming more of an issue.

Therefore, to combat all these, use herbs to raise your chickens not only naturally and in a perfect manner but also to add flavor. Chickens are considered to be low carb diet and together with eggs, these had always constituted an important part of our meals.

Raising chickens in cages is seen as unethical and so, the subject of free range chickens is gathering popularity across the globe; however, the price of store-bought free range eggs can strain your purse.

You can raise your own chickens, if you have some space; even though you might be living in a city. Try not to raise roosters as these birds make a lot of noise; however, give a serious thought about raising hens.

There is nothing better than home-grown eggs and hens can be excellent pets, too, if you have children in your house. These cuddly pets have some real personality and are fun to watch; however, have a proper enclosure for these birds, if you want to keep your house clean.

Buy day old chicks from the local feed stores and start raising your own chickens, since it is easy and quite inexpensive. Even the children would love to watch these small birds in their cute fluffy stage.

Get hold of a strong and sturdy box and place the chick in it with some food and water. Handle and nurture your chick on a regular basis, so that it gets accustomed to people and will feel happy when you cuddle it, after it grows up.

Provide some open and safe area for your chickens to play and scratch. Take precaution and do not feed your chickens – raw beans, raw potato peels, avocado skin and food containing sugar and salt, since these might prove to be toxic and harm them; in extreme cases, even death.

The basic health of the chickens should be of paramount importance to you, when you are thinking about raising them. Herbs can make your birds healthy; add these to their feed or water.

Nettle – a kind of herb – contains calcium, potassium, protein, manganese, phosphorus and Vitamins A & C in high quantities; therefore, it is a good idea to add this to your chickens’ diet. Chickens are vulnerable to mites, body lice and worms. Nettle, along with garlic – another great herb – not only treat but also prevent worms from affecting and causing health hazard to your hens.

Garlic has an added advantage, since it prevents lice and mites from affecting your hens. Grow insect repellent herbs like lavender, rosemary and feverfew near your hen-house, so that your hens can nibble as well as brush against those.

Add Oregano – an anti-parasitic and anti-fungal herb – along with cider vinegar to your chickens feed to keep them healthy. Along with these, try to feed your chickens.

Dandelion – a complete food by itself and Calendula flowers, which contain a high level of sulphur, to keep them healthy and improve yolk color. Try to keep their drinking water fresh, too. Follow these simple steps and you can raise healthy chickens without any problem.

Owning your own chickens can have multiple benefits. Fresh eggs and poultry are the more obvious ones, but the ability to know how each was raised is important, also.

Commercial farmers may use chemicals, including hormones in their operations. Producing your own eggs allows you to leave out any chemicals or practices you object to. If you are able to produce more than your family consumes, the animals can also become a source of income.

A proper chicken house in a proper location is important. It is not a good idea to locate the chicken house too close to your own dwelling. Chicken droppings do not have a pleasant odor, and will make the home unpleasant for the residents, and can be an embarrassment when guests are visiting.

Likewise, the chickens will not appreciate the noise and smells that come from a human dwelling. A decent degree of separation benefits both.

The area in which the house is placed should be fairly level. Sloped areas can have considerable runoff in heavy rains, which can be problematic with chickens. The waste from your chickens should never be allowed to reach a creek, river, lake or ocean.

Your neighbors will also not appreciate any of the runoff reaching their property. In addition to problems that can occur downstream, water that enters your chicken house can lead to sickness among the animals. Damp waste products are a prime breeding ground for diseases.

The size and construction of the house are also important. Overcrowding is not good for the animals, but too large a house can be cold and drafty in cooler weather. The house should be sturdy enough not only to protect the chickens from the elements and keep them contained, but must be able to keep out predators.

Hawks, foxes, some dogs and other animals will prey on the chickens if given the chance. If you feel unsure of your plan, consult with a local farmer or agricultural expert in your area.

Chickens are raised all over the country, and someone nearby can answer your question. While building a chicken house might be harder than one would think, it is well worth it when done properly.

The average hen bred for egg production will produce about 100 eggs in a given year. While it might seem like a small flock would make the eggs pile up, they might disappear faster than you would think.

The average American eats about 200 eggs per year. While that number may seem higher than one might expect, remember that many of them are not eaten as eggs, but are ingredients in cakes, muffins, pancakes, mayonnaise, marshmallows, egg rolls, egg noodles, batters for fried foods, and in many other places.

There are no worries if you end up with more than you can eat. A small amount of excess could be shared with neighbors. Many rural families raise a portion of their food, and frequently share any crops that produce more than can be eaten by the grower.

Sharing eggs might result in a neighbor showing up later with a bushel of corn or beans. Larger quantities can even become a source of significant income.

Although many people do purchase chicken shelters that are pre-made, not all varieties of it are well-made, indeed, a great deal are actually dangerous for your chickens due to shoddy construction methods and building material.

Some require a lot of maintenance, which, although even with the best ones some care will have to be taken to ensure it’s safe for your chickens, is a bit excessive as the entire goal of a chicken coop is to keep them safe.

One feature that a lot of low-quality chicken coops have is that they often are difficult to clean out, with lots of nooks and crannies that feathers, sawdust, all kinds of things you’d expect in a coop, could get stuck in.

Others can be just plain tricky to get the chickens out without distressing them, partially because they’re too close to each other in the coop, but also because generally there’s no space between them and everything else, causing some of the effects that you see with factory chickens. Some readymade units have a weaker wire mesh, or even one with larger gaps between wires.

This is terrible, as it means that predators, especially cats, which can squeeze themselves through quite tight spaces, rather like what is commonly known for rats. If you decide to purchase housing, you need to consider a lot of things.

Firstly, do you want a cage system, or a shelter and run? Do you want a separate area for them to roost? Do you want somewhere specific for your laying hens to nest? A shed for your free range chickens to use as shelter, as it’d be bigger?

One of the better ideas that a lot of pre-fabricated chicken shelter manufacturers have produced is that of a slide-out door underneath the roosting area, which is sensible as the majority of manure collects underneath this area, meaning that you could more easily dispose or reuse the manure as fertilizer. Like with a human dwelling, one must always check all the features of the house you are considering purchasing.

DIY Chicken Coop Design Guide

Here’s a suggestion, if you are good with hand tools, why not build your own chicken housing rather than buying a readymade one? Do you want to know how to build a poultry housing in your back yard?

If you do, check out the Building A Chicken Coop plans by Bill Keene. Bill is an seasoned chicken farmer with more than 20 years experience.

His DIY chicken coop plans was created to teach you how to build a small, medium and also large chicken coop on a shoestring budget. For more information, click on the link below and see what Bill has to offer.

==> Click here to visit Building A Chicken Coop now!

For anyone who’s planning on designing and building their personal chicken coop, there are a few imperative particulars to consider. As long as you have the fundamental idea of what you’re doing and take time to perfect your plan ahead of starting to construct it, your chicken house should turn out excellent.

Obviously before you can initiate constructing anything, you are required to have the plan of the DIY chicken coop which is the toughest branch. One of the foremost and most significant verdicts you need to make is how much square footage you’re going to necessitate for the coop.

Certainly this resolution should be mainly based on the quantity of chickens you have in the coop. It should be of smaller dimension but hefty enough that the chickens will have space to sprint around in and won’t be compressed up against each other.

Lighting is also vital on any DIY chicken house. Lighting is also important for any DIY chicken coop project, and one of the finest proposals is to have the lighting installed with a timer.

Lighting is imperative in chicken coops, particularly during wintry weather months, because it facilitates with egg production and will moreover keep the chickens warmer at night.

Even just a couple of lights fixed in the eaves of the coop will be adequate and by having them set on a timer they’ll switch off automatically. This will also work well to help you to save on your home energy expenditure and lend a hand with egg production during the chilly months.

A built-in heater or supplementary aesthetics can be predominantly essential depending on your preference. If you are staying in a metropolitan region, there are a small number of extra features that can be fitted.

While in more rustic areas, this is not such a matter of concern. But if you’re residing in or near a town and the birds were to flee, you wouldn’t want them to wind up on the thoroughfare and get knocked over by a car.

The quantity of nest containers you should posses per hen is ideally five. Keep them about ten inches spaced out as this will offer the hens satisfactory space to perch.

Roosters don’t like to be kept too close when they’re perching and having a sizable gap amid them will keep them from fighting. You should keep the roosters at least two feet away from each other.

Even though building your own DIY chicken coop is somewhat new to you, you can construct a homemade poultry coop in just a couple of days. Constructing a DIY chicken coop can be pretty simple if you set out a well thought-out, comprehensive sketch for yourself.

DIY Chicken Coop Design Guide

Do you want to know how to build a poultry housing in your back yard?

If you do, check out the Building A Chicken Coop manual by Bill Keene. Bill is an seasoned chicken farmer with more than 20 years experience.

His guide was written to teach you how to build a small, medium and also large chicken coop on a shoestring budget. For more information, click on the link below and see what Bill has to offer.

==> Click here to visit Building A Chicken Coop now!

If you are planning to build a Do It Yourself (DIY) chicken house for your backyard, here’s a couple of tips that you can use.

When preparing the flooring of the chicken coop, use dried straw. The chicken house should be littered at all time with straw six to eight inches deep. When it becomes wet or damps, the straw should be replaced. A fresh layer of straw should also be laid when the old straw is badly broken or full of droppings.

When dropping broad is used on the DIY chicken coop, it should be cleaned at least once a week. No doing do will lead to disease germs and the accumulation of mites.

Furthermore, if the bird droppings are not cleaned, the feet of the chicken become soiled hence causing large percentage of dirty eggs. In some severe cases, toxic gases are given off decaying manure.

If you want to keep your bantams healthy, the chicken housing should be thoroughly cleaned at least once a year. Use a 3 percent mixture of compound solution or cresol or a good stock dip to soak every part of the coop.

When raising chicken in your backyard, the most common poultry parasites are mites and lice. Usually you will find mites beneath the perches or in the corners of the nests rather than on the fowl’s body. The mites will only attach to the chicken’s body long enough to feed.

Mites can be killed easier by using a can of aerosol. The make sure you get all the mites, repeat the spraying process 2 or 3 times. This is in order to get rid of newly hatched mites.

Lice on the other hand are a bit tricky to handle. They spend most of their life on the chicken therefore are not affected by cleaning or spraying. To control lice, you may need dust baths, dust powers or blue ointment.

To get rid of lice on the birds, use a good lice powder which can be made by mixing 3 parts of gasoline with one part of cresol and gradually stirring in plaster of Paris or building cement to take up the moisture.

After drying, this mixture is ready for applying to mature fowls. The mixture should be applied thoroughly.

Homemade Chicken Coop Plans

Looking for a good chicken coop plan? If you are, check out Bill Keene’s Building a Chicken Coop Plan manual. The guide comes with a complete blueprint with step by step instructions. Click on the link below for more information.

==> Click here to visit Building a Chicken Coop now!

What I am referring here is the actual time needed to take care of the daily chores.

Just like any other household pets such as dog, cat, gold fish or parakeet, you will need to allocate some time every day to take care of them.

If you are good with hand tools, you can get a DIY chicken coop plan and then build the housing yourself. That will take you maybe one or two weekends.

To save time, you can just purchase a chicken coop off the selves. But doing so will cost you some money. It is a trade off if you want to get the birds in quickly.

The actual time you have to spend looking after the chicken ranges from 15 to 30 minutes in the morning or evening. Most probably you will spend longer because it is so much fun observing their antics.

If you use an automatic feeder or waterer, you may have to check on the flock once or twice a day. The feeder might get stuck or water spilled all over the chicken coop.

If you have hens laying eggs, you should check on them once a day to collect the eggs. Preferably do this in the morning and you’ll have fresh organic eggs for breakfast. It is best to design the chicken coop with easy access to make the eggs collection process fast and easy.

All in all, you don’t need a lot of time and attention on the chicken in your backyard. They are pretty self sufficient.

Make sure the chicken coop area is enclosed to keep predators such as dogs, cats, raccoons, large rats away from the birds.

But do you have what it takes to have a chicken coop with lots of bantams running in your backyard?

The following are 3 basic requirements anyone should have if they are planning to have poultry at their home.

1) Construction time.

Do you have time to build the chicken coop for the birds?

Building a functional chicken housing can take some time. You need to acquire a proper chicken coop plan and then finish the construction before you get the chicken.

Just like any home improvement job, you have to plan how much time you are willing to put into the project.

How’s your building skill?

Your knowledge on handling building material and experience will also determine how much time you have to devote to the project.

2) Preparing the right living space.

An adult full-sized chicken will need a minimum of 2 square feet of floor space for shelter. If the bird cannot go outside during cold climate, it needs at least 3 square feet of internal chicken coop space to run around.

Here’s a quick space estimate for 4 hens in your backyard. You need to have 2 feet by 4 feet and the outside pen another 2 feet by 6 feet so that your total space used would be 2 feet by 10 feet.

Obviously, if you have more chicken, the space required will increase. Make sure you have sufficient space for the chicken coop in your backyard.

3) Capital investment.

Finally, you need money buy the chicken. Rooster, hen and chicks are not really expensive. Unless you are planning to get the rare breeds, the budget to purchase the bantams are quite small.

Adult hens that are healthy and capable of laying eggs cost less than $10. Chicks of most breeds cost a few dollars only. If you have other friends breeding their own chickens at home, you may get the chicks for free.

Sometimes, all you need to do is a request a zoning variance. Doing so will allow you to keep the chickens based on your particular circumstances.

Sometimes, getting the permission to raise chicken at home is just a formality. If you are unlucky, it can turn into a major court battle. Honestly, I wouldn’t want to go that far because of all the hassle. In other cases, you’ll probably be required to attend a commission meeting and state your case.

Go to your local town office and check with the city clerk, the township supervisor or other local government official in regards to your request.

They will advise you whether a planning commission meeting or other committee meeting is required. Find out the date, time and location of the meeting. You want to make sure you attend the meeting to present your case. Sometimes, you need to make an appointment to speak at the meeting or to bring up certain issues.

What do you need when you want to raise chicken at home and you are confronted with local restrictions?

You will need lots of patient. Some of the zoning changes can take months of discussion and mulling over. If you do not succeed the first time, ask what you can do to change the outcome the next time.

Then try and present your request again. It will take some iron will on your part. Sooner or later, you will get what you want if you have a compelling case.

It’s strange isn’t it?

There may be a few reasons for this. Your neighbor may have gotten a zoning change for their property. Here’s another thing, your neighbor may be keeping the chicken and unknowingly breaking the law!

So, how would you know if you are allowed to raise chicken at your home?

You can start by looking at your property deed. If you recently purchased your home, your deed and your sales agreement should have your zoning listed on them.

Here’s a tip. If you are unable to locate the record of how your property is zoned, then head over to your city, village, or township hall and ask whether you can look at a zoning map. Some county offices will have a copy of the map you can purchase.

If you stay in a large urban area, it will take you a bit of leg work. Firstly, go to the planning board or office to check if your property is allowed to keep bantams.

Sometimes, you can also get your questions answered by the county clerk or an animal control officer.

If you don’t want to get yourself in trouble for keeping chickens at home, don’t just take the word of your neighbors or people not connected to local government that it’s alright.

If you’re in the midst of buying a home, don’t even take the word of the real estate agents about being able to keep chickens or even about the property zoning.

You have no way of knowing if the information you’re getting is legitimate. Make the effort and find the answer yourself.

Trust me, it will worth your while.

You don’t want to have all your chickens confiscated and you are being issued a fine six months down the road.

Related web pages:

1) Building A Chicken Coop Plans Guide By Bill Keene Review

2) Mary Nelson Chicken DIY Guide And Plans Review