Backyard poultry - raising chickens in the backyard

A few chickens will keep you in eggs, compost, and dinner-party conversation

It seems I have become famous for my chickens. Recently I was at a neighbor's party. "Where's your farm?" a woman asked. I gave her a blank look. "You know, where do you keep your chickens?"

When I told her that I lived in the suburban house just around the corner, she was astonished. "You mean you have chickens right in your own backyard?"

Absolutely.

I have kept laying hens for the past two years, enjoying a bountiful supply of fresh, tasty eggs laid only a few steps from my back door.

Anyone who has a little dirt out back, the right zoning ordinances, and tolerant neighbors can keep enough chickens to provide eggs for the family - and manure for the compost pile - with minimal labor and expense. Chickens are hardy, easily managed, and fun to watch - a great learning experience for my 4- and 6-year-old sons, who helped build a coop and who have taken over managing egg sales and recording and spending the proceeds.

Of course, like any other animals, our four hens must be fed, watered, and cleaned up after, all of which takes about 10 minutes a day and an hour or so four times a year when we clean out their pen and line it with fresh straw. When we go on vacation, our neighbors pitch in to feed and water the chickens. In return they get to keep the eggs.

EGGS & COMPOST

Why bother with chickens? For one thing, there is a natural connection between the henhouse behind my garage and my vegetable plot. Garden cuttings - broccoli stems, lettuce and cabbage leaves, pea vines, and leafy green carrot tops - go to the chickens, which also eat weeds, worms, and all kinds of table scraps. Sometimes I even let my chickens wander around the yard to keep the slug population in check (although the chickens are fond of my lettuce patch, too). When I clean out their pen, I shovel the manure into the compost pile, where it degrades and eventually gets spread over the garden to feed next year's crop.

I enjoy being part of this earthy cycle almost as much as I enjoy opening my back window and hearing the musical cluck, cluck, cluck of four happy hens.

Then there are the eggs. Really fresh eggs, plucked from the nest still warm, have dark golden yolks that stand up high in the frying pan. The albumen, or white of the egg, holds together in a firm circle instead of running all over the pan. In contrast, the flavor of an egg that has spent days getting from farm to supermarket pales compared with the intense taste of an egg laid a few hours before being eaten. And with eggs selling for $1.50 to $2 a canon, we pretty much break even on our chickens, which eat about 50 pounds of commercially produced laying mash each month, costing me about $9. Feed is also available in pellets.

GETTING STARTED

When I decided to begin the grand chicken experiment in the spring of 1994, I first checked with my municipal code-enforcement officer. I found that in my city, Monrovia, California, I could keep as many as 10 hens but no roosters. No problem there, since hens produce lovely eggs without ever laying eyes on a rooster.

I also explained to my neighbors what I planned to do and got their approval. My husband was the one who needed the most persuading, but he agreed to go along with the experiment as long as we both understood that he would not be shoveling manure anytime soon.

I started with 2-day-old female chicks, which I picked up at a nearby feed store for $2 each (sounds obvious, but make sure you're buying female chicks). Hens can also be purchased as young pullets - 18- to 22-week-old adolescents just about ready to begin laying eggs - for about $12 each. It is easier to skip the baby stage, but despite the work entailed in raising chicks, it seems a shame to miss out on the adorable downy peepers.

We brought our fluffy yellow babies home in a paper bag and put them in a newspaper-lined box with a lightbulb suspended inside to keep things warm.

After about six weeks, when their downy fluff had been completely replaced by feathers, they were ready to live without the artificial heat of the lightbulb. By that time, I had penned off a 6- by 13-foot area behind the garage, sinking chicken wire into a 6-inch-deep concrete curb and stapling it to wooden posts about 6 feet tall. I put the now-gawky teenage pullets into their enclosure, where they had everything they needed to stay healthy: food and a feeder, an automatic waterer, a roost, plenty of dirt in which to scratch, peck, and take dust baths, and a coop built about 3 feet off the ground to keep them safe from predators at night. In time, we put a cat carrier (a plastic box enclosed except for a small door in front) into the pen to serve as a communal nesting box for the hens.

Through the years, I have increased my flock. The most important thing I have learned is that chickens must be kept safe from the suburban raccoons, opossums, and neighborhood dogs that would love to make a nice meal out of a plump hen. I lost my original pair of white Leghorn chickens to marauding raccoons one tragic night because I had forgotten to latch the coop door. I decided to strengthen the pen and cover it with mesh after I spotted an owl lurking in my backyard one evening not long after.

A few hens in the backyard is certainly not a way to turn a profit. But buying cold eggs at the grocery store is no match for gathering warm ones each morning and marveling at the freshness and perfection of nature.

PULLET POINTERS

* COST. The biggest initial expense is the pen, which consists of an enclosed area for the chickens to walk around in by day (they need exercise), and a coop for them to sleep in at night. A Leghorn coop should have at least 2 square feet of floor space and 1 1/2 feet of headroom per bird, as well as space for a nest. Larger birds need more room. You can make the coop as elaborate as you want, or put it together cheaply using salvaged lumber. Don't skimp on the chicken wire, though. Make sure it is heavy gauge.

* VARIETIES. Around Easter, feed stores have a good selection of chicks. White Leghorns are the most popular commercial breed because they lay 250 to 300 white eggs annually during their prime laying years. For the home poultry keeper, however, the heavier red, brown, and black hens are probably better choices. I have had good results with so-called sex-linked chickens, hybrids that are a little larger than Leghorns and lay 180 to 240 brown eggs a year. Araucanas lay colorful eggs (ours are blue-green) that never fail to raise eyebrows when you sell them or give them as gifts.

* SUNLIGHT. Egg production is related to the length of day, so the pen should be in a sunny spot, although it should also be shaded during summer. Some backyard-poultry enthusiasts put lights in their coops to increase production. If you do not use lights, your hens will slow or stop laying for a few weeks or more between November and February.

* LIFE EXPECTANCY. Hens mature at 5 to 6 months, depending on the breed, and then start laying eggs. They will lay at their best rate for one or two years, and at a reduced rate into their third, fourth, and fifth years. If you decide to let them live out their days in your yard, they could survive for 10 years. Many poultry keepers, however, put their non-productive hens into the stew pot.

* TO LEARN MORE. The Chicken Book, by Page Smith and Charles Daniel, is a wonderful guide, with everything from tips on how to raise chickens to chicken lore and history. I've found it in several libraries. Eggs and Chickens, by John Vivian (Storey Communications, Pownal, VT; $2.95 plus shipping; 800/441-5700), is a 32-page booklet that shows you how to build a basic coop and offers practical information on basics such as diet. Storey publishes other books on chickens, too. When you call, ask for a catalog.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Sunset Publishing Corp.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group