city chickens

Some cities allow for residents to keep chickens in the back yard, others consider them farm animals and will issue tickets if they are found.

This lens will discuss my family's experiences with raising chickens in our back yard in suburbia.

Buy or build a shelter that will protect your chickens from the weather and predators. It is nice to have easy access to the nesting boxes to retrieve eggs. Our family lost 3 chickens a few years ago when a fox got over our five foot fence. After this incident we built an enclosed section attached to the house to allow them protected space so we would not have to lock them up in the house every night. It is recommended that the wire fencing have spaces of 1/4 inch. Normal chicken wire may not prevent all creatures from entering the protected space. Also provide a roof over the protected section to give the chickens protection from the sun, rain and hail.

The sides of the shelter shown open to allow easy retrieval of eggs.

Purina Mills has a great plan for building a chicken coop online.

where to get your eggs

There are many recommendations on what size to build your nesting boxes and how many are needed depending on the number of chickens you have. One box fore every two to three chickens. The right size box can prevent broken eggs or chickens using the boxes as the bathroom.

Keep the chicken's food off of the ground to prevent tons of mice from showing up and moving into your house. Also be sure to have plenty of water available for them.

if you don't keep their wings timmed, you'll be chasing them

Herding chickens is similar to herding cats. Flying cats if you do not clip their wings often.

There are some great books to get you started raising chickens.

Raising chickens takes a little time and patients but is quite rewarding. Daily fresh eggs are great for breakfast.

This lens is dedicated to Sunshine, Sheequa and Penny.

Have you started raising chickens yet. What has your experience been?