Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I'd be the owner of chickens. Well, now that day has come and my husband and I have started raising egg laying hens. Follow along on our backyard chicken adventure!
We started our backyard chicken chapter with 13 chicks in 2018. Our initial flock consisted of 2 sweet Easter Eggers given to us by a family friend. They had apparently gotten a couple too many chickens due to restrictions for the area they lived in, so we took them off their hands happily. We then placed an order a couple weeks later for 10 chicks from a local hatchery and they threw in an extra baby so then we had 13 young chickens all of the sudden.
We raised these chicks in a makeshift brooder in our basement till they were old enough to move to the outside coop. Our brooder was basically a large plastic tub with pine shavings in the bottom, a thermostatically controlled heat lamp and a small feeder and waterer.
This is the temp sensor we used for our brooder. We used this to control a hanging heat lamp and it worked great.
This is a great feeder and waterer for your young chicks.
Chicks
Here's a video from their "chickhood;" showing their "chick wing;" chicks swinging and all. If you have chicks or chickens, you have to make them a swing! It's so fun to watch them on it and they seem to really have fun using it.
At around 4 months we moved the chicks to the outside chicken coop once they got all their feathers and we felt they were big enough to not be picked on by the two older Easter Eggers. The transition was flawless and actually gave our Easter Eggers more courage to venture out of the coop because they got skittish for a while with our puppy harassing them at times. They quickly became a flock and gained strength in numbers.
Backyard Chicken Flock
Our flock reduced to a dozen chickens after we lost one of the chicks to illness early on. A few months later unfortunately they became 11 as we lost 1 chicken to a fox or hawk. In 2020, as if the year could not get worse, we lost 5 more chickens; 1 to a random illness, and 4 others to random mid-day predator attacks. It was a hard year for us as we were still fairly new chicken keepers.
We've recently added five young chicks back to our flock with the help of my coworker who raised some golden comet chicks from birth for a few months. She needed to rehome them, so we took them on as well. They have been a great addition to our flock and they came at a great time!
Our flock currently consists of the following chickens:
- Black Australorp - These laid really large light beige eggs but they definitely aren't the hardiest chickens. They are also very large chickens.
- Golden Comet - These are by far our favorites so far. They are fairly small and compact and lay lots of amazing extra large brown eggs.
- Easter Egger (Americana) - Ours lay blue eggs but some can lay greenish and other slightly different colors.
We added a movable electric fence to contain the chickens a little. They had been free ranging our entire yard and liked to leave little treats all over our patios, chairs and anything else they could find. This fence is electric and helps to reduce predator attacks. Here is the fence and energizer we use for our chickens.
Chicken Coop Story
In early 2020, we decided a backyard chicken coop upgrade was in order. The coop that came with our property was starting to rot and let predators in at night. We watched on our coop cam as a racoon pushed through the rotten coop floor, walking around the coop in the middle of the night, terrorizing our "girls" and we knew we had to make a change asap!
Coop Break In
Backyard Chicken Coop
My husband built them a brand new coop from scratch, thanks to a great chicken coop plan we found on Etsy. It's a great solid, straight forward, tough and well insulated little coop. We will have another post up soon showing the construction of our new chicken coop.
The "girls" were fans of the new coop going up from the start. The finished product gave them a fresh, new home we didn't have to worry much about summer through winter. It's kept them cozy and safe at night.
Backyard Chicken Care
Maybe some of you reading this post are thinking that chickens are really high maintenance animals to care for. On the contrary, they are not super high maintenance. You need to feed them, keep their coop clean, make sure they always have fresh water and food and keep them safe from predators by always locking them in at night. We always lock them in their coop at night. It's a must to keep them safe from nocturnal predators. In order to make this easier for us, without a big hassle, we got them an automatic coop door and it's been a game changer for us. No more worrying about weather they're safe at night. I always peek at the coop cam at night just to make sure the door has closed and do a head count, but 99% of the time, they're all there and the door is closed to keep them safe at night.
We love this coop door and highly recommend it if you're wanting the same security.
Are Chickens High Maintenance?
My personal opinion is no, chickens are not high maintenance. They do require care and dedication but are fairly self sufficient once you get them established. You can reduce your maintenance load with a few simple steps when setting up your chicken coop.
- Use an automatic coop door opener. This keeps you from having to go to your chickens every morning and night to open their door for them.
- Use cameras to keep an eye on them. We have an outdoor wireless camera in our chicken run and one inside the coop so we can count and monitor them anytime. This also helps you identify any predators that may have come by to check things out.
- Get poultry feeders and waterers that hold quite a bit. You will need to closely monitor these still but it will reduce your daily maintenance.
Chicken Love
I've heard chicken keepers say, once you have chickens, you'll never not want to have chickens. I thought that sounded a bit ridiculous, but I get it now! I'm a chicken Mama & a chicken fan now too. There's something calming about their little cackles when they see you walking towards them. Some squat down at your feet, almost as if they're asking for a petting. They're stress and anxiety relievers, they make people smile and give comfort to lonely seniors. Animals have shown us time and time again how fulfilling they can be in our lives. Believe it or not, chickens are in that category as well; they are animals that can soothe us humans' restless souls.
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