Getting Started with Backyard Chickens

So you want to own backyard chickens?

Getting started with backyard chickens is easier than you think it is. These little animals will bring so much meaning and purpose to your everyday life, and you don’t have to have land or a homestead to have them.

One of the first things you need to do before you get backyard chickens is to find your vision. Having a goal and knowing your “why” from the get go is only going to positively affect your backyard chicken experience.

Here’s something to think about- if your only reason for getting chickens is to save money on eggs, you will be disappointed. You will need other reasons fueling your journey, and saving money is not one of them (at least in the beginning).

Find Your Vision

Chickens do give us eggs. But they are so much more than that. These chickens are one of the reasons I get up in the morning. They are enriching my soil and my families life. They keep pests and bugs at bay. My chickens are so good at tilling the dirt for my garden patches. They are our “garbage disposals” and we are keeping excess food out of the landfill and our garbage disposal. Chickens were the gateway to farming and gardening for me. They make me laugh on a daily basis, and I truly just love these animals so much. It’s hard not to name them, they have become an integral part of what we are doing here on our homestead.

They are paving the way for stability and sustainability for our family and many others. They also give us a huge portion of meals for the year. We roast a chicken every week from our freezer stash, and we eat eggs almost every single day for breakfast. I put a raw yolk into my coffee. I whip eggs into mayo and fresh pasta. The more hens we have accumulated, the more I find myself eating eggs. We used to buy a dozen or two for the week. Now we consume about 6-8+ eggs a day and the health benefits have been incredible. These are my “whys”, and you have to discover yours for your specific family! I will tell you— they will change your life.

Before I begin on some of the ways to get started with backyard chickens, I just want you to know that there are a lot of ways to do a lot of things with chickens. There isn’t one “set” way, and you may find yourself taking a few bits here and there from this post. You may have other ways you’ve found to raise chickens that work better for your living situation and climate. There is no way that one blog post can totally encompass all of the options for raising backyard chickens. I am going to tackle your biggest questions, simplify the basics for you, and as always- answer any questions you have in the comments! I also addressed some of the benefits of having chickens in this post, so go check that out as well!

Find Your Flock

Chicks

Most people start researching chickens and assume that you naturally have to start with chicks. Let me tell you, friend, this is far from the truth! And I personally disagree with the idea of starting with chicks for someone who is completely new to the world of chickens. But you also can if you want to! It’s totally up to you and your families goals.

Chicks take anywhere from 16-20 weeks to start actually laying eggs. That is 4-5 months. This is a long time to invest for things to go wrong. It is a long time to feed them without the reward of eggs. Chicks are also a fairly big task to take on, as they take a lot more care than an adult chicken. I’m not discouraging you from going that route, just know that there are other options if that feels daunting. It did for me!

Places to Purchase Chicks

We have loved some local options for chicks such as Tractor Supply or Crooked Toe Farm in Pauline, SC. Craigslist is a fantastic option for you to see if anyone locally has chicks hatching or for sale. The local options are so fantastic, BUT, they do come with risks especially with sexing. Unless you are buying from a hatchery, you are not necessarily going to be guaranteed laying hens (female).

You will probably discover some roosters, and at that point you just have to accept that. You can sell roosters or just put them on the list for being a broiler chicken at some point. Roosters are also excellent protectors (I have two personally!), and they are not all bad. Roosters get a bad rap because they can be aggressive due to their protective nature. They are good protectors for the flock and are good to have around especially if you are free ranging your chickens.

Ordering chicks from a hatchery will almost always guarantee you what you order! We are ordering from McMurray Hatchery this year, and I am excited to try out their chicks. They have a lot of varieties available, and you can make sure that you get hens. We order our meat birds through Myers Poultry and had great success with that batch last fall. We ordered male cornish cross chickens through them for our meat birds. Just know that when you order chicks through a hatchery, it is not uncommon to lost 10% of your order within a few days due to demise. Even if you get chicks locally, death can happen just due to natural causes, and is considered normal.

Equipment for Chicks

I won’t be able to in detail explain all that needs to happen for raising chicks (that will be another blog post in the near future!), but you will need the following:

A safe, warm brooder (we used a storage plastic bin with a hardware cloth top)
A heat lamp
Small Feeders/Waterer
Bedding (pine shavings)
Chick Starter Feed (different than layer feed for adult chickens)

Pullets

Another option is to get pullets. These chickens are 10-16ish weeks old, and are not laying yet. This is how we started! It shaved off around 3 months of waiting and we only had to wait 2-3 months for them to lay eggs. Pullets are also much larger than chicks, don’t need heat lamps, and act just like big chickens. They need a little more protection and a watchful eye during this time.

I personally have had an issue with hawks at this phase and it’s more helpful to keep them close to your house especially if you have a dog. Our outdoor pup didn’t get placed with the chickens for a while (she’s great with them now), but even her scent has kept predators at bay. They are usually in the range of $20/per pullet, but also 3 months of not having to feed them, so think of that too.

I truly believe our chicken journey was as successful as it is now because of that decision to buy pullets. They are more expensive to buy them older than chicks, but it helped kick start our journey and was a great investment. We still have 5 out of 6 of those first chickens, and they continue to lay for us 2 years later.

Layers

Another option for getting backyard chickens is to get some already laying hens! Hens do slow down in laying around the age of 2 years old, but that also depends on the breed. You can often find these chickens on Craigslist or other farm pages locally. Getting hens that are already laying feels like such a win because you get that reward of eggs immediately. These birds usually run around $20-25 in my area.

Breeds

This is by no means a complete round up of all the chickens you could possibly get. But, I figured I would share which breeds have been productive for us! There are definitely a lot of really cute chickens out there, and sometimes the fun looking breeds don’t lay as well. So take this with a grain of salt and get the chickens you feel like you want to get!

Best Layers:

New Hampshire/Rhode Island Reds
Leghorns
Ameraucanas
Marans
Buff Orpingtons
Barred Rocks
Speckled Sussex
Isa Browns
Australorps

Best Meat Birds:

Cornish Cross
Bresse (dual purpose)
Big Red Broilers

Best Color Layers:

Black Copper Marans (deep chocolate brown)
Ameraucana (blue)
Easter Eggers (blue/greens)
Olive Eggers (olive/green)

Quantity

Chickens don’t lay every single day. Some breeds are better layers than others. See the above list for very consistent layers if having a good quantity of eggs is part of your goal! I would say to get about 4-5 chickens for every dozen/week that you’d like eggs. We have 21 hens and get about 10-12 eggs in the winter. Come summertime we will probably get 15-18 eggs a day with that number. Just for reference!

Shelter and Space

They need shelter of some kind, and a place to lay eggs. Preferably a place that isn’t incredibly drafty and protects them from the elements and predators. There are a lot of different ways to do this.

You could build your own coop out of scrap wood if you are good with building. Facebook marketplace and Craigslist always have coops for sale. You could buy a coop new. You could build or purchase a luxury chicken palace- the options are endless! I would budget around $200-300 for an average coop for 6 hens. I would go the route of getting one already made, because there are a lot of factors that you don’t know about until you have chickens. We personally got one locally, and have also built our own tractor and scored one off of marketplace. Chicken tractors are easy to build, but those are more for meat bird and garden chicken use.

Some qualifications for a your coop would need to include the following:

3 sq feet per chicken
A roosting bar in the coop
Nesting Box with nesting material/pine shavings
Fence, either electric or chicken wire for safety. They can roam free range, but predators are going to be an issue.
Space/Outdoor area

Feeding Your Backyard Chickens

Your backyard chickens will need food and water. They need vessels to hold the food and water, so you will need to look into getting some feeders/waterers. You could get a feeder and waterer for around $30 at Tractor Supply. You also could alternatively purchase a bucket and some nipples and create your own hanging waterer. You could also use an open dish for feed. I personally use a graduated feeder and waterer for my coops. You can check those out here! I would budget around $30-50 on feeder/waterers depending on how many chickens you plan to get.

I get an organic handmade mix locally from a trusted small family company called Reedy Fork Organics. You can get pelleted layer feed and then scratch feed to go along with it, or just do layer feed. Scratch feed will help keep them busy and provide extra nutrients. It will encourage them to forage and not be bored if their coop is stationary.

Scratch feed usually contains grains and cracked corn and seeds. Feed will cost you 1/3lb (sometimes more) per chicken per day- so do the math on that. We also feed our hens all of our kitchen scraps, and some of them free range and dig through our compost. Feeding them scraps alone is not necessarily the best, as they will require extra nutrients. If they don’t receive the proper nutrients, egg laying will become sparse. For 6 hens, you would need to budget out around 60-70lbs of feed a month. That will cost you about $42/ 50 lb bag for the reedy fork (locally), or in the $20-30 range for other 50 lb bag feed. Cost will vary by location, and you may need to do some hunting!

Extra Chicken Costs

Fencing

There are a few other expenses you might find yourself needing when you get chickens. For our property, we have chosen to keep our chickens on pasture in a safe manner. This would require electric netting. You won’t know you have foxes, skunks, racoons, bears, coyotes, etc until you get chickens. They will come out in droves when they find out that new animals have arrived. Predators can quickly become an issue especially in the night time hours when backyard chickens are most vulnerable. We went with Premier One Fencing for our birds, and have been incredibly happy with how well it has worked. The fencing is super good quality and is a huge area for our flock to forage safely. We have had zero predator issues with that fencing.

Hawk Deterrents

The only predator we have had an issue with is hawks. Hawks can be sneaky and quick. We ended up getting this reflector, a solar powered owl, and some reflective tape to help deter them away. After we got this whole combo set up, we have not had an issue with them since. You don’t have to use all of these products, but these have been what have helped us keep the hawks at bay. The trickiest time for hawk pressure is definitely in the pullet stage when the chickens are half grown. That is when we started having issues. I think it is because the chickens are small enough to be snatched up.

You don’t need all of these things, but you may find yourself having trouble with chicken loss soon into your journey if your backyard chickens are left more vulnerable. This is just a risk. There are a lot of ways to do a lot of things with chickens, and this setup might be a goal you start saving up for or working towards if you aren’t ready to commit and buy that equipment right off the bat.

Our family waited about a year to get all of this equipment, and suffered very little loss with a smaller quantity of chickens. We placed our first coop in the backyard near our dog’s area and just had chicken netting around it. Snakes and smaller animals get in, but thankfully no casualties from predators. The equipment has allowed us to reach our goal of safely raising pasture-raised organic meat birds to feed our family for the year. Just figure out your “why” and your goals, and start working towards those.

Bedding

Another fairly important chicken purchase is bedding. We do a deep-litter method with our chickens where we just pile on pine shavings and let everything below just compost. You’d be surprised as to how not-stinky it is if you do it correctly. Pine shavings (flake) have been a favorite for us as they are inexpensive and come in big bags at Tractor Supply. I would also suggest grabbing a bag of Diatomaceous Earth to spray in the coop as it is completely natural and good for keeping down flies, bugs, and lice in your coop.

I do this a few times a month especially in the summer when things are stinky and flies abound. We only clean out our coop 2-3 times a year with this deep litter method. It is awesome! I just dump the used pine shavings into the compost, and replace with new bedding in the spring and fall. During the year, weekly, I just layer on more pine shavings- super easy and inexpensive!

Our Backyard Chicken Routine

This part will vary depending on a lot of factors. I will explain my routine so that you can get a glimpse into how we do things here on our homestead, but it is very likely that your situation will be different and look different than mine.

Morning

In the morning as the sun is rising, I go out to let out the chickens. We have three coop situations (pasture chickens, garden chickens, and free range backyard chickens). The pasture chickens have this solar powered coop door that I cannot recommend enough. The other two spots I have to go physically let them out in the morning and put them up at night. I need to get some more automatic doors! They make life so easy. Many times, I will have saved scraps from dinner prep and leftover plate scraps into a mason jar and will take that out with me to throw to the chickens. I check their food and water, fill those up if needed, and then go about my day.

Afternoon

Mid-day, I will usually stroll out into the backyard with the kids. We interact with the free range chickens, and then go collect eggs in the afternoon. By this time most of the hens have laid their eggs for the day and we can collect them. Collecting eggs everyday does help keep broodiness away (hormonal desire to sit on eggs and hatch them for 21 days). We then make sure their food and water looks good, and go onto our next task.

Evening

As the sun goes down, chickens tend to roost for safety and essentially put themselves to bed. They get all cozy onto the roost racks and will go to sleep for the night. I make sure to do a head count and make sure everyone is there, and then I will lock up the coop every single night. I get too worried if I forget, and there are many-a-night at 10 pm that I will be running outside to quickly lock the coop before I fall asleep.

It is a quiet routine that ebbs and flows with the seasons. In the winter, I am getting them fresh water often as it will usually freeze overnight. In the summer I am more consistent with refreshing bedding due to flies. It is such a beautiful rhythm that gets me outside first thing in the morning and in the evenings. It feels sacred most mornings as I walk through the soft morning dew, listening to birds chirping and the world coming alive. And at night as the stars come out, I am able to breathe and just be out in nature at such a special time of the day. I still get giddy when I find a clutch of 6-8 eggs, it just feels so rich and special to be able to care for such beautiful creatures and simultaneously feed and nourish my family.

So, are backyard chickens right for you?

Only you can answer that question. There’s a lot I didn’t cover, and I will continue to post more information as time marches on. This was a lengthy post, but if you made it this far, I hope you learned something new about chickens that maybe you didn’t know before. I hope it sparked a little bit of confidence in you, and that maybe you will consider getting some of these amazing friends. They will change you for the better, I’ll tell you that much. And if you do decide to get some, I hope you know that I am here for any questions you might have. I love chatting about all things chickens, and there will be many conversations to come on them because they are just such a huge part of my family’s life. Comment below if this was helpful to you!