Optimizing Your Urban Homestead with Backyard Chickens

[RedR49]

The Backyard Chickens

The Backyard Chickens gives you information about raising chickens in the city. We try to provide information to help you have a successful and enjoyable time raising your chickens.

 

[lisab]

We live in a neighborhood that has CC&Rs that don't allow chickens . Too bad, because I love them. We had them at our old house...so comical! Each had its own personality and quirks.

Never ate the meat, only the eggs. In the long summer days, we'd sometimes get 7 eggs from our 6 chickens! I never could figure out who the over-achiever was, though.

But after a certain age they don't lay eggs anymore - they go through henopause .

 

[GeorginaS]

We live in a neighborhood that has CC&Rs that don't allow chickens . Too bad, because I love them. We had them at our old house...so comical! Each had its own personality and quirks.

Never ate the meat, only the eggs. In the long summer days, we'd sometimes get 7 eggs from our 6 chickens! I never could figure out who the over-achiever was, though.

But after a certain age they don't lay eggs anymore - they go through henopause .

Are you really allowed a chicken achievement joke and a chicken pun all in one post?

 

[Kerrie]

I can't wait until the day I can raise chickens for eggs! Although I have heard they stink a lot.

 

[Evo]

I can't wait until the day I can raise chickens for eggs! Although I have heard they stink a lot.

If they are allowed to roam during the day, you don't have the smell from manure. They don't poop where they lay, at least that has been my experience and oddly I have spent many years around chickens at farms. My grandmother also had chickens at her place. They laid their eggs in little nooks in the stone walls of the barn.

 

[lisab]

If they are allowed to roam during the day, you don't have the smell from manure. They don't poop where they lay, at least that has been my experience and oddly I have spent many years around chickens at farms. My grandmother also had chickens at her place. They laid their eggs in little nooks in the stone walls of the barn.

Yes that's usually true, they like to keep a clean nest.

It's best to let them roam free. Such a nice sight to look out your kitchen window and see a few hens scratching and pecking in the yard!

If you have to keep them penned up, it's a good idea to give them clean wood chips to stand on, to control the smell. Cedar works best but pine will do. They'll scratch through the chips to get to the mud, though. Nothing you can really do about that, it's their natural behavior.

 

[Andre]

It's best to let them roam free. Such a nice sight to look out your kitchen window and see a few hens scratching and pecking in the yard! ...

My sister has hens on the chateau. That looks to be a rather accurrate clock. At 9:00am they start walking a little path into the woods, at 10:30 they enter the grass field. At noon they are pecking around the pond. At 3pm they enter the horse area and at 7pm they are all back in the pen, which can be locked then for the night.