Chickens are a type of livestock, which often makes people think of huge, smelly commercial poultry barns. Will your backyard smell the same? Are laying hens big, stinky, poop machines? Are the eggs worth it? If you have never owned chickens nor been around them, you may wonder if they are easy or hard to keep. Let me share some pictures and reassure you that chickens are EASY to own – almost as easy as an outside cat!
Tell Me the Truth: Are Chickens Easy or Hard to Keep?
Keeping chickens – especially laying hens – is genuinely easy! The hardest part about first getting chickens is building a safe, secure, predator-proof chicken coop for them. (Tip: Do NOT use chicken wire, you need to use hardware cloth.)
Chickens are Easier to Keep than a Dog!
Hens live outside in a coop where they enjoy eating grass, weeds, seeds, bugs, spiders and all the fruit & veggie scraps from your kitchen. UV radiation from sunlight naturally kills bacteria and open-air breezes whisk away any smells from a small flock. The hens will need food and water refilled once daily, with the waterer washed out regularly, similar to what an outside cat requires. The hens will busy themselves with the work of scratching and pecking for seeds and bugs that wander into their run. At sunset, they instinctively put themselves to bed, safely roosting up on the roost bars inside their coop. They are one of the easiest livestock animals to own!
How Much Do Chickens Eat?
Bantam (miniature) chickens eat about 1/4 cup of chicken feed per day. Standard size hens, also called full-size hens, eat about 1/2 cup of chicken feed per day. Since a cup of chicken feed weighs about 8 ounces (1/2 pound), a 40 pound bag of chicken feed will contain about 80 cups of feed. This will feed 4 standard size chickens for 40 days or 6 chickens for 26 days. If your flock is able to free range around your yard or is fed kitchen scraps or garden weeds, they will eat slightly less feed.
How Much Do Chickens Stink?
Chickens produce two different kinds of poop. The most common one is round, greenish and often has a bit of white in it. This is literally bird poop, much like wild bird poop, and has very little odor. Fresh air breezes whisk any smell away and they break down quickly. The second type of droppings chickens produce is cecal poop, which is how they rid oily waste from their body. Cecal poop is a liquid that is brown in color and resembles diarrhea. It contained expelled oils and fats and can be smelled from a couple feet away. I use a natural zeolite mineral product called Sweet PDZ to instantly absorb and stop chicken dropping smells. (Afflink) You can read more in-depth about chicken stink and odor control in this article. The short answer is that chicken poops do have some smell but it is very easy to control by not overcrowding and using products like mulch and Sweet PDZ that naturally absorb the odor.
How Much Space do Chickens Need?
If you want a low-odor coop, each bird should have 8-10 inches of roost bar space and 10 square feet of coop + run space where she is exposed to fresh outside air and sunlight in the run. UV radiation in sunlight will quickly kill odor causing bacteria and droppings that make ground contact will break down rapidly. When purchasing chicken coop building plans, make sure to look at the linear feet of roost bar space and the coop square footage plus the run square footage when calculating how many hens the coop can comfortably house.
How Much Noise Do Laying Hens Make?
When a hen lays an egg, she sings what is called an “egg song”. It is the classic Bawk-Bawk-Ba-GAWK sound we learned in childhood. The hen is not quiet about the accomplishment of laying her egg and she can be as loud as a 50 pound barking dog! The egg song passes quickly, usually ending within 60 to 90 seconds, but each hen will do this every day as she lays an egg and sometimes her friends join in! You won’t be able to keep a flock of laying hens completely silent. A small flock of only 3 or 4 individuals will be quieter than a flock of 8 to 12 hens so noise can be controlled in part by the number of hens you keep.
How Often Does a Hen Lay an Egg?
Each hen needs 26 to 30 hours for her body to produce and lay an egg. This will vary by hen. Young hens will lay eggs more often than hens who are 2+ years old. Mediterranean breeds, like Leghorns, who are bred to be egg layers will lay more eggs per year than dual-purpose breeds, who lay more eggs than heavy bodied breeds, like Brahmas. You can expect 4 to 6 eggs per week from each hen. You’ll notice the time of day she lays her egg will become later and later in the day. She will then have a “skip day” every five to seven days where she does not lay an egg one day but does lay an egg early in the morning on the next day. (This skip day is a product of the hen’s natural 26 to 30 hour egg cycle.)
How Do I Get Chickens Who Lay Colored Eggs?
There are a number of breeds and hybrids whose bodies naturally produce an egg that comes out blue, green, olive, or dark brown. This is controlled by the hen’s genetics and is something that hatcheries and breeders can breed for. If you’re new to colored egg laying chickens, hatcheries offer Easter Egger and Olive Egger chicks that will give you a great start towards building a rainbow egg basket! You can even find heavy bloom laying hens who produce eggs that can appear lavender or pink. Take a peek at our list of hatcheries offering the best colored egg layer chicks!
Are there Any Secrets that Make Chicken Keeping Easier?
Yes! Here are some of my favorite tips:
• Always use hardware cloth on your coop and run. Do not use chicken wire! Raccoons can rip through chicken wire and snakes can slither right through chicken wire. Neither can fit through 1/2 inch hardware cloth!
• Feed your hens kitchen scraps and treats in the late afternoon/early evening. Any noises they make when they see you with treats will be easily overlooked by families busy with their own dinner time cooking and evening activities. This is also the ideal time to collect the eggs they have laid that day.
• Sweet PDZ, which is granules of the natural mineral zeolite, is human/child/pet/garden safe and can be used as a litter by itself inside a small coop! It is like a fine cat litter in texture and you can scoop chicken poops from it if you want a coop with absolutely zero odors. (Afflink)
Chickens are NOT Hard to Keep!
I was pleasantly surprised to discover my first flock of chickens was not hard to keep and care for. Several of my neighbors have their grade school children do most of the daily chicken chores, such as refilling feeders, collecting eggs, adding a handful of straw to nest boxes and refilling waterers. Checking to ensure the waterers remain clean and that predators have not torn any wire around the coop only require a quick glance. Once a month you will need to clean out a bit of litter and droppings, which naturally begin to break down in the coop or run and don’t smell as bad as dog or cat poop.
I hope this article has reassured you that chickens are both easy and delightfully fun to keep. You’re going to LOVE fresh backyard eggs from hens who eat a wholesome diet!
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