Great Depression Chicken Keeping

My Great-Grandmother Arva was born in 1899 and turned 30 the year the stock market crashed in 1929. As the United States was plunged into the Great Depression, she adeptly managed the family farmhouse in rural Dicey Community, Texas. She planted a sprawling garden and kept chickens through the Great Depression, and for decades beyond. Here are the family stories about her Great Depression chicken keeping and how the flock kept her family fed:

Great Depression Era Chicken Keeping

In the 1930’s families were either still living on the family farm or were only one generation removed from an agrarian lifestyle. Chickens are compact and easy to keep, which made them a very important source of protein for both rural land owners and those who lived closer into town on smaller lots. My Great-grandmother Arva kept a large breeding flock on their 10 acre farm.

chicks inside antique wood and wire handmade crate

Chickens Can Feed Themselves

When turned out into a fenced yard or pasture area, chickens set right to work scratching, pecking and hunting for the bugs, spiders, seeds and tender green weeds they love to eat. For this reason they were an asset to every family during the Great Depression because they had almost zero feed cost. When chickens are turned completely loose to feed themselves over unimpeded multiple acres of farmland it is called free ranging. When let out into a fenced, grassy pasture area that provides a bit more protection against predators, this is called pasture fed or pasture raised. In both cases chickens spend most of their day hunting for spiders, digging for bugs and sprouted seeds or nipping off the sweetest tender green weed tips.

A man scatters scratch grain for his large flock of White Leghorns in Texas, 1930's Great Depression Chicken Keeping — A man scatters scratch grain for his large flock of White Leghorns in Texas, 1930’s. Image source: Library of Congress

What Were Chickens Fed?

If you happened to keep chickens in a fenced barnyard or chicken yard and needed to provide some supplemental calories, kitchen scraps, garden weeds, clippings, and any spilled grains were regularly tossed to the chickens. Commercial poultry feed did not yet exist so chickens (and other livestock) were fed dried cracked corn, sorghum grain heads, and whole grains, such as wheat berries or whole oats (oat groats). If you lived near a mill where grain was ground into flour, sweepings of spilled grain from the floor may be available for purchase as chicken scratch. My father remembers his grandmother (my great-grandmother Arva) had saved old fabric chicken scratch grain bags, which would have been a pricey but available option during the Great Depression.

A woman and her daughter collect eggs from a classic hen house in 1930's era South Carolina. — A woman and her daughter collect eggs from a classic hen house in 1930’s era South Carolina. The rows of corn growing in the field behind them were likely used for animal feed. Image source: Library of Congress

Home Grown Corn for Animal Feed

If a farming family had enough land, they would grow corn for animal feed. Dent corn, grown for feed, is different than sweet corn grown for human consumption. Dent corn would be allowed to dry in the field and then harvested. The corn stalks would be cut, bundled, and fed to cattle in addition to hay and other fodder. If they produced enough corn for the chickens, it was used sparingly. Women would select a rooster or old hen to keep cooped up and feed that bird only corn for up to two weeks, fattening the bird for harvest. A couple handfuls of scratch grain (mixed grains or cracked corn) could be used to entice the chickens to come back into the fenced chicken yard or coop in the evening.

Hens on roosting bars, made of sapling tree trunks, inside a chicken coop in Vermont, 1939. Image source: Library of Congress

How Chickens Slept

Chickens will put themselves to bed at dusk, going into their coop and jumping up on the roost bars to sleep at night. They do this naturally without being forced, once they understand the coop is their home. This “training” requires keeping the birds inside the coop for 3 days when first added and then they will return to that coop to sleep forever after. Since everything eats chicken, it was the responsibility of someone in the family to go collect the eggs and close up the chicken coop right at dusk so the birds were kept safe. If this task was forgotten, a raccoon, opossum, bobcat, fox, or neighbor’s dog may slaughter the entire flock.

a White Leghorn hen with white feathers — White Leghorns have a big floppy red comb. This breed of hen lays white eggs and a lot of them! Up to 300 per year per hen.

Chicken Breeds Mattered

My Great-grandmother Arva kept White Leghorns. They are a Mediterranean breed, bred for high egg production. Their lighter weight bodies handle the sizzling Texas heat well. Although not originally bred for meat production, my Great-grandmother regularly harvested all the unwanted roosters and old laying hens for fried chicken, roast chicken and soup. She believed they tasted better than other breeds they had tried and she kept a breeding flock of White Leghorns for decades after the Great Depression.

An excerpt from the 1891 book The Excelsior Poultry Book, which advised the best chicken breeds to keep for various reasons and climate. Breeds suggested were Leghorns, Hamburgs, Plymouth Rocks, Wyandottes and Cochins or Brahmas for winter layers. — An excerpt from the 1891 book The Excelsior Poultry Book, which advised the best chicken breeds to keep for various reasons and climate. This would have been helpful advice that farming families relied on. Click the image to view a digital copy of the book in full. Image source: archive.org

A woman feeds a young flock of Barred Plymouth Rock chickens on a Great Depression era farm in Indiana, 1938. The cockerels (males) are lighter colored than the slightly darker looking pullets (females). Image source: Library of Congress

Great Depression Chickens: Dual Purpose Breeds Shined

Many farming families kept flocks of dual purpose breed birds. Barred Plymouth Rocks (now simply called Barred Rocks) were a popular choice, as were White Plymouth Rocks. Many keepers felt the Plymouth Rocks produced a good quantity of eggs, would occasionally sit (hatch out chicks) so as to replenish the flock and when harvested, dressed out at a large size for the table. White Wyandottes became popular as boilers, which are chickens raised for meat, but they also laid fairly well at 200 eggs per year. Silver Laced and Gold Laced varieties were visually appealing and also popular. Big, beautifully golden Buff Orpingtons rounded out the list of favorite American dual purpose breeds during this time period but since hens were more prone to going broody, egg production may drop unless you kept a large flock. (Hens do not continue to lay eggs while they sit on eggs and raise chicks. They take 6-8 weeks to come back into lay, and sometimes longer.)

An improvised chick warmer made from an upturned old wash tub with an electric light and a slit cut out in the front trapped heat from the light bulb to keep chicks warm. Maryland, 1930's — An improvised chick warmer made from an upturned old wash tub with an electric light and a slit cut out in the front trapped heat from the light bulb to keep chicks warm. Maryland, 1930’s. Image source: Library of Congress

Where Are the Rhode Island Reds?

One of today’s most popular dual purpose breeds is the Rhode Island Red. The mahogany colored birds were not exhibited by this name until 1895, four years after the above mentioned book was published. But by 1930, farming families absolutely were keeping these friendly, highly productive red hens!

A woman in Colorado feeding a mixed flock of chickens which appears to include Rhode Island Red hens. Image source: Library of Congress

A woman has scattered scratch grains for her free range chicken flock in Kansas, 1930's. — A woman has scattered scratch grains for her free range chicken flock in Kansas, 1930’s. Image source: Library of Congress

Why So Many White Chickens?

White feathered chickens, when plucked, produce a cleaner looking carcass. Any developing feathers that are still deep in the skin follicle are white, which blends in with the translucent-like whitish skin color many chicken breeds have. This is why almost all commercial poultry raised to supply today’s grocery stores are also white feathered birds.

A girl feeds a flock of white pullets in Coffee County, Alabama (1939). Image source: Library of Congress

Great Depression Chicken Keeping & Gardening

Chickens use their feet to dig up soil, scratching to unearth bugs. This natural activity is wonderful for turning compost but can ruin a vegetable garden in a single day. If the garden and fields were not fenced, the chicken yard had to be. Chicken wire was invented in the mid-1800’s to keep chickens out of vegetable gardens. Great-Grandmother Arva opted to have a fenced garden and let the chickens free range over the rest of the farm.

Great Depression black & white image of man & woman harvesting veggies from a large 1/4 acre fenced garden on a farm — This fenced garden, photographed in 1939 Kansas, would have fed the owner’s family and provided enough to bottle or can some in glass jars. Garden fencing was necessary to keep chickens, hogs, and cattle out of the vegetable patch. Image source: Library of Congress

Great Depression era black & white image of a man in an orchard — A Great Depression era orchard in Cache County, Utah. Image source: Library of Congress

Chickens Were Helpful in the Orchard

Many family farms had small orchards and the occasional berry patch. My Great-Grandmother Arva had 7 fruit trees and 6 pecan trees in their orchard. Chickens will not harm established trees and were welcome in the orchard where they ate the bugs that could be harmful to the fruit trees. Fruit that was damaged by squirrels, wild birds or windfall was also fair game for the chickens to eat if they found it on the ground.

black & white image of a man holding a large basket of about 100 white chicken eggs — Eggs laid and collected in Waterloo, Nebraska. Image source: Library of Congress

Great Depression Chicken Keeping: Selling Eggs

Money was tight. Families did what was needed to in order to make finances work. This included selling as many eggs as the hens would lay to people in town who were not able to keep chickens on their smaller lots. Those with farms alongside main thoroughfares between cities would simply set up a roadside stand. In-town residents knew they could take a quick drive to the rural outskirts with a couple coins and come home with fresh eggs.

A woman collecting eggs from nesting boxes inside a chicken coop in 1935. Image source: Library of Congress

Cash Was Scarce

During the Great Depression, people were careful with their money and slow to spend it, if they had cash at all. Many could not get their money out of the shuttered banks. Americans witnessed a deflationary crash. Benjamin Roth, in his Great Depression Diary, recorded that in January 1933 fresh eggs were 20¢ per dozen. By April of the same year, fresh eggs were 11¢ per dozen and could be purchased along the road near his Ohio home. (The Great Depression: A Diary, pages 86 and 113.) Even at less than a penny per egg, farming families were glad to have the coins. This income was used to pay mortgages, property taxes, and buy the most basic grocery staples, like baking soda, if there was anything left over.

Great Depression era image of a woman with baskets of collected eggs in her kitchen in Ohio — A woman with baskets of collected eggs in her kitchen in Ohio, 1940. Image source: Library of Congress

Did People Go Hungry?

Those who lived on farms, kept chickens or other livestock, and were accustomed to growing much of their own food did not generally experience starvation. In Great-Grandmother Arva’s community, people were mostly eating what they produced in their back gardens. They were self-sufficient because they had to be. In Stories of Survival, there are accounts of families in drought-stricken areas subsisting on so little food that children cried from hunger (page 11). The Dust Bowl states did have families who were malnourished or starving. North-central Texas received enough rainfall that the farm and orchard produced and my Great-Grandmother Arva was able to keep my Grandmother (her only child) fed.

Great Depression black & white image of Children help care for young cockerels and pullets in a grow-out pen on a farm in Alabama. — Children help care for young cockerels and pullets in a grow-out pen on a farm in Alabama. Children living on successful family farms with good rainfall were the least likely to starve. Image source: Library of Congress

Food in Place of Money

“People made do with what they had. And because cash money was scarce, families accepted a variety of garden produce in place of currency, such as home-cured meat, chickens, watermelons, fruit, eggs, butter and milk, turnips and turnip greens. Even a cow.” (Stories of Survival, page 11.)

Chickens definitely helped families remain properly nourished and able to barter-pay some of their expenses. Doctors were often paid in food, preserves, livestock, or produce.

Great Depression era image of A woman, her son, and the farm puppy feed a self-sustaining flock of laying hens and chicks at a farm in Missouri, 1938 — A woman, her son, and the farm puppy feed a self-sustaining flock of laying hens and chicks at a farm in Missouri, 1938. Image source: Library of Congress

What if it Happened Again?

If the US were to face anything like the Great Depression, there are steps you could take to help your family, no matter where you live. We already know from serious economic hardships in places like Venezuela and 1980’s Poland that families reported they had to produce their own food. Learning to garden and how to care for chickens is a wonderful step to take. If you live where chickens cannot be kept, I highly suggest considering sweet, gentle Coturnix quail who lay eggs that bake and taste like chicken eggs. They are legally classified as game birds, not poultry, so they are allowed in HOA neighborhoods throughout the United States.

If you enjoyed this article on Great Depression chicken keeping and want to read more family stories about this era, click to view the Great Depression Stories archive.

*A special thank you to my father, Allen, the only grandchild of my Great-Grandmother Arva, for saving our family stories so they could be shared here.*

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