4 Reasons You Should Get Chickens

Wondering if You Should Get Chickens?

In our opinion, everyone should get chickens! The benefits are innumerable, but we do have four top reasons why we believe chickens are worth your consideration.

Do you eat eggs?

Do you have food waste that you routinely throw away?

Are you aware of the poor welfare of factory farm hens?

Do you have a garden or yard?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you should definitely consider keeping chickens!

Why Chickens are Perfect for Beginners

Chickens are the best animal (in my opinion, of course) to start with when you are looking to take the first step toward self-reliance and food freedom. If you are beginning a homestead, they should be one of the first animals you get.

They are relatively easy to care for, produce eggs, and provide hours of entertainment through their antics.

Chickens are one of the most forgiving livestock species, perfect for beginners. They are very hardy, can self-feed if you go on vacation, eat kitchen and garden scraps (the ultimate recyclers!), and thrive in a huge range of conditions.

You don’t need much space for chickens, and chances are you can provide more space and compassion than commercially-producing hens receive.

If you decide you should get chickens, they will more than reward you as productive and entertaining members of your farm, homestead, or backyard!

Due diligence: you must check with your city to ensure you are permitted to have chickens or other livestock. Some areas have restrictions, so be warned!

You Should Get Chickens, Reason #1: Egg Production

If you eat eggs, you should get chickens. While other species are beginning to pick up steam with their egg production, such as ducks and quail, the vast majority of egg production for human consumption is by chickens.

As with all domestic animals, there are breeds of chickens that are better suited for some farm roles than others. Egg-laying breeds produce eggs at higher levels, while meat breeds grow quickly. Pet breeds include tiny bantams and other “fancy” chickens that don’t quite fit into either of the other categories.

Breeds used in commercial production at their prime will produce around 280-300+ eggs per year. That’s an egg almost every day.

You’d only need three chickens to have over a dozen eggs per week!

Depending on their breed, most chickens will lay brown, white, or blue eggs eggs. This does not change the nutrition of the egg.

Generally, if egg production is your main goal, you should get chickens that lay brown or white eggs. Blue egg layers tend to lay a little less frequently.

You should also know, chickens will not lay eggs consistently their entire lifetime. Chickens can live upwards of 10 years, but generally peak egg production is between 1-4 years old. Then it begins to decline slowly with age.

Egg Nutrition, Basically a Perfect Food

Not only are eggs versatile, a key part of many dishes, but they are one of the most nutritionally complete foods out there. To be able to have your own egg production in your backyard is a real food win!

Eggs have one of the most complete protein profiles of any single food for human consumption. Check out more nutritional facts here, but suffice it to say, they’re worth your effort!

There is evidence to support that free-range chickens, like those in your backyard, produce eggs with better nutrition than commercially produced eggs from chickens fed a standard diet.

The yolks and whites of homegrown eggs, are often starkly different when compared visually to commercial eggs.

The main differences usually are the homegrown eggs have a darker orange yolk and more firm egg whites. The orange yolk is based on the hen’s diet, more access to insects and other foraged foods lead to the prized egg yolk color. Thicker egg whites mean the egg is very fresh.

Egg Storage, Ditch the Fridge!

Whole eggs in their shells can last months with proper storage. Being able to collect your own fresh eggs right from your backyard is a real treat, and you can’t beat the quality!

Because you can manage the cleanliness of your nest boxes and your flock, you shouldn’t need to clean your eggs to the degree that commercial producers in the US do.

Commercial eggs are washed in chemicals to remove the germs that run rampant in overcrowded factory farms. This washing also removes the bloom, a coating on the egg that prevents bacteria from entering through the pores in the shell.

By not needing to wash off the bloom, you can store fresh eggs at room temperature for up to 3 MONTHS.

I know what you’re thinking, “that’s too good to be true.”

Eggs in European markets are handled in this manner. You will not find their eggs in the refrigerated section.

If your eggs are dirty and you’d like to wash them, use hot water. I run water over the egg and use my fingers to scrub away. Once washed, eggs should be stored in the refrigerator.

Remember, always wash your hands after any handling of chickens and their eggs!

How do I know if an egg’s gone bad?

We’ve all been there. Finding an egg outside of the nest box or forgetting about some eggs in the back of the refrigerator wondering “how old are these?”

I use a method called the float test.

Fill a container with water and place the egg in question in the container. The air sac (in the bigger rounded end of the egg) will enlarge over time as moisture escapes through pores in the shell. When this air sac gets big enough to make the egg float, it’s time to toss the egg.

You Should Get Chickens, Reason #2: Commercial Laying Hens Have Awful Welfare

Commercial laying hens have some of the worst animal welfare when it comes to modern agriculture.

Sadly, the American food industry is often so focused on increasing production of animal operations, that they forget that animals are sentient beings.

Laying hens in commercial operations generally have a living space the size of a sheet of standard letter paper.

One sheet of paper to live on.

For your whole life.

Chickens should not live in such confinement. They often develop behaviors that indicate high stress levels in these situations. Behaviors such as plucking feathers and pecking at each other can become so bad, that some operations will remove the tip of the beak on chicks so the birds can’t injure each other when they’re older.

Talk about treating the symptoms and not the problem…

When you get backyard chickens, you control how they are treated. You can provide clean space, entertaining activities for them, treats, and gentle compassion that the hens producing grocery store eggs will never know.

The eggs taste way better too.

But I Buy Cage-Free, Organic, and/or Pasture Raised Eggs

Okay, that’s a step in the right direction, but unfortunately it’s not as great as you may think.

Labels used to describe conditions of the animals in modern food operations are mostly just jargon. Let me break it down for you.

“Natural” means the product was minimally processed. It’s an egg, there’s not much processing to do.

“Organic” means the production’s impact on the environment was considered and approved as organic. While this is good, it doesn’t specify how much space the birds get or anything else about their quality of their life.

“Cage-Free” means hens have the ability to walk about a hen house. There are no space requirements. Hens often live in over-crowded conditions with poor quality of life.

“Pasture-Raised” and “Humane” are phrases that are not regulated. They are phony and don’t mean a single thing. Shocking right!?

So why not add a few chickens to your backyard, where you know they are getting the best life possible? They will reward you with the best eggs you’ve ever tasted and you’ll know for a fact what their welfare is like, no misleading labels needed!

If you can’t have your own chickens, consider buying eggs that are Certified Humane. Read more about their standards and other egg-carton labels through the link above.

You Should Get Chickens, Reason #3: Chickens are Amazing Recyclers

Chickens are the ultimate recyclers. We often have food scraps that would go to the compost or garbage before we had chickens. Our kitchen scraps are turned into delicious eggs! Win-win!

Remember, this is all in conjunction with providing a properly balanced regular diet. We feed our hens pelleted feed specifically designed for laying hens, and the scraps are just a bonus!

Chickens are omnivorous. We feed our ladies scraps of cooked meat on occasion (provided it isn’t poultry).

The only things we never feed our flock are: onions, garlic, raw potato scraps, candy, and poultry products.

We even save egg shells to give back to the hens, giving them an extra source of calcium to continue to make their egg shells strong.

Chickens have a very high body temperature, ranging from 105-107 degrees F. This helps ensure they don’t get sick from bacteria that would affect other animals. While it is not wise to feed them any spoiled foods, they can tolerate some of the more questionable items from your fridge, use your best judgement.

Remember when you feed them scraps to start slow. Sudden changes in any animal’s diet can upset their GI. If you have a lot of the same type of food to give them, for example a bag of expired tortillas, spread out the treats over a few days.

You Should Get Chickens, Reason #4: Garden and Chicken Symbiosis

As mentioned above, our chickens receive most of our food scraps instead of taking them to the compost.

This is not a loss for the garden though!

When we clean the chicken coop, we use their highly nutrient dense manure as a base for our compost pile. So the plants receive their scraps too, just digested and enhanced first!

When we raise meat chickens, we keep them in a chicken tractor on the lawn. Moving this enclosure, they have access to fresh grass every day. When they scratch the ground looking for bugs, our lawn gets de-thatched and the manure the chickens put down helps it grow back more lush and healthier than before.

Check out our post here about building our chicken tractor and permanent chicken coop.  

Our Chickens in the Garden

We also have a little door between our chicken run and our raised bed garden. When harvest season is over, we open the door and allow our flock into the garden. They quickly clean up any fallen blueberries, as well as scratch and turn the soil looking for insects.

We stand with them in the garden, making sure they stay together and don’t get into trouble. Chickens are endlessly entertaining to watch.

In fact, chickens are excellent at reducing insect populations including bad bugs like tomato cutworms.

Whenever I’m in the garden, especially when the blueberries are ripe, the ladies are at the fence waiting for any treats I might find for them.

I will throw them the non-toxic weeds I’ve pulled (thus eliminating them from my garden, seeds and all) and any produce that doesn’t make the cut to come inside for our use.

Final Thoughts, Why Everyone Should Get Chickens

If you are able to have chickens where you live, you really should consider keeping a small flock.

The benefits to getting chickens are numerous.

• They give you delicious eggs, with quality beyond what you get in a store.
• Your chickens can have a great life. You can stop supporting factory farms and their mistreatment of hens.
• Your kitchen scraps and garden debris are now treats. The chickens will thank you by turning this “waste” into eggs.
• Chickens produce manure and will scratch up soil, powerful tools in promoting growth in your lawn and garden.
•  They are fun to watch and interact with, providing hours of entertainment and the ability to be closer to nature.

Okay, have we convinced you yet?

Watch out for our future post on keeping chickens for beginners, a complete crash-course in how to house, feed, and keep your chickens happy.

In the meantime, you can check out our behind the scenes look at how we built our first chicken tractor and the coop where our chickens live today.

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