How To Raise Chickens In Your Backyard: 6 Tips For Raising Healthy Backyard Chickens

You’ve always liked the idea of farm life, and while you might not be able to have a sprawling estate, you can have something close to it in your backyard. Yes, you can raise chickens. They can provide eggs for you, which you can use in a variety of ways. They also take care of a lot of pests, and their manure is an excellent fertilizer. You can use their egg shells for compost, too.  But you want to do it right. Here’s how you can raise chickens in your backyard. 

6 Tips To Raise Chickens In Your Backyard

1. Make Sure You Can Do It

There may be town ordinances in place that prevent you from having backyard chickens. If you can, see if there’s a limit to how many you can have. Also, check how much space you have in your yard. You’re going to need a henhouse or a chicken coop. Find out how large they are and measure that against your yard. You want the chickens to be safe from predators (including your own dogs and cats who are just following their own instincts) and bad weather. 

Feeding & Watering

2. Feed Them Right

You want to have happy, healthy chickens roaming around your yard. Nutrition plays a big part, since the food they eat will give them energy to live. It’s important that you give them the right chicken feed. Check to make sure that it’s age appropriate. Some food might be too big for chicks to swallow, and chick food won’t be enough for adults. Have separate feeding areas for adults and chicks. 

3. Make Sure They Have Clean Water

This is important, too. Contaminated water can be very dangerous for your chickens. Regularly check that the water is fresh and that nothing is in it that could make them sick, Dump any dirty water immediately and refill the containers. Hydrated chickens are healthy ones. 

Room To Grow

4. Make Sure They Have Space

You need to make sure this part is done right. Typically, you want a coop to have three square feet of space inside and roughly eight to ten feet outside. If you keep them too cooped up, then that can lead to disease and other issues. You want them to get plenty of sunlight each day, too. 

5. Make Sure They Have Company

You wouldn’t know it, but chickens are social birds. They need company around them, so you should get between three and six birds. When you raise chickens, it isn’t singular pet. Make sure you get a few, at least!

Safety Concerns

6. Make Sure They Are Safe

You’re going to want to get sturdy chicken fencing. This is necessary for two reasons. You want the chickens to be kept in their designated area. You also want to keep them safe from any predators. By getting the fencing, you’ll be covering both bases and not have to worry. 

Just getting started is going to cost you around $700, which isn’t too bad compared to some other animals. People like owning chickens,too, since they are relatively low maintenance. It’s just a matter of doing the above work to ensure that you have the best experience with raising chickens in your backyard. 

Be sure to practice good hygiene yourself. Chickens, like any other animal, can carry diseases. Be sure to wash your hands often after handling them, and especially after shoveling their manure. That can help keep you healthy, too. Then you can enjoy having your chickens. 

What tips do you have to raise chickens in your backyard?