Keeping chickens at home for eggs

You may be thinking about keeping chickens at home as an added stream of income, or a way to ensure that the eggs you feed your family are produced in an environmentally sound way.

“Why not?”, you say when people ask you what you’re thinking, “it can’t be much harder than keeping a dog”. Think again.

There are numerous reasons not to keep chickens at home, either as pets or producers.

First, while you may think that your yard is appropriately sized for a chicken coop, you may not actually have enough space to raise your chickens. This is of particular concern to those of you who might be aiming for “free range” status, or as close as possible.

Additionally, chickens produce a large amount of foul-smelling waste that must be disposed of. This problem can be compounded if you only have a small area in which to raise your poultry, leading to a highly contaminated patch of lawn that will make your neighbors cringe at the next neighborhood BBQ.

The manure does make great fertilizer, but if you can’t use it all yourself you’ll have to handle transporting the waste to a gardener/farmer who can.

Finally, your local regulations may not even allow chickens to be kept in your backyard or garden. After you try to lobby the city council/ mayor for code changes to allow your feathered friends to reside in your backyard, and hit the brick walls that are small town bureaucracy, you may have a new answer to why the chicken crossed the road – to get away from city ordinances.

There are many good reasons to keep chickens, but be sure you are well-informed about care, production, and local rules and regs before you embark on poultry ownership… else you risk more than just a few broken eggs.