We are finally considering getting a few chickens because the cost of organic eggs keeps going up. Any advise on feeding and raising chickens so we can have our own organic eggs (not certified of course). Any advise on a great feed? Do you find it worth it cost wise?ANy other chicken raising advise for a total newbie
You will spend more on feed than you will save on eggs. BUT, free range chickens really help with flies and bugs, they “spread” horse poop piles for you, and the eggs are oh so delish :yes:
Organic chicken feed costs a fortune (I buy regular feed) but chickens are so much fun to keep and the fresh eggs are excellent. Check out www.backyardchickens.com for everything you will ever need to know about chickens.
I hear you on organic egg prices - currently selling at Whole Foods for $.70 apiece = >$8/doz :eek:
As a fairly recent City-to-Farmgirl convert (11yrs on my farmette as of this March :D) I got chickens mainly for Poop Patrol in my pastures.
And discovered just how much fun they are.
Amazing how much personality resides in about 5# of feathers.
And the eggs…O.M.G! the eggs <insert drool icon>
I currently have 4 hens & plan on adding a couple more this Spring.
The 3 oldest will be 6 this year & are still laying almost daily - I average 2-3 eggs each day.
I feed Nutrena pellets (they waste the crumbles) - 16% protein - a 50# bag costs $12 & lasts me over a month.
I supplement with kitchen scraps & spoil with cooked oatmeal w/plain yogurt every morning.
Yes, my girls are spoiled rotten.
But the amusement value is worth the effort.
They will come running for treats and trust me, nothing is funnier than watching a hen “fly”.
Of all my critters they are the least effort to care for.
I bed them on shavings, and once a year - in Spring - sweep out the old, dust the floor with Sevin for lice/tick control & put down fresh shavings.
In between I use a catbox scoop to remove poop daily - takes all of 5min.
I freerange, meaning I open the coop door & they wander my 5ac all day, then put themselves to bed when the sun goes down.
My coop is a converted metal shed. The previous owners kept poultry too, so I benefited from some homemade partitions they left behind.
I scavenged some largish - 3"dia. - branches & stripped the bark to use for roosts - 5yrs later they are still good. Fruit crates serve as nestboxes.
Shed also had a small chicken-wire screened door leading to a fenced yard.
I had to refence, but that was relatively inexpensive & gives me a place I can let them out when I don’t want them wandering.
My only advice is to fuggedabout getting a rooster.
I know there are some who are nice - a friend has a stunningly beautiful, huge Ameraucana guy with spurs at least 5" long, that she can carry around like a lapdog.
But my experience was an Oops - got him as a dayold chick and although he was gorgeous, when puberty hit he became a total Asshat, attacking me & any visiting friends who dared look at him crosswise.
He would have been soup if a fox hadn’t got him first.
That brings me to my one caution:
If you plan on letting them freerange, be prepared for some heartbreak.
Besides the %$^*! rooster, fox got 2 of my hens, including my Pet Chicken - the froofy Houdan who followed me like a puppy.
Another hen got mauled by a wandering dog - no visible wounds, but she was dead about a week later.
And sometimes they just drop dead - an otherwise healthy 3yo hen started looking unwell & within a week she was gone.
Unless you can find a vet that treats exotics, don’t expect your small animal or horse vet to treat poultry.
All that said:
Come to the Dark & Feathery Side!
Don’t worm them and don’t give them medicine if they get sick and feed them all your organic kitchen scraps.
Don’t buy medicated chick starter; there is a non-medicated version.
If you only have a few, just don’t buy commercial feeds and mix your own.
If you’re not THAT dedicated to the organic, just go buy them a $15 bag of feed to supplement all their scraps and forage. The “non-organic” part of chicken feed is the soybean and corn; are you avoiding that in all forms for yourself too? If not, then make it easier on yourself and just go buy some chicken feed. :yes:
Best way to learn about chickens is to just go get some chicks, a heat lamp, and jump in. Had at least 20 at all times for nearly 20 years now, they’re a hoot and a lot of fun and the eggs are the best!
TwoDogs - I’m glad to hear you mention your attrition rate. I started with 12 last spring and still have eight. Mine free-range over my 50 acres (although they generally stay within sight of the house 
) and I lock them up at night after they put themselves to bed. I remember a lady on BYC saying she’d only lost two in twenty years or something like that but this has not been my experience.
Still way worth it though, OP. I don’t stress about organic - I just buy Layena (and before that, non-medicated Start n Grow) and let them eat whatever else they can find on the farm. They love my old horse, who drops a lot of feed.
I had fewer flies last year than I can ever remember. I don’t use any kind of feed through or other kind of insecticide except spray for the horse when I ride. I’ve found I have fewer bugs that way because it encourages natural predators.
And the eggs are phenomenal. Bright orange yolks. Fantastic for baking. And now storebought eggs seem kind of tasteless and like a pale imitation of the real thing.
I have lots of eggs though. I started with four Rhode Island Reds, four Barred Rocks and four black sex links. By fall I was getting a dozen eggs a day. Since it’s just me and DH we were practically sneaking eggs into people’s cars in parking lots. :lol: But now with only eight hens and the short winter days we’re down to a more manageable haul. As it turns out, my local food bank would accept fresh eggs so if I get more hens I’ll know what to do with the surplus.
Maybe it’s because of the area I’m in, but organic & non-GMO chicken feed can be had from several brands, and it’s in the $30/bag range. I haven’t priced out chicken feed for a while, but I think the non-organic stuff is more like $16-18/bag? Worth it, for me.
I had ducks, so slightly different, but they really don’t eat too much of the bagged feed if you’re supplementing with free-ranging and regular table scraps/vegetable trimmings.
That being said, it’s not going to save you any money vs just buying the eggs from the store, unless you are eating far more eggs than the average person. :lol: Meanwhile, it’s just another area of the yard that you have to shovel 4’ of snow out of, at least in my area!
Also, I got really attached to my ducks and it was heartbreaking when they would die. Basically EVERYTHING that roams the planet wants to eat them, so I was constantly stressing about netting and wires and secure housing. I lost a big fat Pekin to what I can only assume was a heart attack, and that was sad enough, so when a hawk got my favorite Harlequin, I gave the rest away to a friend who gets less attached. But that’s just me. I understand that not everyone raises their babies in the corner of their kitchen for a month and gets overly attached. :lol:
I’m surprised I wasn’t more upset over losing four of my hens, since I’m awful about getting attached.
I think it helps to get breeds that all look alike so you can’t tell them apart. My BSLs are the only breed I have that I can tell one hen from another, because they have different markings. The RIRs and BRs are pretty much identical.
Also, I remind myself that, as chicken lives go, mine had it pretty darn good while they were on the planet.
The hens that set and have chicks produce little hens that set and have chicks so we are on generation 3 now. The roo seems to produce more roos than hens so we have a batch of very handsome future roasters out there. My heart’s been broken so many times by foxes, and raccoons and even possums and neighbor dogs too that I just can’t bring myself to dote on them the way I used too, but I love the eggs.
I just fed them cheap horse pellets and stayed away from the medicated stuff.
thank you so much for all of the great info! What type of hens do you have good luck with?
I have Delawares & Black Stars that are my Senior hens & still laying at almost 6yo.
My Houdan was funny , cute & my pet - but not a productive layer.
I also have an Ameraucana-cross that is a good layer.
All my breeds - Rhode Island Reds, Black Sex-Links, and Barred Rocks - are prolific layers and good foragers. They lay brown eggs. Double-yolks not uncommon. As said above, I get about an egg/hen/day except in the shortest days of winter.
I kind of want Amercaunas for the colored eggs. But not enough to raise more baby chicks this year. Mine lived in a large dog crate (and then two large dog crates) in my home office till they were six weeks old. (They could’ve gone out a week or two sooner but I was finishing up their henhouse.) The dander accumulation was unbelievable. I had to vacuum the walls and the ceilings. And that was in addition to changing the litter once or twice a day! I need at least another year for that memory to fade. 
I can’t free range my two girls because of dogs and coyotes but I do move their coop around so they can graze. I feed Purina layena plus which is supposed to have extra omega fatty acids for healthier eggs. Their eggs do have a lovely yellow color. I would recommend getting pullets or young hens instead of chicks. Chicks are rather delicate plus you will get eggs sooner with pullets or young hens. Look on Craig’s list or check at a local feed store.
I’ve had fantastic luck with Austrolorps and they’re one of my favorites.
I don’t usually like RRReds but a couple years ago I was working at a feed store and would take home the odds and ends from the chick bin and ended up with some. I had one RRR that raised 21 chicks last year, set two clutches in one spring! Of course they turned out to be mostly roosters but still. As my son calls it, free refills on chickens!
I usually will buy 5-10 all purpose breeds, RRR, Rock of any color (I have a white rock that I love b/c she’s just so big and pretty against the green grass), Australorp, any sex-link or star mix. Ameraucanas are fun to look at but their eggs can be on the small side and they can be freaky personalities. I’ve had several, they’re tough and long lived, had one live to be 12 and would probably still be alive if I had known about impacted crop back then.
And then I just go down the line, grabbing one of those, a couple of these, ect and get just a crazy mix of all sorts of random breeds just for fun. I love banties but the eggs are small. I love heritage breeds and have a line of roosters now that are banty/Buttercup crosses, very good birds. Having that RRR set so many dang chicks last year cut down on my flock diversity but I’ll get another grab bag of chicks this spring. :yes:
I really want to try chickens this year :yes: I tend to gravitate towards yellow animals (buff cockers, I like palomino and buckskin horses, etc.) and I’d really like to get some Buff Orpingtons. The chicken sites say they’re good layers and tend to be calm and friendly, so I think they’d be a good place to start.
My mom wants to get a dozen, I think that’s overkill :eek: A guy I chat with out and about said I should start with 30, lmao! Uhhhh, no. I do not need a chicken empire :lol:
Can you feed them flax? I’ve always wondered about that…
I have a few buff orps, one raised a clutch of very nice chicks a couple years ago. They are sweet friendly birds and decent layers. If you like yellow, you will like them.
When I’ve had 30-40 chickens I free range them and they don’t have names. When I have fewer chickens I lock them up at night. I’ve never had only a couple but if I did they would be locked up all the time. There’s a risk/attachment ratio.
My husband is funny about chickens, he just doesn’t like them 
I always wanted some for entertainment and the eggs, but it’s a no go. BUT - there is a local feed store that sells a lot of chicken supplies, and they have a flock of about 30 hens, and sell eggs through their store. They are great and reasonably priced, plus I know they are pretty darn fresh!
so I’ve been secretly dying for some hens for a long time… has anyone done a cost analysis on regular chicken feed vs. cost of the eggs? I’m curious to see how close it works out. Its just two of us and I’m the primary egg eater… so not sure how many I’d get.
I’d also worry about free ranging and losing chickens especially since I can’t really do a coop very well. I do have a chicken door and enclosed room in the barn that they could go in and out of though… and the door leads to a paddock with mostly horse wire fencing around it… Will that deter the foxes? I usually leave the gates to the other paddock open though and they are just simple horse gates. Will they leave that paddock and go into my yard as well? A little worried about the dogs… and what about the cats? Do they leave them alone?
I have Leghorns and I LOVE them. They free range like mad and I confess, I really only feed them in winter. The rest of the year it’s a handful of grain at night to keep them coming into the coop, because those girls will go feral, start roosting in trees and stealing nests in the brush.
They lay an egg a day, every day. Really big white ones.
The trick to economical chicken keeping is numbers. Chicks come from the hatchery in lots of 25, so that’s what people get. Get some through the feed store or split an order, because you need one per person in the house, plus one. When getting day old chicks, get a spare, just in case, but No More than that!
That number can be maintained in a small area, or even a converted dog house (dropping 1k on coop-building puts you in the red for eggs for basically eternity) and will eat mainly kitchen scraps - garden scraps if you garden. Every veggie peel, plate scraping an unfinished bowl of cereal from my youngest goes to the chickens and with that and what they find, it’s plenty.
They also do a great job on manure spreading and flies. I find it’s easier to add a handful of whole corn to the horse’s feed than to feed it directly to the chickens, because then they spend blissful days scratching apart every pile and eating bugs, which they prefer anyway.
Love the eggs we get from our hens. They are totally Unlike anything we get from the market.
We free ranged our chickens when we first started with chicks a few yrs ago. We quickly gave that up as the coyotes identified our chicks as the appropriate appetizer before dinner. Now we keep them in a hen house with a totally fenced in “run”. works for them and works for us.
