The Beginners Basics to Raising Backyard Chickens From Scratch
So at the time of this writing it’s early fall. While there’s a lot to do to prep for winter and wind down for the autumn season, there’s one thing that’s perfect to start up…chicks.
Chicks were the first homesteading animal we got. We had bought a 25 acre property and before we closed on it we had already ordered 100 chicks. I’ve had chickens before but this would be the first time raising them from day old chicks. We had just moved in to our new place in the middle of the woods when I got the 6am call from the post office to come pick up our birds…from our old post office 45 min away. I hung up the phone from the blaring chirping in the background of 100 baby chicks. We all loaded in the van and were on our way to pick up the beginning of our homesteading animal adventure.
Since that day many years ago we’ve had countless numbers of poultry on our homestead. Chickens, turkey, chickens, quail, chicken, pheasant, chickens, guinea fowl, chickens, geese, chickens, ducks, and oh yeah did I mention chickens;) At some point we had 600 chickens at one time at varying different ages. I’ve done some stuff right and a lot of stuff wrong when it comes to raising chickens.
Since it’s my favorite and recommended time of year to start to raise chicks, I wanted to give you a few nuggets of lessons I’ve learned over the years.
First let’s go over some vocabulary:
Chicks- These are the newly hatched chickens. In a hatchery, they incubate the eggs and when they hatch they ship them the same day to your local post office for you to pick up.
Pullets- Theses are the girls. So if you want eggs from your chickens…pullets are what you want.
Cockerel- These are the boys.
Straightrun- This means a mix of boys and girls. They call it “sexing” when they check each chick to determine if it’s a boy or girl. And if it doesn’t matter to separate the boys and the girls it’s called straightrun, ya get whatcha get.
Hen- This is a grown pullet(girl) that is pretty much ready to start laying her eggs.
Rooster- This is the grown cockerel(boy) that is ready to breed the hens.
Broody- This is a description of a hen that has laid her eggs and is sitting on them with the intent to let them hatch, even if they are not fertile. A broody hen is very very protective of her eggs. She will aggressively peck and defend her cluster of eggs from being gathered.
Molting- This is a process where the hen loses a lot of her feathers and stops laying her eggs to conserve energy in order to grow herself a new feather coat:)
Layers- Pullets grow up into hens that lay eggs. So when you hear someone use the term layers it generally means that their birds are primarily for laying and not meat.
Broilers- This is a general term used for meat chickens. They are typically bred to be the fastest growing and meatiest chickens on the market today.
Now let’s get on to the basics of raising your fist backyard laying flock.
Let this be your warning….This can become an addiction;) It’s really easy to start with a couple cute little chicken nuggets and end up with more than you know what to do with:)
Fall then Springtime are my recommended seasons to raise chicks.
Fall is my first choice. The weather isn’t super hot, pests like flys are lower, and it’s the perfect timing in my opinion. It takes 4-5 months before a chicken will start to lay her eggs AND she naturally doesn’t lay in the dark season, that’s just how God made ‘em. (Although some folks put a light in the chicken coop for the hens to keep laying during the dark season. I tend to let them live naturally.) So by letting the dark season be the growing season it makes the most of the time. When spring/longer days arrive, everyone else will be picking up/ordering their chicks but yours should be ready to start laying hopefully before Easter.
Spring is my second choice. It too isn’t super hot, the pests are starting to show up but not as massive as summer, and you may be able to get some eggs before fall/dark season slow their production down. You may choose to put a light in just to have some eggs your first season so you don’t have to wait til spring. Up to you. And just in case you’re wondering, no boys/roosters are required for the girls/hens to lay their eggs. You just need the rooster to make the eggs fertile.
Start with a non specialty breed. Sometimes it can be tempting to want to raise what is different, special, and unlike other peoples flocks. But I highly recommend starting with the tried and true breeds. I generally find myself wanting those breeds even after raising some specialty ones here and there. My favorites are Rhode Island Red, Buff Orpington, and Barred Rock. All three lay brown eggs.
Super basic needs are heat, water, food, and protection. Keep your set up simple if you can.
You can use a heat lamp or a hovering heater made for chicks but they have to have heat bc they don’t have feathers yet. Think of the heat source as their surrogate mother hen. When they have all their feathers they can handle the temps, but not til then.
Water is of course essential but my one tip for choosing a water dispenser is not to get one with a large drinking area. They tend to get in the water and can even drown. I use a small trough size waterer. Yes, it needs to be filled more often but it’s only for a season.
There’s plenty of choices of food. But I think again the container you put the food in is more important. If you use the cute little trough with the gable shaped top with holes in it, then I’d advise you to take the top off. Too many chicks have gotten stuck inside it and not made it to the next morning. Try to find something that they can’t get inside and get stuck and also that they can’t tip over. There will be spillage and food waste. That’s just how they are.
Protection is pivotal. Choosing the best waterer and feeder are part of protection…protecting them from themselves. Heat is a way to protect them from the elements. But a pen that protects them from wild and domestic animals is essential as well. We had a 100 quail one time that we had just started raising in our garage. We had used a short, metal, open topped sheep water trough. It was working out fine until one of the farm cats went through an old unused dryer vent to get inside the garage and help himself to every…single…one of them. So protect them all around with a good secure pen especially while they are so vulnerable.
Buy more than you want in the end. As you may be able to see, not all of the chicks you order will survive to the point of being in your flock of laying hens. And if you do end up having more than you want to keep as layers, give them away or sell them. That may be hard to do because you get a bit attached, but I’m sure you can bless someone else that’s always wanted to have their own flock as well.
If you’ve always wanted to have your own flock of laying hens in your backyard, I hope this helps inspire you that you can keep it simple and make it happen.
Who’s the one person that comes to mind that has dreamed of having their very own chickens?
Forward this along to them and you may end up being gifted with a dozen eggs before ya know it.
