Chickens Start to Finish!

Have you ever wanted to own chickens but had no idea how to get started? There is so much information on the Internet today regarding chicken ownership, and you probably have many unanswered questions. Over the next few weeks, we will be featuring blog posts from Megan Fish – one of our members who has been around chickens and duck all her life. Through this series, we’ll take you from purchasing your baby chicks all the way through the chicken’s end of life process. Raising your own chickens is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint by not eating eggs and meat that have been transported from somewhere else. Chickens also eat bugs, making your yard a more enjoyable place to hang out.

Here’s Megan’s introduction:

As a person who was raised on a farm, I learned at an early age where our food comes from, and how our food is raised. From the age of five until the time I left for college, my family and I commercially raised chickens. During that period, we not only raised chickens for meat but also egg laying chickens from time to time as well. Over the next few weeks, I will share with you my knowledge about chickens, including the many benefits of having your own chickens. From cute and fluffy hatchlings to well-seasoned hens, there will be many joys but many trials to overcome! If you are interested in raising chickens for eggs or meat but don’t know where to start, I’m your gal!

Now, of course you know you wouldn’t bring home a cat without a litter box unless you planned on some heavy duty cleanup! The same goes for chickens – but how do you set up a chicken coop and where do you buy feed? I’ll be discussing the preliminary issues to take into consideration when planning to bring home chickens, including how much space you need, how many chickens to get. You’ll need to decide what size coop you want, according to your location, local predators, whether you want to be able to move the structure and whether you free-range, semi-free range or coop chickens. The way you raise chickens depends a lot on your lifestyle and what kind of lifestyle you want for your chickens. After establishing all these things, we’ll talk about other equipment you need, how to feed your chickens and where to find your birds!

Join us weekly for this great series on raising chickens start-to-finish!

About Ann-Michelle Van Eepoel

I'm an administrative professional with a Bachelor of Arts in Women's Studies and a passion for conservation of natural settings. I was the secretary and founding member of my high school's Environmental Club.

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