So far we have mostly bought day old chicks and then brooded them and raised them up. We've gotten pretty good at that routine in fact. In 2003 we home hatched a couple of chicks who are now part of our hen flock.

Chickens come in three basic varieties: egg laying, meat, and dual purpose (both egg & meat). Selecting chickens to keep is a lot about your climate, the color eggs you want to have, and the temperment you prefer to deal with. Some chickens tolerate being cooped up pretty well, some are very aggressive, some quite retiring.

We like a variety of egg colors, feather colors, and we want both eggs and meat so we have a mixed flock of chickens. We also wanted to experience the various temperments ourselves and learn about the birds in person. There are a few of each kind and it varies as we cycle old chickens out to the stew pot and raise new chicks each year.

The Coop

Jonathan built a Chicken Coop which houses our flock of 30 chickens in style. They go in all by themselves in the evening and we close the door behind them. We added a yard so that we can keep the chickens confined and safe from marauders, as well as minmizing contact with wild birds. The cinder block and wire enclosure allows us to leave the coop door open so they can come out in the morning as early as they like, and gives the chickens some secure outdoor space.

Used to be that when we were home they were entirely free range but then one fine day we lost about half our flock to either wild dogs or coyotes in the middle of the morning so now they live exclusively inside their yard. This makes me sad because they really enjoy being out in the world, but we do have more vegetation growing in our domestic area than we did when they were loose.

The coop has six nest boxes, their feeders and automatic watering cups where they can peck to get water whenever they want. There is also a roosting area covered with wire but they pretty much insist on sitting everywhere they shouldn't at night.

The coop has to be cleaned out every 8-10 weeks and we create a new compost pile when we do that. Chicken manure is "hot" and has to be composted substantially before it can be used in the garden.

Home for Meat Heads

The broiler chicks that we raise periodically we affectionately refer to as "Meat Heads". They grow so much faster than the laying hen chicks that we have to separate them. They are also stupid (relatively speaking) and eat a much higher protein feed; turkey feed in fact. They are especially bred to grow quickly to maturity for eating purposes and are ready for the freezer or pot in ten weeks. If you allow them to free feed they can overgrow their own skin (don't think too hard about that one) or have terrible leg problems. Still, better to raise a few of these on known feed and in a known environment rather than buy chicken at the grocery store.

Spring 2005: Jonathan built a secondary coop space so the meatheads could have a chicken condo with their own mini-coop and outdoor yard. They outgrew the small brooder yard double quick time this year and were temporarily resident in a fallow garden bed with a fence around it until their new coop was done. The new coop looks really nice.

This facility also gives us the option to raise some other kinds of birds besides chickens if we choose to, like pheasant or guinea fowl.

Spring 2006: The Bunnies have taken over the second chicken coop! We just weren't that interested in raising another batch of meat-heads this season so we turned the space over to the bunny colony. They love it.