One of the main attractions to a homestead lifestyle is the ability to save money. However, when you're constantly making mistakes or spending money doing things that are unnecessary it can quickly become frustrating. Don't make chickens a part of your problem. You can have them as a part of your homestead without having to waste money. They can end up making a large contribution to your livelihood!
1. Free range your flock as much as possible, as safely as possible.
In the beginning we got the free ranging thing right. We let our hens roam our entire property, allowing them to scratch and forage to their heart’s content. The great thing about free ranging your flock is that they are able to get a more natural diet, making the chickens and their eggs healthier, while also cutting down on your feed costs.
Quite unfortunately, however, predators abound. It wasn’t long before we had all kinds of drama with neighbor’s dogs killing our chickens. And of course there were foxes, opossums, weasels, baby chick eating snakes, and hawks. Even our own dogs killed a few of our hens, for goodness sake.
We had to fence them in somehow. The loss of a full grown hen will set you back $10-$20 per bird, depending on what you’ve invested in them. To walk out of your house and discover a dozen mangled bodies littering your yard is not only heart breaking, it’s a hit to the wallet as well.
Redefine what free range looks like to you. It might turn out that free ranging means allowing your hens to freely forage within a certain fenced in area. Cool. Do what works best for you.
My suggestion would be to fence in as much of an area as possible (yard or woods, or both) to allow your chickens foraging space.
Wire fencing from a farm supply store is the least expensive fencing option we’ve found. I would not recommend chicken wire, it’s a stinking pain to deal with. The holes in the fence just need to be big enough that a fox can’t get in and full grown hens can’t get out. Baby chicks will still be able to scoot through larger holes, but mama hens are very good about calling them back in to stay close.
If you have absolutely nowhere to free range your birds other than perhaps a small chicken run, consider building a raised bed within the run and planting it with grass or clover. Put wire over the top of the bed so the chickens can’t scratch it all up.
2. Collect bugs for your hens.
Bugs provide excellent protein for laying hens, which is necessary for good egg production.
Every June we’re plagued with swarms of Japanese Beetles and June Bugs. So far the best method I’ve found for controlling the damage they do to our roses and grape vines is to hand pick them off one at a time. We hold a bucket of water underneath one of the beetles, and then touch the bug to make it drop down into the container. Once we have a large collection of desperately swimming critters, we dump them out onto the ground in the chicken run where the hens go crazy in a feeding frenzy.
Watch to make sure the hens will actually eat them before you offer a bunch. Believe it or not, there are actually bugs that chickens won’t eat. And please don’t feed them stinging caterpillars. I did that once and instantly regretted it.
Another way to bring protein directly to your hens is to place a wooden board or a large piece of cardboard on the ground in the chicken run and leave it there for several weeks through a few good rains. Over time lots of decomposing bugs and earthworms will come up under the surface of the board to begin their work of breaking it down. Call your hens over to the board and turn it over quickly. You should see a plethora of cockroaches, pill bugs (roly polies), worms, maybe a few crickets, and who knows what else. You might also try growing black soldier fly larva.
3. Eat eggs like the pioneers.
The pioneers ate seasonably. Not just in produce, but in animal by-products as well.
They didn’t force their hens to lay at top production year-round. They simply let them forage, fed them scraps, and occasionally tossed them some dried corn- and collected whatever eggs resulted. They didn’t try to get a dozen eggs a day out of a dozen hens. They just ate what they got. Likely they had an abundance during late spring and throughout the summer months, and very little throughout late fall and wintertime.
If you want to raise laying hens on the cheap you’re gonna have to reign back your expectations and be happy with what you get.
4. Don’t invest a lot of money in your setup.
Honestly, chickens will be happy with a simple roof over their heads. I know it can be tempting to buy a super cute Amish built coop, or construct a fancy enclosure like the one you saw on Pinterest. But there really is no need to break the bank in order to house your flock.
Design your coop around the materials you have instead of buying materials to fit the design you want.
The interior of the coop can just as easily be built from scrap materials. Nesting boxes can be made from scrap wood, buckets, crates, bins, and old drawers. Roosts can be made of branches collected from nearby trees. Bedding can be composed of dry grass clippings, leaves, wood chips, old hay… stuff you find naturally and for free.
5. You only need one fella.
Whether you order a straight run of mail order chicks or you hatch them out at home, inevitably you’re going to end up with more than one rooster at some point in your homesteading career.
Eventually the roosters will fight each other to the death anyways (even through a fence!), which is just sad and unnecessary.
There’s only one reason you would want to keep more than one rooster, and that’s if you’re a breeder who needs to keep the lines pure.
You might consider introducing a new rooster to your flock every few years in order to keep the gene pool fresh if you’re hatching your own chicks.
6. Hatch chicks naturally.
If you really want to have as little money invested in your flock as possible, you’ll want to hatch chicks naturally rather than buying them year after year. Even hatching chicks in an incubator is an investment of both dollars and time. The absolute easiest and cheapest way to increase your flock (or to rotate in fresh layers) is to allow a broody hen to raise them for you.
Some breeds are better than others for going broody. We’ve had good luck with Black Giants, Orpingtons, and Silkies. Do some research before selecting the breed of chickens you’d like to go with.
Not only will it save you money to let a hen sit on a clutch of eggs to hatch, you’ll also have much heartier and healthier chicks than if you were to order them from a hatchery.
Have you tried any of these tips for raising chickens in a more cost-effective manner? Have you come across any other helpful homesteading advice?
Article Source: New Life on a Homestead
Madison Paige Spencer
Billy D. Jones
Kipp Glazier
Ryan J Metivier
I’ve had chickens before and it was easy!! Looking forward to having them again.
Chicken rustling?
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Jamie Latham
Brenda Shaffer
Ben Westlund
Post like this are awesome!
New Hampshire chickens can hide in brush, are good for eggs and meat, require almost no attention and the roosters will (attempt to) defend the hens. I can’t recommend the breed enough. Being able to hide in the brush is a two sided coin. They can easily do a ninja vanishing trick and hide from predators. On the other hand, if you ever scare them bad enough to think that you’re a predator, you’re probably going to need a small child with sharp eyes close to the ground to find them. 😉 Best off not to chase them around the yard during the day. Rhode Island Reds are the same chicken, but colored brighter.
You want at least 4 chickens per rooster. If you buy the typical bulk chickens at 50/50 percent, plan on slaughtering the extra roosters a few weeks after they hit puberty. They will be a decent size, and have tender meat. 😉
If you handle the chicks often, they are much nicer when they grow up. They are still 47 times easier to catch at night.. which is another reason they need shelter, from predators.
You will need to shovel the poo out eventually, so don’t attach anything closer to the floor than you want to try to shovel under. 😉 Some people muck out their chicken house once a month. Actually, if you don’t have too many chickens crammed in to a small space, you can leave it on the floor for a year, or even two, and it will compost itself where it sits.. assuming it’s just a dirt floor. If you own a well, note that all livestock shelters should be at least 50 feet from the well. Chickens don’t do well on concrete anyway, it tears up their little feet because they incessantly try to tear up the ground looking for bugs. If you must put your chickens on a concrete floor, plan on the extra expense of laying down a nice thick layer of straw or wood chips every time you muck out the chicken house.
Take extra care providing them with a place to lay eggs that the hens adore, or every day will be an Easter egg hunt. 😉
When you first bring them home (or they are old enough to move in to their home), lock them in their shelter for three days. They will understand that that is their home, and put themselves to bed at night. This way, you can let them run free and feed them free range. God help you if they discover yummy bugs in your garden though. Chickens can fly.. or at least make a valiant effort to get the bugs on the other side of the fence. 😉
They don’t need warm water in the winter, but they do use water to control their body temperature, so it is critical in the winter. A heated water bowl is a godsend. Fat healthy chickens can survive temperatures to -20 degrees with shelter. Plan on giving them a heat lamp if you want the skinny frail ones to survive the winter. Plan on the heat lamp (and use a timer) from the start. Two hours after dark in temperatures approaching 20 degrees below zero is the LAST time you ever want to be digging through boxes of junk, installing a heat lamp, and dragging extension cords through the snow. 😉 On that note, chickens produce a lot of humidity (and ammonia from their pee). You want the chicken house to be ventilated, even during the winter, until it gets cold enough to turn the heat lamp on.
They think that bug zappers are amazing snack producing machines.
You can feed them virtually any rotten food hiding in the back of the fridge. Chickens are dumb as a box of rocks, but they have an uncanny nack of knowing when something is infected with something that will make them sick. On that note, if your chickens do ever refuse to eat anything that they would normally eat, best throw it in the burn barrel and incinerate it. 😉 There are a few odd things that you shouldn’t feed your chickens. The only one I recall is avocados, because that’s the only one I ever got scolded for trying to feed them. You might want to Google that bit.
If you do have to keep your chickens locked up, look in to a chicken tractor (shelter / cart) so that you can move them around. It will save your yard, and give them a change of scenery. Also, hang old CDs and DVDs where they can see them. As they swing in the wind, they will flash and keep the chickens preoccupied watching them. If you have too many hens per rooster (~10) they will all gang up on one hen and beat the piss out of her. The CDs attract their attention long enough that they never get around to ganging up on each other.
If you free range your chickens, supplement their food by giving them chicken feed at bedtime. My girlfriend used to work at Pizza Hut, so we threw left over pizza at them every night. People who bought our eggs swore they tasted better. ^^ Anyway, if you supplement their food they will consistently lay eggs every day. Use a timer during the winter to keep a light on and confuse their biological clock in to laying eggs all year.. if you want to. This is harder on the hens bodies, and will shorten their lifespan a bit, similar to overbreeding a dog. Provide them with a permanent bowl of oyster shells so they can produce good egg shells.
Oh yeah, for some unfathomable reason, chickens prefer dirty murky drinking water. You don’t need to change out their water every time it gets yucky, that’s the way they like it. I had to train myself not to rinse out the bowl / waterer every time I give them water (unless it gets really gross). I’m hopeful that this is one of those hidden mysteries that God reveals when we go to heaven. 😉
Pine pitch is the very best thing for chicken band aids. First off, after you clean the wound, it seals it. Second off, chickens tend to pick at each other’s wounds and make them worse. The pine pitch is terribly sticky, so after they peck at it once and get their beak all sticky, they won’t do it again. 😉
Vaseline is good for preventing frostbitten combs, but just picture trying to chase your roosters down 2-3 times a day, in the winter, and convincing them to let you apply it. No thank you! The combs only provide a minimal amount of cooling in the summer anyway, and aren’t really necessary. Keep an eye on your roosters combs during the winter, if the combs are long enough and get frostbitten, then apply Vaseline so they can heal. We have horribly frigid winters, so all of our roosters combs froze repeatedly until they were about 3/8 of an inch long. Once all of the roosters combs are that short, you don’t have to worry about it ever again. Actually, I got to where I didn’t apply the Vaseline until the black frostbitten part got that close. Apparently, once the comb is frozen the roosters don’t feel it and don’t care one way or the other.
In the summer, when it gets terribly hot out, chickens take dust baths to stay cool. (At this point they should have a shady area to stay out of the sun.) If you don’t want them tearing up chicken sized holes in your yard, provide them with a shallow sand box of very fine sand or plain old dirt. ..make the box big enough for two chickens, in case one of them decides to hog the box all day. 😉
If you think you have predators lurking around your chicken coop at night, find a cheap reliable AM radio, tune it in to the first Christian preacher you can find yelling his head off, then turn it up as loud as you dare. The predators will never go near the chicken house with that racket blaring. ^^ Pro-tip: plug it in to the same timer as your heat lamp and leave it on permanently. Who knows, maybe you’ll brain wash your chickens in to being Southern Baptists or something. ^^
Anything with giant eyeballs will scare off eagles and large hawks, if that’s an issue in your area. I got a big flashy Halloween BOO! sign from Wal-Mart on clearance with giant eyeballs on it. Did I mention that chickens are attracted to flashy shiny things. ^^
A set of flashy LED Christmas lights couldn’t hurt.
http://www.motherearthnews.com
has an amazing amount of chicken related resources online. 🙂
I wubs my chickens. ^^
..I should write a book or something, lol.
Can’t wait!
Bev Everett-Wiechering
Chris James
I have 5 chickens. All the eggs I can eat and cool backyard friends. Cost me about $15 a month.
If you’re growing grass on your homestead you’re fucking crazy. And if you have any predators at all, this is just asking for it. Love, 23 years in a cabin in Colorado mountains with many chickens ducks and geese.
Colleen Wagner
Dayna Wagner told me you’s guys have chickens. Perhaps this is an interesting read.
I forgot to tell you that I saw baby chickens running around behind the Salvation Army yesterday! They were too cute
Thank you Vince!!
wow! You don’t see that everyday! You brought some home,right?? lol I can send ur dad down to building a coop!
Only in Florida Colleen!We have wild chickens and roosters lol