Chickens are a great way to get started in taking control of your food and gaining some self-sufficiency. Depending on where you live, even most urban locations will allow a few chickens. It is best to check with your municipality and/or HOA first. Some locations may forbid chicken, limit the number, or specify if you can have a rooster. Since we live in the county – we don’t have those limitations.

Also – do some research first and make sure you have a plan on how you will house, feed, and protect your chicks as they grow and after they reach adulthood. Don’t jump in without considering the growth of the flock and be sure you select breeds that will meet your needs.

Having a flock can also attract some unwanted guests… Backyard chickens often get the blame for increased rat populations in neighborhoods but this can be mitigated by hygiene and proper food storage. This downside is often used as the limiting factor for urban chicken farming.

We were lucky enough when we moved into Raven Grove to have an established hen house and chicken yard. We did some remodeling to update and fix some of the fence, but it was more or less ready to go.

We started off with six chicks; three Buff Orpington and three Speckled Sussex. The Orpingtons didn’t do well and we only had one survive and one of the Sussex’s died. We then added 3 Barred Rock chicks. Unfortunately one of them turned out to be a rooster. I’m certain our inexperience played a hand in the mortality rate. Our survival rate for young chicks is now much higher.

Our first two years we let them come and go from the henhouse and yard to free-range the property. That has both advantages and disadvantages. Advantage: Most people feel that the free-range strategy allows a better quality of life and health for the chicken. This is definitely true for caged birds in a commercial type environment. However, if you work at giving them enough space – semi confinement works well.

One drawback to free-range, the Easter egg hunt – every day. Chickens when free-ranging don’t always go back to the hen house to lay. We would find stashes of eggs all over and on two occasions had a hen disappear only to show back up weeks later with a bunch of chicks. This is very cool – but that comes to the second and probably biggest drawback – Predators.

Mother hens don’t always like the coop or hen house – they will take their brood wherever they feel safe and this opens them up to predation. One of our Speckled Sussex (Terrance) had a brood of about 17 chicks, we lost all of them to predators. Our other Speckled Sussex (Checkers) had a few more chicks a week or two later and we only had one survive (go figure another rooster).

What type of predators? owls mostly. The birds would often not return to the hen house until late at night and we would leave the door open to allow them to come in. Owls, unknown to us – would actually go into the coop to snatch a meal. We also have coyotes, foxes, skunks, bears, cougars, possums, and raccoons. Add in a dog or two and we’ve lost a fair share of birds.

Free-range chickens also don’t like the rain and will hang out on the deck all day making a mess. All of these things together made us consider a semi-confinement approach. We doubled the size of the hen yard and kept it shut. Keeping the birds this way kept them safe and they are still able to forage. We toss them every bit of scrap we can to keep them entertained. Our losses have decreased and the birds still seem happy and content.

We’ve added different types of chicks each year to keep the cycle moving. We added a group of Rhode Island Reds that mostly fell to predators when they were free-ranging. We had (and still have) one who broke a leg. Bridge would pack her around the farm in a bucket to change her scenery and she healed with a limp – but is our soul surviving Rhode Island.

Last year we discovered our favorite bird so far the Sapphire Blue Rock. These girls are smart and beautiful. They are fun to watch and have a ton of personality. They also are good laying hens. We liked them so much we added six more this spring.

Our flock has changed quite a bit we have a total of thirteen hens. One of our roosters started to get overly aggressive and killed the other rooster and we suspect one of the Blue’s this spring. He has since departed for greener chicken feed elsewhere leaving us with a hen only flock which is far happier without the abuse from the rooster.

Do we still let them free range? Not full time, but Bridge lets them out for a few hours to scratch and explore. They now stick pretty close to the hen yard and are relatively easy to get back in the coop in the evening if you come bearing treats.