When chickens come home to roost -- you can have eggs for years!

More and more people these days are looking for ways to stretch their grocery budget, support local industry especially local foods, and be environmentally friendly. A great way to accomplish all these goals is to get a chicken (or several chickens!).

Most cities allow residents to keep at least one chicken. One hen will lay 5-10 eggs per week, depending on her age, breed, and time of year. For just cents a day in chicken feed you can get lots of fresh eggs to feed your family, and can sell any extras! Chickens love to eat food scraps, keeping more trash from landfills and minimizing or eliminating your needs for composting (which is especially beneficial if your city or HOA prohibits composting).

Chickens require minimal shelter, equipment, and other investments for a return on many years of eggs. Plus, fresh eggs taste better!
There are several ways to begin raising chickens and to expand your flock. Before you begin, check with your local government to learn if there are any restrictions to the number and gender of chickens you can keep, and any other laws regarding keeping your flock.

If local laws allow it, you’ll also need to decide whether you want to keep roosters. Hens do not need a rooster to be able to lay eggs. However, if you want to produce chicks, your hens will need a rooster. Roosters are also popular for competitive showing. Roosters can also be useful if you let your chickens roam where predators might be able to access them: the roosters will defend their hens against many predators. However, some people do not like the loud crowing of roosters. Roosters may also injure their hens at breeding time; even minor injury such as pulled feathers may not be desirable if you plan on showing your hens. If you do get roosters, you will need to make sure you don’t have too many per hen, or else they will fight a lot over the hens. Generally, it is ideal to keep about one rooster per 7 to 10 hens.

An easy, fun and popular way to buy chickens is to mail-order day old chicks. Shipping chicks is often an economical choice. There are many companies that sell chicks this way: they will hatch the eggs for you and put the newly hatched chickens in the over-night mail. You are usually required to pick the chicks up from your post office, rather than them being shipped directly to your house. Most mail order companies have a minimum order. Ideal Poultry has a large selection of breeds, healthy chicks and good customer service, and there are many other hatcheries all over the country to choose from. Some feed stores, such as Woodland Feed in Deer Trail, also sell day old and young chicks.

Chicks can live for several days without food or water directly after hatching, because they retain the yolk in their bodies for a food reserve during this time. If the weather is very hot or cold, they might suffer stress during shipping. Day old chicks have had limited opportunity to contract diseases, so this is also one of the safest ways to expand an existing flock without introducing new diseases. Chicks can often be ordered sexed, so you can order the number of females versus males that you want.

An interesting way to buy chickens is by ordering fertile eggs. These will then need to be incubated with proper equipment for successful hatching. Fertile eggs can be ordered by mail, or you may be able to find a neighbor who is willing to sell you some of theirs. Eggs will yield equal numbers of male and female chicks, so you risk having more males than you want, and then will have to find a way to get rid of the extra males.

If you don’t have any chickens yet, and especially if you don’t want to wait 20 weeks for your chicks to begin laying, you can buy adult chickens. Chickens have a peak laying period of only a few years, so you’ll want to buy young hens. Adult chickens are more likely to carry diseases, and may themselves be resistant to those diseases so that the diseases are not apparent by looking at the chickens. For this reason, it is often inadvisable to introduce older chickens to an existing flock: the rest of the flock may contract the diseases that the new chickens bring, as they have not had the chance to develop similar immunities.

If you already have hens and a rooster, you can produce your own chicks. You can take the eggs from the hens and incubate them yourself, or you can allow the hens to naturally raise their chicks. Hens do not know if their eggs are fertile, however, and they may sit on unfertilized eggs. Also, hens may be chased off from their nests by other chickens, causing the eggs to die. To prevent this, you can move the hen and her eggs during the night to an isolated area where she can’t be distrurbed by other chickens. Make sure she can’t get back to her old nest, or she may try to do so. Some breeds of chickens are better “sitters” or “brooders” than others.

Wherever you buy chickens from, you can look forward to years of fresh eggs!