Chickens are the easiest farm animal. Really. They are so simple, and the reward is so great! If that’s not enough to convince you to run to the feed store and pick up some chicks, let me tell you a bit more about how easy chickens are.
1- They’re easy to research
Because chickens are so common, it’s super easy to find information online. Any time you have any sort of question, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll find the answer with just one quick search. This is really nice if, like me, you’re constantly worried that you’ll somehow kill everything on your homestead, because solutions are so easy to find!
2- The birds themselves have pretty much no maintenance.
I’m not kidding. All you have to do is give them some chicken food and water and they’ll be fine. They don’t need to go to the vet, have nails trimmed or anything like that. It’s helpful to free-range them and feed them treats like scratch and mealworms, but you don’t even have to do that!
3- They’re Cheap
Like, really cheap. Like less then five bucks a chick at a feed store. If you can be resourceful and build a coup with free/cheap materials and supplement their diet with a lot of kitchen scraps and free ranging, the chickens and their feed and everything will even out pretty dang quick. Heck, you’ll even make money!
4- You can Still Vacation!
Yep. Chickens won’t stop you from vacationing. You can fill the food and water to last a couple days, and it’s pretty easy to pay a neighbor or local teen to come every now and again to check on your chickies. We still mange to go on week-long vacations, and we have goats as well as chickens!
5- You don’t Even have to Clean the Coop
This isn’t a joke. If you use the deep litter method, in addition to keeping smells down amazingly well, you also only have to add wood chips every now and again and once or twice a year dig out the coop and replace the chips. Even this little bit of work is surprisingly easy plus, with a little extra composting, you can even use the old chips in your garden!
6- Baby Chicks!
Caring for chicks is probably the hardest part of raising chickens, but even this is pretty easy, and, I mean, is it really that much of a burden to have a bunch of adorable baby chicks in your garage for a few weeks? Plus, you just have to do this one year, then after that you can just put some fertilized eggs under a broody hen if you really don’t want chicks in your garage.
7- Last, but not Least, Fresh Eggs!!!
This last one deserves three explanation points, because, I mean, come on! Fresh eggs! There’s nothing more amazing than walking out to your coop in the morning and grabbing some eggs and cooking up some outstanding omelets. If you haven’t tasted fresh, home laid eggs with delicious orange yolks, you’re seriously missing out my friend.
Well, that pretty much concludes this. Let me just say one more time, chickens are super easy and a great choice for you (assuming that it’s legal in your area of course).
Other Posts
Highschool Homesteader 