Raising Chickens

We live a financially rich, time poor society and so with any new venture we each must ask..."Do we have the time?"

Although chickens are relatively low-maintenance, they do require time for daily care and maintenance. The necessary time is almost negligible as you only need 15 to 20 minutes daily (depending on the number of chickens in your flock). This time is spent collecting eggs, replenishing their food and water as well as making sure that their bedding is dry. If you set up things well, with food and water systems you may even be able to get away for some weekends!

I think that I can make that amount of time, especially if we share it around the family.

Chickens

I have just made an interesting discovery, chickens have personalities!

It may come as a surprise to you (as it did to me) but each chicken has their own distinctive and endearing personality traits, which makes them ideal to have as pets. Aside from this, chickens are very pleasing to look at because their plumages have an assortment of colors and patterns; and they also come in all shapes and sizes. You will certainly be tempted to spoil them, pick them up and hug them to show them off to your friends. You may even be tempted to give them their individual names as you recognise their individual characteristics.

Add to this the fact that of all animals that can be taken cared of as pets, chickens are the ones that need almost no maintenance. All you have to do is make sure their food and water containers are freshly filled and replenished on a daily basis. And once they start laying eggs, then all you have to do is gather the eggs daily. Cleaning their coops every other day is usually good enough and their bedding has to be changed once every 3 or 4 weeks depending on weather conditions.

Why Build A Chook House?

In this day of looking for more ways of being environmentally sensitive, there are very few options for producing your own food. I have started a vegetable patch, but the only small scale animal production that could fit in our small yard was raising chickens and producing our own organic eggs. However, for this to work I needed to provide protection for my chooks, hence the need for a chook house.

The ideal chook house must be cheap to build, provide shelter from the elements, protection form feral animals, as well as provide a comfortable area to roost and feed. Automatic feeders and water spouts are optional extras, but a good design should provide some ideas on how to build these.

There is not much that I can do to feed my family, good quality, organic produce but being able to raise chickens and harvest their eggs is a great start, which is why I have decided to build a chook house.