Everyone should keep chickens!

Chickens make fun & useful pets. I keep a few in my front yard, and believe me my front yard isn't very big! My children like them- sometimes we let them out of their pen into the yard and pet them and chase them around. The chickens are very tolerant of this and it's worth it for them because they get to scratch for bugs and eat fresh grass. My own children are used to them of course, but their friends are always very interested in the chickens when they come over to play.

Chickens don't need much shelter in our Northern California climate. They spend the night in a 6' x 4' wire-enclosed space under my kids play structure. It has a roof, two nesting boxes and a perch but is open to the air on three sides. Even though we have a few frosts every winter the chickens are happpy & healthy. The main thing is to protect them from racoons at night, who otherwise will kill them. In the day, I open a trapdoor and let them out into a larger pen that isn't racoon-proof. The chickens always go back into their safe house at night - they know. I always close the trapdoor after sundown, and haven't lost a chicken yet.

Chickens eat almost anything that we do and quite a few things we wouldn't touch. I give them commercial chicken feed, but supplement it with table scraps, vegetable peelings, leftovers, wilted greens, grass clippings, fish skins, etc. No food ever goes to waste in my household! The only things they won't eat are crunchy foods like apples and carrots - they don't have teeth. They will even wolf down cooked chicken meat, but I won't give it to them because it just doesn't feel right.

Their normal feeding behavior is to "scratch" all the time. This means to kick the leaf litter aside and peck at whatever they find. For this reason, I sometimes scatter their food on the ground instead of giving it to them in a dish. However, this means that you have to watch them when they are let out into the garden. They will scuff and uproot young plants.

My chickens lay eggs once they are about six months old. No rooster is necessary. They won't lay in the winter, though becuase they need a certain length of day. Once they start, they lay an average of almost one egg per day per hen. My fresh eggs are much better tasting than store-bought eggs. They even look different, because the yolks are a golden orange instead of pale yellow.

As pets they are very easy to care for. I probably spend about twenty minutes a week giving them food & water. Every so often I have to shovel the chicken poop out of their house, but this goes onto the garden - it's great fertilizer. We travel a lot, and if we are going away for up to four days I just lock them up in their racoon-proof house with plenty of food and water. If we will be gone longer than that, I hire a neighborhood child to come over every few days to collect the eggs and give them more food and water.

It's hard to tell how long to expect your pet chickens to live. In the wild or on a farm, no chicken would ever live longer than about two years. My oldest hen is eight and still going strong.

Roosters aren't allowed in my neighborhood. They are pretty, but troublesome. I have had two chicks that grew up to be roosters and I had to find other homes for them. It's a myth that they only crow at dawn - mine would begin at 4:00 AM and continue all day. If I lived on a farm, that would be O.K.

We raise all of our chickens from chicks. You can get chicks that are a few days old from many feed stores including River Town Feed in Petaluma. (Pet stores never carry chicks.) If River Town doesn't have the breeds you want, they will order them for you. Chicks only cost a few dollars each. You have to keep them indoors in a box with a light bulb to keep them warm until they are over a month old. When you introduce young chicks to a flock of mature hens you have to do it gradually and carefully becasue the hens will bully them at first.

The emotional and spiritual benefits of keeping animals is well known. Elderly and hostipalized people in particular actually suffer fewer medical problems if they have a pet around. (Click here for more on the Health & Wellness benefits of keeping animals.) I am sure this is because we were all hunter-gatherers for hundreds of thousands of years before we took up agriculture, and then we were all herders and farmers for thousands of years after that, until the Industrial Revolution began about 150 years ago. We are hard-wired to care deeply about animals, and haven't had time to change that. I lead a very low-stress life myself, but when I come home and let the chickens out into the yard it relaxes me and makes me smile to see them scratching around.

In summary, chickens: are friendly and entertaining to children are low-maintanence eat food that would otherwise be wasted lay fresh eggs generate chicken manure for the garden are attractive to look at and are relaxing to watch. That's why I say everyone should keep chickens.

Part of the fun of keeping chickens is choosing what breeds to keep. For me, beauty and temperment is more important than maximizing egg production. Here are some breeds I have experience with:

Rhode Island Red: These hens look like a chicken should look, but their feathers are coarse to the touch - not as downy as some breeds. Mine was agressive.
Silver Laced Wyandotte: Mine is large, silky, a good layer and placid. Perhaps my favorite breed, except that their combs don't stand up in little spikes like most breeds.
Barred Plymouth Rock: I won't get this breed again. Mine was an escape artist when younger. Nervous, and not as attractive as the Silver Laced Wyantotte.
Araucana: This South American breed lays bluish-green eggs and is very attractive. Also very active, which can be a challenge - mine is good at escaping.
Buff Orpington: A big yellow/gold puffball.
Black Australorp or Black Star? Whatever it is, mine is very attractive, with streaks of brown around the neck.

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