Raise Chickens and Have Farm Fresh Eggs Everyday

Today people are raising their own free-range chickens in the backyard and getting hundreds of organic eggs each year from as few as three hens. People swear by the “farm fresh” taste of these eggs from free range chickens. Even better, keeping just a few laying hens can save a household a few hundred dollars per year.

Of course, any monetary savings require that you don’t go crazy making an enclosure. Many people use a movable coop, while others allow the birds access to a protected or semi-protected area. Birds can be raised from chicks that are available at farm supply stores, or they can be purchased from someone else as pullets or proven layers.

Be advised that while it can take as long as 5 months for some breeds to begin to lay, young hens lay far more eggs than older hens. For this reason, many commercial layers are made into soup within 18 months, if they survive that long in a confinement system.

Purchasing your own chicks is also a lot cheaper – your biggest expense will be the energy to run a heat lamp that will keep the chicks warm while they grow real feathers. They can be anywhere from a day old, to a few weeks old when you pick them up at a store.

Organic eggs purchased in the grocery store have not only traveled as far as 50 miles, even at a co-op, to get to you. That makes the price of grocery store organic eggs a daily-use commodity something that is highly subject to changes in the price of gas, which seems to be going unrelentingly up.

While the price of purchased feed (whether you mix your own or not) is also tied to the price of petroleum, this is far less than purchasing the eggs at the grocery or farmers’ market.

Also, having your own flock of free-range chickens allows you to recycle some of your kitchen scraps back into your own food. This is especially useful if you’re growing an organic garden, as well, since most chickens aren’t finicky, as long as they get plenty of pasture or greens.

A surprisingly large number of urban areas, large and small, allow you to keep a small number of hens – usually three – in a yard. As long as there are no complaints about the smell from your neighbors, you’re free to raise small fowl as you like.

Keeping the smell down is accomplished by using plenty of absorbent straw, cedar shavings or grain hulls to collect waste. This waste makes highly nitrogenous compost that is an invaluable amendment to an organic garden. Fragrant bushes can also be planted outside a well-ventilated and warm coop to mask any stray odor.

A flock that’s maintained well, kept reasonably dry and warm, will give you between 150-200 eggs pre year from each young hen. If you call it an even 500 eggs, or about two a day, that can take care of the need for organic eggs for most small households.

If you figure into it a cost of $5 per dozen of those eggs when purchased from the market, that’s over $200 worth of eggs. If you spend even $80 per year on feed, that’s over $100 in savings with just three hens.

Keeping free range chickens in you urban environment is also a great way to relax with the antics of some very personable and unusual pets. A pure-bred bird (as many backyard layers are) can live as long as 10 years, though egg production fall considerably as they age.

In areas where it’s legal to keep free-range chickens, it’s makes a great deal of financial sense to try your hand and keeping a few birds. This hobby has become very popular in some cities and could potentially go a long way towards making cities even a little self-sufficient and have a significant impact on the local environment as well as climate change.

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