photo credit: Putneypics
Chickens in the Backyard Cluck-cluck, our Araucana hen, is seven years old now. She lays a beautiful pale blue egg about once a week. In her younger years, she laid an egg about every three days. But she’s very old now for a chicken. When my husband and I moved to the Ozarks 12 years ago, one of the first thing we did was buy chicks, looking forward to fresh eggs for breakfast and for light suppers. Our chicks grew quickly and we had fresh eggs by the end of the summer. And what eggs they were! No supermarket egg even comes close. Fresh yolks stand tall above the white. The yolk can at times be almost a dark orange.
Our chickens quickly became pets, running up when we went outside to see if we had anything interesting to give them. They love food scraps, especially the leftovers from our fruit salads. Chickens are “easy keepers”. Our chickens roam around the property during the day, pecking and scratching. They particularly love fresh dirt and help to control insects and weed seeds, as well as soil cultivation. We live in the country where we have raccoons and possums, both of which prey on chickens. Even those in the city have predators who would love to have your chickens as a meal. So it’s important to have secure place for the chickens to sleep at night. This can be a simple or as elaborate as you like. We use a large dog-house type structure with a locking door. The floor is strewn with hay from our pastures, but you could use saw dust or cedar shavings.
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