How To Raise Chickens In Your Backyard

Raising chicks into chickens is actually surprisingly easy. I think I could explain it simply in 2 or 3 sentences, but I’m going to go more into depth and give you some details.

How to raise chickens

There are only a few things chicks need: water, food, a house, bedding, and heat. It’s also recommended after they’re a month and a half old, give or take, to give them a dust bath. I’m going to start with the housing situation, since that is dependent on the amount of chicks you’re raising. We started with 13 chicks, which is a good amount for starting with. All we used was one of those plastic kiddie pools from Walmart. It’s their largest one, and it was only $18. I think it’s about 7-8 feet in diameter. We got the bedding from Tractor Supply, and one of those bags was only about $7. I used half the bag of bedding, and saved the other half for later. We had some leftover welded wire from building a fence for our backyard. I threw that over the top of the pool, cut it to size, and bent the corners over to hold onto the pool.

We also cut a square in the wire fencing roof to be able to reach in and change the water without having to take the entire roof off. We cut out a square from the unused fencing that I laid over the hole. Then I zip-tied the top corners so it would swing open. The housing and bedding situation was very simple and set us back maybe $30.

How expensive it is to raise chickens

Tractor supply keeps it very easy for new chicken owners when it comes to food, water, and heat. They had all the stuff we needed right next to each other, and the employees didn’t mind taking a few minutes to explain to us what we would need and when. They have the water and food dispensers on top of the chicken cage, and the heat lamp very close by. The food dispenser, water dispenser, food, and heat lamp came out to less than $100. I just used an old 2×4 and zip-tied the lamp to it and stood it up through the fencing roof. Everything was less than $130.

From there you’ve just gotta refill their food and water when it runs out, and check them out every once in a while to see if you need to raise or lower the heat lamp. If they’re all cuddling together under the light, they’re probably cold. If they’re hanging out at the edges, it’s probably too warm. Just food, water and heat. 

When they can go outside

Once the chicks were about a month and a half old, I got a litter box for $10, cut out part of one side, and filled it with dirt. Immediately the chicks started fluffing themselves in it and making the garage so dirty. When the chickens get moved to the coop, I was planning on using old coffee grounds as their bedding. It’s free to collect from most coffee shops, and it would definitely help with the smell. But it ended up being SO much work to dry it all out that I’m just gonna use the cheap shavings as their bedding. So far there hasn’t been any studies that show coffee grounds, even with caffeine, is harmful to chickens. They just peck at it sometimes out of curiosity, but never actually eat it.

The chickens will start getting too big around the 2.5-3.5 month old mark, so you should start transitioning them to the coop and run before then. The best way to do this is to scoop them up and put them in the run. Leave them there for about an hour, then bring them back. Do that every day, leaving them there for 15 minutes longer each time, until they start going into the coop themselves and they start looking really comfortable in there. Then you can leave them there and pack up all the equipment you used for raising them (Except for the food and water dispensers which they’ll still need).

What Types of Chick to Get

There are a lot of types of chickens to get, and most of them sold at Tractor Supply will be good for your area. Some are hearty and can withstand cold and heat, some are really good egg layers, some are nice and gentle. Most will be a mix of all three of those. It’s pretty hard to go wrong. We’re started off with 7 Leghorns, 4 Black Sex-links, and 2 (now just one) Plymouth Rock. They’re all going to be good egg-layers, and should be hearty enough to easily withstand Texas summers. However the Leghorns should produce bigger eggs at the tradeoff of being harder to manage. They jump more, and are more prone to getting into places they shouldn’t. Luckily clipping the wings is easy and painless for them. There are some really good videos on YouTube you should watch if you plan on clipping their wings. The reason we got the Plymouth Rock chicks is because there were only two left in that big ol’ container and they just looked so pitiful. And we’re unfortunately down to just 1 now because a hawk got one while we were starting to put them in the run. It previously wasn’t covered up top, and that’s something we’re remedying now so we won’t have to worry anymore.