Raising Chickens: 5 Reasons It's Worth It

Thinking about getting some chickens?  Raising chickens is starting to take off, and for good reason!  Take a look at the top 5 reasons why we love having our feathered flock here on our homestead.

1) They're easy to raise.  Chickens are the first animals we've added to our homestead, and that was probably a smart choice as chickens are pretty easy animals to raise.  They require very little work- make sure they have food and water and clean out the coop.  That's it! Granted, these are adult chickens.  The chick phase can prove to be a little more challenging as you deal with heat lights, transferring them in and outside as they get bigger, and finding a spot to keep them while they grow, but really, it's not very hard. 

2) Chickens give eggs!  The little work that we do put into these chickens gives us a nice output too- eggs.  We've had an extremely generous supply of eggs that we use often as a meal, in baking, or as a snack.  Even throughout winter, our chickens have continued to provide us with this staple household food that we are always thankful to have!  Plus, it's something that comes from our own homestead, which makes it all that much better.

3) They provide us good quality food for less money.  Where we live, chicken feed costs about $12 per bag and we go through about 2 bags per month with our 13 chickens.  When we let them out to free range, we go through even less food.  In return, we get about 5-7 eggs per day, which equals out to about 150-210 eggs per month!  Right now the brown eggs in our local grocery store are selling for $3.29/dozen.  To purchase the amount of eggs we get, we'd be spending between $45-$50 each month.  We spend $24 per month to get 13-18 dozen brown eggs, coming out to about $1.33-$1.85/dozen.  And when we can sell them, we're coming out even further ahead.  

4) They keep the bug population low.  When the chickens are out and free-ranging, they are looking for bugs to eat.  They are happy to dine on the pesky mosquitoes, woodticks, ants, and spiders that are covering your lawn, helping to keep them away from you!  They also love fly larvae, so if you have manure piles where flies tend to hang out a lot, you can bet your chickens will want to hang out there too, thus reducing the amount of flies around the homestead.  

5) They're a great source of entertainment and enjoyment.​  There's just something nostalgic about hearing the roosters crow in the morning and watching them roam around the yard.  It really does bring me a lot of joy, which I know, maybe makes me a bit weird.  But I'm not the only one- our children LOVE chasing around the chickens.  They love to hold them and carry them around the yard and it really can provide entertainment for quite some time.  Just yesterday, I walked outside to find that B had placed a chicken on C's bike and had just began pushing the bike down the hill as she gleefully shouted "Chicken ride!".  I'm not sure the chicken enjoyed the ride as much as she did, but nevertheless, entertainment and enjoyment were had by both the children and me (and maybe the rest of the flock as they watched).  

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Are you convinced?  Do you have chickens of your own?  What do you like best about your flock?