It's amazing how many people have never had a truly fresh egg. Hens that live a healthy life with fresh air, good food, and clean water (not to mention access to open space and green pastures) lay eggs that are firmer, more deeply colored, harder shelled, and, most important, more nutritious than those of their factory farmed counterparts.
Chickens are much happier and healthy when they are on green pastures, they will produce more eggs that are more tough and fresh.
Chickens are among the easiest animals to keep in a small amount of space. On a typical quarter-acre lot, a family can keep as many as a dozen chickens. Since a flock that size would produce as many as a dozen eggs per day, though, you might want to start with fewer (perhaps three or four hens), unless you have a ready supply of customers to buy the surplus eggs.
This style of chicken tractor is light, and easy to move your chickens around the yard. Be sure to install a nesting box door at the back for easy access to eggs and changing your nesting straw. (My dad added old skis he found from the garage to the bottom of this tractor, above, after a few weeks of moving it without. They made it much easier to move around than just having the normal boards. The wood bottoms will last longer.)
Another benefit of keeping chickens and letting them roam the backyard is that they can help with pest control, digging up Japanese beetle grubs from the lawn and snapping up snails and slugs from the vegetable garden (with some supervision to make sure they don't start snacking on the strawberries). Besides--chickens are just plan fun to watch. You may want to add a batch of chicks every year or two to keep the flock producing eggs and flush out all the old hens that do not produce eggs as well as they used to (by giving them to friends that have heard that you own chickens and want to try it, or just adding them to your dinner table).
If you're serious about the homestead life and want to try your hand at raising poultry--chickens, ducks, or geese--for meat, spend some time thinking about the realities of raising an animal you plan to eat. First, there are the logistics. Who will slaughter the animal? If you're raising animals for the first time, definitely seek out a professional in your area who can either do the job for you or at least lead you through the process. And don't underestimate how you can become attached to a chicken. You just might find yourself with a long-term pet instead of dinner.
From: "The Backyard Homestead."
Tried and true!
~Krissy V.C.
