Benefits of Backyard Chickens - No Really

There are a lot of articles out there about the benefits of having backyard chickens. Most of them seem to point out the positive impact chickens have on the environment or the importance of treating animals humanely. Sure, that's great! I'm a big fan of all that stuff, but what if that's not really your thing? What if you want them to benefit you and/or your family without making a political statement? What if you just want to do something cool and super fun?

Raising chickens in the city is something that has provided me tons of things that have nothing to do with being organic, liberal guilt, or animal rescue and they can do the same for you!

1. The eggs taste better. They really do. I didn't expect that one, I was all, yeah, right. It's definitely true though. The yolks are darker than store bought and have a richer flavor. I wasn't a huge egg fan before I got the ladies, but now, I cannot get enough quiche. I even own egg cookbooks. 

2. They eat bugs and mice, lots of them. I love that they eat bugs, but in particular, mosquitoes. YES. I watched my barred rock jump and pick them out of the air once and it filled my heart with joy. My husband, meanwhile, loves that they eat spiders. That's all I'll say about that. Them eating mice is one of my favorite things as well. And they don't leave little body parts, like my cats do. 

3. Thanks to composting with bedding and chicken poo I bought my first bag of garden soil just last week. Usually, by early March, my husband and I are trying to figure out how we can afford to get a ton of new soil for the gardens. But thanks to composting over the winter and deep litter in the run, we had plenty of excellent stuff to use for the garden and to get things going. 

4. They are hilarious. I cannot express this one enough. They truly crack us up all the time and have such individual personalities. We used to have a bantam rooster named Turtle (when he was first hatched he would fall on his back all the time and couldn't turn over). His complete inability to properly mate our regular sized hens is just hilarious. The poor guy. He's very intense and we believe it is frustration.

  

And spaghetti noodles; watching them run away from each other to hoard them is amazing. Who knew? If you really want to be convinced, find someone who has chickens, bring beer (or coffee or whatever) to their house and sit and watch the chickens. It's hours of fun.

5. If you're up for harvesting chickens, they taste way better fresh than the frozen Kroger version. This was also a nice surprise. My feelings on hearing this from chickens folks(or people who spend $25 on a whole chicken at a snooty grocery store) was very much like #1. But, as I tell my kids, sometimes it's good to be wrong. 

6. They get my lazy butt outside.

I get more exercise since I started with the chickens, than I have since I was in my early 30s (my peak physical time). And because I care about their well-being, I do all sorts of stuff during the winter to keep them comfortable as well, even if it's freezing, rainy, sleety, muddy, all of it. A couple of years ago, I would have chuckled at the thought. I HATE the cold. Yesterday, there were tornado sirens going off and I was running outside with mealworms to get them into the coop. Yes. I hate tornadoes. I'm usually the one in the tub with a couch cushion over my head. It's like I've gone insane.

7. They mow the yard. Now, this is both a plus and a minus really, because really, they'll demolish your yard, depending on how many doodles you have. Our first year, they kept the yard mowed, but the second year there was no grass to be seen. So, we worked out a compromise and built an enclosure, agreeing to split the yard with them and our side gets seeded a lot. We have the chicken yard and the people yard. Our front yard (no chickens there) started getting mowed this year in early March and we will likely mow the backyard 2-3 times this summer.  

8. I can build stuff now. Due to a desire to take care of these monsters, I have new power tools and have learned all sorts of things about building stuff. My husband has been a patient teacher of the basics and he has learned more complex stuff as well. Just a few of the additions to our tool collection include a dremel, router, table saw, a cordless drill and circular saw set, so we can both work at the same time. We're very macho. 

9. You get to buy cool stuff. I now own things like muck boots and work gloves. I go to tractor supply now and need cool things in the store. I even have a bunch of t-shirts declaring my chicken love. Good stuff.

 10. Falling in love. Since I have gotten chickens, my life is truly more full. This from a woman who was incredibly happy before. In that time I've had my kids move out, had to convince my husband  (he's 100% on-board now. Ok, he's as bad as I am) and had many friends think I've gone out of my mind. I went from not having pets during my adult life to becoming this giant animal lover in my 40's. But, I am absolutely in love and my husband and I have such an amazing time with them. Being home is my favorite. 

11. And ... baby chicks. I mean seriously. Everyone loves them and watching them hatch out of an egg is exciting EVERY time.

Now, go buy chickens. GO.

I Love My Reclaimed Wood Coop

In the Fall of 2015 my husband and I made the decision to tear our back porch off the house. We had found (during a stressful, get the damn cat back in the house moment) that underneath the porch was a concrete patio as well as steps that the previous owner had built the deck over without removing. They never stained or protected the wood properly, so the porch was in horrible shape. We did some work when we moved in, but it seemed to be too little too late. This has turned out to be a wonderful blessing! Not only do I love my little patio, but from the wood we recovered we have built garden boxes, a little library and now our amazing new chicken coop.

First, my husband spent weeks planning, reading and Googling to decide what kind of coop we needed. After he questioned me, then drew everything out, we made a list of what we had and what we needed. Then we hit Lowe's (my daughter is pushing the lumber cart on the left there). We ended up having to spend about $100 at Lowe's, then making a couple more trips for about $25 each. Not bad for an 8x4 coop with a good size nesting box.

The legs, base and some of the framing wood is pulled from the deck. New studs were purchased on our first run to fill in the 2x4s as the deck didn't have a lot of 2x4s, mostly 2x8s and 1x6s. We were able to put the 1x6s to use for the sides and it almost completely covered everything. We picked up a few more 1x6 boards to wrap that up.

One of my favorite parts is the nesting box my sweetie designed and built so I could access eggs from the patio, just my short self.

The lid opens up perfectly from the patio and inside is a 2x8 board separating it into 2 boxes. I plan to hang a curtain giving it a little more privacy.

Inside is the cool roost I built when my sweetie was still in bed in the morning. I'm super proud of it. :-) I also painted the floor with a bunch of sample paints I have remaining from painting the inside of my house. I just tossed them all together, not caring about the color.

We started working on the coop in the Fall of 2015 and didn't paint it until just this week, when the weather would cooperate more. As a result, the chickens chose to sleep in the door to the coop and cracked me up. I blocked them from the old one, putting the new chicks in that one. Two chickens slept in the new nesting boxes and the other two slept here, in the open door.

Once the warm weather hit, I started with the paint sample colors. It took quite a bit, but I finally was able to color match to the super dark blue I wanted.

My husband also added the coolest thing ever, a door that slides up and down so I can easily open it without having to go into the run in the mornings. I love the man so much.

We are talking about adding some white lettering on it declaring it the roost, but I haven't decided exactly how I want to do that yet.

So, here we are. My gorgeous dark blue coop.

*A few of the pics below were taken while I was mid-painting still.