by Cathy Perrins

Created on: May 08, 2008

Raising chickens in your backyard is a fun thing to do. They create mobile "yard art" which is a hoot to watch as well as providing eggs. In our backyard free range - well, "free backyard" - chickens eat all the big centipedes which is a huge plus in our book. The chickens can be raised to be pets or they can be left as "livestock" depending on how much you want to interact with them.

Chickens have been domesticated for thousands of years and have been bred to many different varieties. Among these interesting types there will be one perfect for your backyard. There are the small bantams which get up to several pounds or one kilo at maturity or the large heavy breeds which will get well over ten pounds or up to four and a half kilos at maturity. A hen will lay eggs without a rooster around so you can choose just to keep hens if you'd like eggs without crowing. Different breeds lay different colored eggs so if you are raising chickens in your backyard you will be able to choose a breed which will lay white, cream, light brown, dark brown or even blue, green and pink eggs. The breed of chicken will also help determine the size and quantity of eggs as well. Many folks who raise chickens in their backyards choose to keep the breeds they like to watch since there is just as much joy in watching them as there is in eating the eggs. Some breeds have interesting feather arrangements such as the Frizzle which looks like it stuck it's beak into an electric socket or the Polish which has such a big "poof" of feathers on it's head that it is amazing it can see out from under them.

The biggest hurdle to keeping chickens in your backyard is keeping them safe. After all, they taste just like chicken and just about everything on the planet wants to eat them. Our backyard is fenced to keep wandering dogs out and our border collies have been trained not to eat the chickens but that doesn't mean they don't herd them all over the yard. The chickens don't seem to mind, though. Many folks who don't have chicken friendly dogs to keep predators away build a small chicken house with a small fenced in run for a few hens so they will be safe. The chickens can be let out into the rest of the yard in the afternoons when they can be watched so they can scratch and eat bugs and grasses.

Chickens don't need a fancy house basically they need shelter from rain and wind and would like some sort of a horizontal pole to roost on. Our hen house is pretty small; about three feet or one meter by six

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