by Izzet Inak

Created on: June 17, 2010   Last Updated: June 19, 2010

Free and delicious eggs, less bugs and fertilized soil; if you raise chickens in your backyard, you will experience all these things. We all know that dogs and cats are great friends but we don’t know very much about chickens. People usually say they are stinky and noisy and they discourage the ones that want to raise chickens. Just like other living creatures, they are stinky and noisy. Dogs bark and cats drop hair.

Even you have a small backyard, you can have chickens. These friendly animals do not need too much space. They only need a piece of soil and a place to sleep preferably some place higher than the ground. The biggest problem you might face while breeding chickens is your neighbors. Your neighbors might not like your rooster crowing at 5 am. But at the same time, the same neighbors might move furniture at 3 am. Be sure to check the local law and don’t be afraid to ask law enforcement officers if you can have chickens at your yard or not. If you are granted to have chickens in our backyard, you don’t need to worry about your neighbors.

Roosters attack humans! True and false. Roosters are no different than humans. Some men are very violent and some are very calm men. It all depends on the personality of the rooster. I have one rooster which is very calm and my wife and I can take him into our hands and pet him. His is called Coco. We also have another cock which is pretty much aggressive and we plan to sell it to a pet shop.

Breeds are the tricky part. I have seen many websites that say Plymouth Rock hens are very friendly against other breed which is not true. You can only live and learn. A very friendly breed might turn out to be a very aggressive one and a very aggressive can turn out to be a very friendly one. But some advice, never get chickens very close to your eye. They will hit any shiny and moving thing and them hitting your eye is the last thing we would want.

If you have peeps, give them food from your hand. This will make them friendlier and they will know you are their food giver. Even when they grow, do not forget to hand-feed them sometimes. Peeps are adorable but there is the risk of high death rate. 2 out of 10 peeps might live if they are bought from a pet store. Pullets are a better alternative to the peeps as you can sort out the gender and you can pretty much understand if they are aggressive or calm.

Peeps and pullets are vulnerable to the predators such as cats and lynx. So be sure you have a closed shelter for your chickens. Once they are grown up, they can protect themselves against small predators but there is still a risk than come from bigger predators like fox and owl. Chickens do not see at night and they cannot defend themselves from an attack at night.

Chickens basically eat anything but too much sugar and salt might kill them. You can buy them special food or just give them the food remains of the house. They love to eat soil worms, so if you capture one, just give to your chickens, it will make their day.

Have fun with your chickens and you will see that soon they will become your best friends.

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