Backyard Chickens: The Beginners Guide to Raising Chickens in Town or Country: Sustainable Living & Homestead Survival Series

By Gaia Rodale

Just to say Thank You for checking out this Book I want to give you a copy of my upcoming special report "The Homesteader’s Calendar: Seasonal To-Dos for Sustainable Living & Homestead Survival ".

The benefits of raising backyard chickens go well beyond providing fresh eggs and these benefits align with the foundational beliefs and goals of most homesteading families.    Backyard chickens are one of the easiest and least expensive ways to start building a self-sufficient, sustainable food supply.  This guide provides the basic information needed to make the commitment to raising backyard chickens and the recommendations and advice needed to build and care for your flock.

Beginning with the most important question that must be answered in relation to starting a flock of backyard chickens – whether or not it is something you really want to do – the guide goes on to provide helpful criteria and resources for choosing the right chickens, coop, and flock size.  By offering suggestions and recommendations pulled from experts and personal experience, this guide will help you:

• Determine if you have what it takes to raise chickens, not everybody really has a burning desire to care for chickens
• Find out if you are allowed to have chickens, your home owners association or local government may have restrictions you need to know about
• Decide how many chickens you need, as with so many other things in life, less is often more
• Choose the best breed(s) for your needs, all breeds are NOT created equal
• Decide if free-ranging your flock is for you
• Choose a coop design, you don’t have to spend a zillion dollars here, but you certainly can if you want to…       
• Set up the coop for comfort and safety, this is super important since you don’t want to be raising dinner for your local predators     
• Feed and water your flock, chickens are pretty simple in this department but there are a few caveats you need to know about
• Maintain a clean and sanitary coop, and absolute must for happy healthy chickens and safe delicious eggs
• Care for your chickens in cold climates

If you have ever wondered what it would be like to raise chickens and gather your own eggs, this guide provides you with the information you need to start your own flock.   From working through zoning or city ordinance issues to selecting the best breeds, you have the information you need to choose the right coop, get the best birds, and keep them healthy and happy so that your refrigerator is always full of freshly laid eggs.

Scroll up and get your copy of “Backyard Chickens: The Beginner’s Guide to Raising Chickens in Town or Country” now…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Healthy Wealthy nWise Press
• Release date: Aug 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781516306633

Book preview

Introduction

I want to thank you and congratulate you for downloading, "Backyard Chickens: The Beginner’s Guide to Raising Chickens in Town or Country".

There was a time when having a handful of chickens pecking around in the yard wasn’t anything unusual and having freshly laid eggs for breakfast was an everyday occurrence.  But as society changed over the last century, so did our ideas about where chickens are supposed to live and how we are supposed to get our eggs and meat.  Namely, chickens live on farms and eggs and meat come from stores.  If there was any doubt about the society’s view of keeping chickens, you need only look to the laws and regulations that limit and prohibit this practice in many communities.

But for homesteading families, backyard chickens are one of the easiest and least expensive ways to start building their own self-sufficient, sustainable food supply.  This guide provides those families, families like yours, with the basic information needed to make the commitment to raising backyard chickens and then get your flock going.

This guide begins by asking the most important question that must be answered in relation to starting your own backyard flock – whether or not it is something you should do.  From there, it provides you with helpful criteria and resources to choose the right chickens for your needs and helps you figure out how many chickens should be in your starter flock.  It offers advice on choosing a coop and recommendations on how to set your coop up to provide your chickens with a safe, sanitary, comfortable home.  Finally, it offers basic information on how to care for your chickens, even in cold Northern climates.

With the information here, you will have what you need to choose a coop, buy your birds, and have fresh, delicious, sustainably raised eggs as the first step toward a sustainable, self-sufficient food supply.

Happy Homesteading!

Gaia Rodale

Why People Raise Chickens

Chickens are the most common animal raised by homesteaders.  Having immediate access to fresh, free-range eggs is just one of the many reasons that chickens are a natural fit for homesteading families. 

After eggs, space requirements have to top the list for most of us.  Chickens, even when raised free range, take less space to raise than other livestock.  This is often the most important consideration since many modern homesteaders lack large spaces and many live in urban environments where