We raise both meat and laying chickens here on the farm, and have for years. Unless something were to drastically change, that would cause this to no longer be affordable for us, I don’t see us giving up chickens anytime soon!

You would think chickens are chickens and should all be treated equally, but that’s totally false. I love my laying birds! They are pretty and provide me with eggs daily. I get attached to these birds because they are here usually about two years, sometimes longer. In contrast, the meat birds are here 8 weeks total and are pretty gross all around!

When we got ready to move home, I’m not gonna lie, one of the first things I did was buy chicks. By that point, I had nearly convinced the hubby to let me have them in Mercer anyway, and had been researching my butt off on different homesteading practices! As a result, I had a very firm plan in place of how I was going to manage my flock.

Much of my practices are based on info from Justin Rhodes Abundant Permaculture and his YouTube channel Justin Rhodes.

Choosing Breeds

Since I need the the flock to be self sustaining (meaning produce enough income to keep them feed and us in eggs at the same time), I carefully choose a mix of heritage breeds and high production birds for my layers.

I look for breeds that are gentle but still pretty friendly since the boys will be working with them. For heritage breeds, I have primarily stuck to the Australorps, Asians, Opringtons and Wyandottes. I think if I had to choose just one, I would say I like the Wyandottes the best, but they definitely like people the least, which makes them less fun for the kids. The Australorps seem to be more willing to be handled so the kids like them the best!

For my high production birds, I have stuck primarily to ISA Browns and Production Reds. Of the two, I would rather have the Production Reds though, as they are more of a dual purpose bird so I am still getting a decent amount of meat out of them when it’s time to cull them.

Flock Management

Feeding Rations

When I was a kid we had laying birds and I remember my dad constantly complain about how much they cost and how they weren’t worth having. As a matter of fact they did get rid of them for several years.

To combat this problem, I practice grain rationing and supplement with black oil sunflower seeds for added protein. So what does that mean exactly? It means that I carefully monitor how much grain I give my flock daily, rather than filling the feeder once a week and then just refilling it when it’s empty. Depending on how many kitchen scraps they get that day the grain also goes up or down.

I relied heavily on Justin Rhodes article How to Feed Your Chickens Without Grain – 20 Ways to Cut Your Costs 100% and modified it to what best fits our lifestyle. I have a huge spreadsheet that tracks basically everything and I have it figured out that each dozen eggs I get from my chickens is costing me about $.66 without factoring in stuff like straw and electric. So not really cheaper than the grocery store but they definitely taste better!

New Bird Rotation

I breed my heritage breeds and hatch them out and buy high production pullets to keep the flock going. I try to have at least 8 new hens added to the flock every fall and spring to keep the number of eggs I get pretty consistent year round.

I cull birds when they hit 2 years of age for hens, and roosters either get culled or sold at auction. Meaning I have to keep really good records and be consistent when marking birds so they can be easily identified. I use leg bands to identify each bird and track them in the same way that I track the feed rations.

Pen Rotations

I do have two stationary coops and runs that we flip flop the layers between. They spend the winter in the large coop normally from about September to April or May. And the summer in the large open run.

I also plant both runs with cover crops while they aren’t in use and add spent hay and bedding from our winter deep bedding pens in the barn. This keeps the birds busy and varies their diet some as well as attracts worms and bugs for the birds to eat. Long term, we will pull the resulting mulch out for our garden beds.