From garden helpers to waste reducers to entertainers, versatile backyard chickens offer great value at a relatively low cost.
5 great reasons to keep chickens
Ah, those versatile backyard chickens!
All of us aiming to grow our own food and medicine need a little help sometimes, right?
Maybe someone aerated the garden, tilled and weeded, and got rid of some pesky bugs.
It would be great if they could make our kitchen jobs easier by reducing waste and providing healthy food for our families.
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They need to be affordable.
If they can also provide peace of mind and even some entertainment – that’s even better!
If all of these sound like skills you can get behind, you already know where to look…
…those friendly backyard chickens!
Read on to learn more about the benefits of keeping these great home and garden helpers!
Benefit #1: Eggs, Meat, Manure, and More!
Eggs, meat, manure, pest control, and the joy of keeping them are some of the biggest reasons why people keep backyard chickens.
For example, did you know that your regular dual-purpose backyard hens can produce Over 180 eggs per year–about 1 cubic foot of precious fertilizer every 6 months?
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If you want to put meat on the table, you’ll be happy to know that the same chicken can do it Reach 8 lb slaughter weight in just 6 weeks.
you can also Use every part of the chicken– not just its meat. Its bones are nutrient-dense raw materials; you can use its feathers to compost or craft materials; the rest can provide nutrients to other carnivores, such as dogs.
As omnivores, chickens are very fond of live insects and sometimes small animals, and chickens can help overpopulation Grasshoppers, nematodes, cutworms, Japanese beetles, brown spot bugs, small mice, etc.
They are also fascinating creatures that can provide endless entertainment.
Benefit #2: Eliminate Waste
But how to recycle?
According to the USDA, 31% (or 133 billion pounds!) of the available food supply is wasted by retailers and consumers every year.
Most of this waste happens because consumers—that is, us—just don’t want to eat it. Maybe the fruit got bruised, the leftovers weren’t welcome, or the baking got messed up.
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Whatever the reason, perfectly safe food ends up in landfills at an alarming rate.
Since chickens don’t care about the aesthetics of their food and have fewer taste buds than the average person, they are great at “recycling” unwanted but still safe food.
If every home or community had backyard chickens, we could potentially eliminate 21% of post-recycling waste from landfills.
(Please note that feeding chickens with kitchen waste is Unlawful In the UK, unless you are a vegetarian, this benefit may not apply in all situations. )
Benefit #3: Garden Helpers
Backyard chickens are also excellent workers if managed in a way that respects their inherent behavior.
- For example, backyard chickens can be used to help break down compost due to their great scratching abilities.
- Using grids or runways, they make excellent herbicides along difficult-to-cut fence lines.
- In winter, backyard chickens can help you prepare your garden bed for spring. They basically do light tillage as they hunt through mulch and organic debris for overwintering pests. And, of course, they’ll fertilize your soil along the way!
Benefit #4: Healthy Chicken Means Healthy Meat and Eggs
If these good reasons to keep chickens haven’t quite convinced you yet, how about Inner Peace?
We all know that factory farmed broilers and layers are not raised using ideal methods when it comes to chicken health.but These conditions also lead to potentially problematic impacts related to human well-being.
For example, from 1944 to 2015, arsenic was an FDA-approved feed additive that was frequently used to accelerate chicken growth, enhance skin pigmentation and prevent parasitic infections.
The arsenic ingested by chickens is believed to remain organic and excreted prior to processing, so it poses no risk to humans.
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However, new scientific testing proves that inorganic arsenic — which causes lung, bladder, and skin cancer and contributes to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cognitive deficits, and adverse pregnancy outcomes — is indeed fed arsenic and is likely in transmitted to humans during this period.
While arsenic does occur in nature, and at some point it may be useful (as rat poison, for example), intentionally feeding it to chickens on a regular basis to make them fatter has proven not to be the safest idea.
Benefit #5: You’re in Control
When you raise your own backyard chickens, you can choose what they eat, how they live, and what to do with them when processed into meat.
You also have control over the cleanliness of the coop and can contribute directly to your own health by playing a direct role in ensuring the health of your chickens.
Start raising backyard chickens
Raising backyard chickens isn’t difficult, but it does require commitment and a certain amount of skill.
For thousands of years, people around the world have managed to do this without all the technology we have today. However, with the advent of modern food conveniences like grocery stores and fast food restaurants, many of us have lost touch with our food raising heritage and need some help to reconnect with our heritage.
To learn more about raising backyard chickens for eggs, meat, and fun, be sure to Check out our Movies + Books here.
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This is an updated version of an article originally published on November 12, 2017. Authors may not be able to respond to comments at this time, but we encourage our community members to join, share their experiences and answer questions!
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The Grow Network is a global network of people who produce their own food and medicines. We are the coolest bunch of backyard researchers on the planet! We are constantly sharing, discovering and collaborating to test new ways of living sustainably – while reconnecting with the “old ways” that are disappearing in the modern world. We value soil, water, sunlight, simplicity, sustainability, practicality and freedom. We work hard to produce, prepare and preserve our own food and medicines, and we want you to do the same!
