All you really truly need to raise the chickens is a little bit of space and the desire to actually take care of them. You don't need a huge yard, or even a fenced yard since the chickens really wont wander too far from their coop and hen house. You need to be available to clean out the water every day (sometimes more than once a day), check food, collect eggs and clean out the coop and nesting boxes. That is basically it.
What I have is a total yard of about 1.45 acres with the back yard all fenced in. What I also have are dogs...2 of them...pit bulls (sweetest babies on the planet, but that is another blog).....and of course 4 children (not to mention that pool, so i hope they can swim LOL). Soooo, coop design is important for me in that i need to be able to leave the chickens in the pen while the dogs/children are using the back yard and still let the girls have some exercise. And I have time....I stay home during the day with the youngest of my 4 and work at night, so I can monitor free range time and the cleaning/feeding daily.
So, now you can sit on the internet and google some chicken breeds....Next post, picking our chicken breed I'll start giving a run down of money spent!!
**Update** chickens and dogs now use the backyard at the same time and chickens are let out by 8am to range so really the only time they locked in the coop has been during the hurricane Sandy...
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