Benefits of Keeping Backyard Chickens

Seven Justifications for Keeping Backyard Chickens

Chickens

Are you considering keeping hens in your backyard but aren't sure if it's the correct move for you? It's my personal experience, but nothing beats eating scrambled eggs that were laid that morning. The ease of gathering them only requires strolling to your backyard. There's no comparison to the freshness of them.


In addition, knowing what goes into the eggs on your plate, having a free source of fertilizer, less bugs in the yard, a more environmentally friendly method of utilizing kitchen scraps, and a gasoline-free tiller are all guaranteed by having an egg source directly in your backyard!
Any size garden can benefit from having chickens because they are relatively low maintenance. The advantages of owning laying chickens at home extend to even city people with a little yard.
1. Always Fresh Eggs

The ability to go outside to your backyard, get eggs that were laid early that morning, and put them straight into the frying pan is arguably one of the most fulfilling aspects of having laying hens. There are no eggs more fresh than those raised in your own kitchen. I believe you'll agree when you give it a try.
The eggs you buy at the grocery store can be 30 days old or older by the time you buy them, according to USDA standards! You'll notice that it's a simple decision if you compare that to an egg that was laid 30 minutes before being cracked into your frying pan.

2. Make Eggs Out of Kitchen Scraps

Vegetables and greens are part of a diversified diet that is ideal for chickens. They are therefore ideal for getting rid of kitchen scraps left over from the previous evening's vegetable cutting. Your hens will not only be healthier, but you'll also save money on feed and prevent organic material from ending up in the trash.

3. Openness

It can be challenging to know exactly what ingredients are in the meal you're eating if you're not making it yourself. On the other hand, you know exactly what your laying hens are consuming when you own them.

You can choose to eat eggs from chickens raised without grain or soy, without antibiotics, organically, or for any other reason. Since you feed the hens yourself, you can always be sure of the type of feed that ends up in your eggs.
Most things are acceptable to serve to chickens, but steer clear of citrus, avocado rinds and pits, chocolate, cooked dry beans, and very moldy or rotten food.


4. Lessen Pests in the Backyard
Apart from consuming leftover food, hens also enjoy consuming the insects that reside in your garden. It can lessen the amount of dangerous insects that reside in your yard and provides your hens with an excellent source of protein.
Ticks, flies, scorpions, dangerous spiders, centipedes, grasshoppers, and even the occasional small snake will all be exterminated from your property by keeping chickens. Give your hens lots of locations to forage for animals and let them roam free every day to optimize the effect of pest control.

5. Complimentary Fertilizer
Your backyard will quickly become green if you allow your hens to roam free during the day. This is a fantastic supply of free nitrogen. However, even if your hens are housed in a coop with a run connected, you may still collect their dung to create an excellent fertilizer for your garden.

In addition to having a high nitrogen content, chicken dung also contains potassium and phosphorus. That's why its value as fertilizer is so great. However, chicken manure is regarded as "hot" due to its high nitrogen content, and if it is put straight to your garden plants, it may burn them.

Because of this, it's advisable to compost your chicken dung rather than adding it straight to your vegetable plot. Manure can be composted to allow the nutrients to decompose and become more beneficial to your plants.

Just collect the bedding that contains the chicken dung from the coop floor and add it to your compost pile to start your own compost. Make sure to flip the pile every couple of weeks and give it plenty of water. For chicken dung to fully compost, it usually takes 6 to 9 months, though this might vary based on the specifics of your pile.

6. Tiller Without Fuel
Chickens are expert cultivators. Their strong legs rip across the earth, churning it over as they search for morsels of food. Spread compost or soil amendments throughout the top layer of your garden, let the hens roam free, and observe them at work if you have any!
Your hens can also break up any hard sod if that's what it needs. In four to six weeks, one chicken can till 50 square feet of sod. Increase the number of hens to expedite the process further.

However, because they are indiscriminate tillers, make sure to fence off places you don't want them to be in or utilize a chicken tractor to better manage their access. Additionally, hens can assist with turning a compost bed and spreading out a mound of leaves or mulch. Rather than breaking your back, utilize chickens!

7. Grasping
Try assigning your hens to pull undesired weeds if you're sick of spending hours on your hands and knees digging out unwanted plants and don't want to use dangerous pesticides in your garden.

Give your hens free reign in the garden beds prior to planting in the spring, and see how they eliminate any weeds that are just beginning to grow and identify dangerous insects. After this, you'll have a garden plot that is ready for veggies—clean and fertilized.