Here’s why you need chickens: there’s hardly a better animal for the preparedness junkie, the egg-lover, the avianaphilic, or soup.

On a scale from 1-10 in the “How Ready Are You For The Collapse Of Western Civilization And The Time of Drinking From Toilets” scale, owning chickens is a solid 10. Chickens provide meat and eggs with a minimum of input and can be kept in confined spaces. A henhouse can be much more productive than a garden. Think of how many lettuces you’d have to eat to be satiated. Now think of how many eggs. Plus – eggs provide protein, vitamins and fat that are hard to get from the vegetable realm.

If you’re in the city – what’s wrong with you? CITIES ARE DANGEROUS! Sorry. I get carried away when I remember Miami traffic. If you’re in the city, you can still own chickens. It may be “against the law” where you are – but a little civil disobedience might be in order. I’ve been a part of trying to change city ordinances regarding chickens and it’s almost impossible. Why? City leaders are generally bureaucratic idiots who like feeling important and hate letting people live their lives without government oversight. It’s the nature of the game. The people who want to be in charge are generally meddlers – and those who want to leave others alone never run for office. Great plans for small coops abound on the ‘net and tucking a few hens away in a corner isn’t a bad idea. Roosters are likely to rat you out… and hens don’t need one to lay, so they’re more eye-candy than anything else.

In rural areas, chickens truly come into their own. They provide a wide variety of useful functions, so here’s my list of why you need chickens.

Why You Need Chickens

1. Being yummy food (I know… already mentioned that…)
2. Tilling the ground
3. Eating weeds
4. Eating pests
5. Source of feathers
6. Source of fantastic fertilizer
7. Entertainment

Admittedly, #5 is a bit tenuous, and #7 is a stretch, it being rather lame to sit outside and watch the chickens when you could be inside playing rooster with your hen… but it’s better than watching anything on the major networks, including “CSI: Hickville.”

Creating a moveable enclosure (a chicken tractor/ark) for your hens will allow them to tear up the ground and bug hunt. Then, after they’ve bared and tilled and manured that space, you plant it with something tasty. I built my tractor as a 4 x 8’, since that’s a good garden bed size.

Soon I’ll build another and we’ll really have some tilling going.

A family can live off their chickens if they have enough. A family of four needs about 8 chickens to provide enough eggs, a family of 10 about 20 chickens. We eat a lot of eggs so I keep around 25 chickens, make lots of egg stir-fries and egg smoothies, and give away some of the extra eggs as gifts to my neighbors. Openhandedness wins friends and muffles the crowing of roosters.

Hens will generally start laying between 5 and 6 months of age. Don’t mess around with silly breeds if you want dependable layers that will be there for you in hard times. Get Rhode Island Reds, Barred Rocks, Buff Orpingtons or other hardy dual-purpose breeds. (Orpingtons are handsome birds and look great in a flock, though they aren’t quite as excellent a layer as a Rhode Island Red.) Or, you can breed your own. One thing to consider: if you want a self-perpetuating flock that maintains its purity for a generation or two, settle on one good breed and get them all in that type. I’ve got a mix and wish I didn’t. When you end up with a few extra birds because one of your hens went broody, it’s nice to be able to sell “Barred Rock Pullets: $10 ea.” rather than “Weird Mongrel Freaks – Austrolorp Bantam Ostriches? Make Offer.”

A good place to purchase chicks through the mail is at http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com, though the minimum order is 25 birds. Of course, if you don’t have room for that many, you can always sell the extras locally or farm them off to other chicken enthusiasts.

The best way to get going with chickens is to read a bit… then get some chicks.

Cluck cluck.

UPDATE: My small homestead instructional video features my chickens and their tractor in a segment – get that here!