Backyard Chickens: A Pet Parent’s Guide for Chicken Care

With their unique personalities, it’s no wonder that chickens have become increasingly popular pets.

Before bringing fluffy chicks home, it’s important to understand their needs.

Pet parents need to be sure that they can provide a safe, happy home for their chickens, with appropriate enclosures, feed, and enrichment.

This guide will help you ensure that your chickens live long, healthy, and productive lives.

Why Should You Raise Backyard Chickens?

There are several benefits in keeping backyard chickens, such as:

• Chickens are a very social and intelligent birds that can be kept in relatively small spaces.

• Many common chicken breeds are friendly and trainable, making them excellent pets and companions if you put the time in to socialize them.

  • Aside from providing love and companionship, chickens offer a source of fresh eggs, as well as great tick and garden pest control when they’re allowed to roam.

  • Chickens will eat caterpillars and other insects that munch flowers and veggies.

• Additionally, chicken manure is easy to add to garden beds—it’s a great source of nitrogen for plants.

Where Should You Get Backyard Chickens?

Chicks are often readily available through mail order or local farm supply stores.

Though these outlets may be the easiest when searching for your chicks, always investigate your source and make sure it is sustainable and committed to selling healthy animals.

The National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP) was started in the 1930s to help eliminate certain diseases from the chicken and turkey populations of the United States.

Participants in this program adhere to standard testing and biosecurity measures and can be certified as free from multiple diseases.

Purchasing from an NPIP-participating breeder helps ensure that you are getting healthy chicks, and it also supports promoting poultry health as an industry.

You may also find that adopting adult chickens from a farm sanctuary fits your flock goals.

Older, adoptable hens and those retired from large farms may not lay as frequently as their younger counterparts.

However, adopting adults is a great way to ensure the gender and personality of the hen you are adding to the flock. You’re also giving these girls a new lease on life and care they may not have previously had.

4 Factors To Consider Before Raising Backyard Chickens

There are several things to consider when deciding if backyard chickens will fit well in your space and your life.

1. Regulations and Laws of Your State and Community

Although they can often be kept on smaller lots, chickens are still a farm animal and it’s extremely important to make sure you are legally allowed to keep them.

Laws will vary in states, counties, and communities.

There may be restrictions on how many chickens can be kept, where they can be kept, and whether a rooster is allowed to be part of your flock. 

Contact your municipality and/or homeowner’s association before getting started on building a coop.

2. Breeds

Chickens, like other farm animals, have been bred for centuries for different purposes. It’s essential to choose a breed that best fits your lifestyle.

Temperament, egg-laying capacity, and appearance make Rhode Island Reds, Plymouth Rock, and Buff Orpington chickens are common breed choices for backyard flocks.

Other popular breeds include the Araucana, who lay bright blue eggs, and the Silkie, a sweet bird with unique plumage.

If you can’t choose between breeds, don’t be afraid to have a mixed flock!

Some breeds have been developed strictly for commercial farming and don’t fare as well as pets. Broiler breeds like the Cornish Cross do not do well in backyard flocks.

3. Health

Chicken health depends heavily on where your chicken is adopted from as well as its living quarters. It’s important that pet parents maintain a clean, stress-free environment for their flock.

Chickens are prone to several transmissible parasitic, bacterial, and viral infections. So it’s important to quarantine and health-check new flock members and minimize adding new birds if possible.

Adopting from HPIP-approved sources and having your vet vaccinate young birds at the appropriate ages will help prevent these diseases.

There are also some infections that backyard chickens are at risk for attacks by wild birds. Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI) is a rapidly growing concern, because it can cross species.

If you have backyard chickens, remove wild bird feeders and other things that may attract wild birds.

If possible, it’s recommended that chicken runs have covering to minimize exposure to wild bird feces.

Keeping bedding, food, and waterers clean and dry is important to reduce parasite and fungal exposures. This can also help prevent traumatic injuries like bumblefoot, an infection of the foot.

4. Sex

Male chickens, or roosters, are not necessary for a successful backyard flock, and it’s recommended that first-time pet parents avoid adopting one. Your hens will lay eggs without them.

Some other downsides to having roosters in your flock include:

• Many town ordinances forbid roosters due to noise concerns.

• Roosters are frequently aggressive and can cause injuries to humans, pets, and other chickens with their sharp talons.

• Multiple roosters kept together with hens will frequently fight to the death.

Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult to tell the sex of a chick. Some breeds have sex-linked traits to make it slightly easier to tell the difference between male and female chicks.

However, these methods are not foolproof, and many chicken parents are left with an unexpected rooster in a batch of “all-female” chicks.

The only foolproof way to avoid obtaining a rooster is by adopting adult chickens.

If you end up with a rooster you can’t keep, reach out to neighboring small farms, sanctuaries, or shelters for advice on safely rehoming him.

How Many Backyard Chickens Should I Have?

Chickens are social animals and should not be kept as solitary pets.

The minimum number you should keep at any time is three hens.

Your maximum will be determined by how much space you have available.

Most resources recommend a starting flock of six chickens for beginners. This is enough chickens for a normal social order, but not too many to house or keep track of.

Preparing for Backyard Chickens

Once the decision has been made to add chickens to your family, it can be tempting to bring home your new feathered friends as soon as possible.

However, it’s extremely important to have the proper housing, food, and other resources established before bringing them home.

Chickens grow and mature quickly, and too many changes in food and housing can lead to stress and illness.

What You’ll Need for Your Backyard Chickens

Let's look at a some essentials every pet parent needs when raising backyard chickens.

Feed

For good overall health and egg production, your chickens should be given easily accessible, well-balanced feeds.

Commercial chicken food isn’t one-size-fits-all. Different breeds have different egg-laying capacity—and that means their protein and calcium requirements may be different.

Age is also an important factor in choosing a feed. Growing chicks should be fed a starter/grower diet because layer diets do not provide appropriate nutrition for growth.

Many feeders are available for backyard chickens. P

lastic products are highly recommended due to bacterial resistance and ease of cleaning.

Feeders with reservoirs are handy so that you aren’t constantly refilling them. However, food shouldn’t be left out long enough to go stale.

Members of your local university agricultural extension or a vet experienced in chicken husbandry are great resources for advice on choosing the right food.

Most backyard flocks will benefit from a complete layer diet.

Pelleted feeds are often recommended so hens don’t pick out the tastiest morsels and lose some of the nutritional value of the food.

Nutrient imbalances can lead to poor egg production, growth defects, brittle bones, and poor feather quality.

While it’s tempting to feed your chickens homemade food, it’s extremely difficult to properly balance their diets that way.

Supplements

When fed a complete pelleted commercial diet, chickens should not need vitamins or supplements.

However, your chickens may enjoy meal worms or chicken scratch for the occasional treat.

Watermelon and blueberries can also be offered as snacks, and they may be slightly lower in calories.

It’s important that these treats don’t make up more than 10% of your chickens’ daily food intake. Monitor their weight with your veterinarian to make sure they don’t become chubby!

Water

Clean water should always be available to your backyard chickens.

Bowls are often contaminated by stool, bedding, and feed. Because of this, raised waterers or waterers with nipples or cups are recommended.

Keeping this water source clean is critical for your chickens’ health and happiness.

A heated waterer may help avoid the risks of frozen water sources in the winter.

Shelter

Each of your hens will need 3–4 square feet of floor space inside the coop.

You should provide at least one 14” x 14” x 12” nesting box for every three hens that you have.

The most important aspects of the coop to consider are:

• Appropriate size: The largest set-up you can accommodate is best.

• Ease of cleaning: You want to make sure you can easily shovel and replace bedding, clean roosts, and access nesting boxes.

• Protection from predators (foxes, raccoons): Predators are the No. 1 cause of death in backyard flocks. Coops need to have good ventilation, but openings should be covered with a sturdy hardware cloth to repel unwanted intruders.

• Protection from vermin (insects, rats, mice): Keeping coops will help to keep vermin away. Make sure extra feed is in airtight containers, as these creatures will spread disease to your flock.

• Roosting bar: Chickens are happiest sleeping off the ground (known as roosting).

While building your own coop can be rewarding, there are great pre-made options for larger or smaller flocks.

Good Temperature

Chickens should be kept at temperatures between 60–75 F. If kept in temps outside this range, they may suffer from stress brought on by the heat or cold.

If you live in a region with cold winters, selecting a more cold-hardy breed like the Plymouth Rock, Ameraucana, or Buff Orpington is recommended.

Coops should be well-insulated for both summer and winter, and runs should allow areas of shade in the summer. Make sure that your chickens don’t have access to any of the insulation, because they may peck and destroy it.

A thermometer at different heights in the coop will help you track temperatures in feeders and roosts to see where improvements can be made.

In winter, block off as many drafts as you can while still allowing some ventilation. Make sure that roosts are made from heavily insulated material.

Plastic and metal roosts retain the cold and may make your chickens more prone to frost bite.

Some regions may get cold enough that supplemental heaters are needed.

Be very cautious and purchase only heaters intended for use in barns—heating sources can be a fire hazard.

Plenty of Space To Roam

Allowing chickens to explore their environment is essential for their well-being (and necessary to take advantage of their pest control abilities). However, free-range chickens are at high risk of being eaten by predators or struck and killed by cars.

A controlled run is the ideal choice. Outdoor runs should have 8–10 square feet of space per hen and access to shelter.

Permanent runs should have fencing on all sides to prevent raccoons and hawks from gaining access. You may even want to dig the fencing partially underground to keep burrowing predators out.

Mobile runs are another great option for small spaces to allow chickens to explore new parts of the yard while still being protected.

An Experienced Veterinarian

It’s important to recognize that not all veterinary offices have the experience or equipment to treat chickens. Though there are veterinarians who work exclusively with poultry, they are not usually available for small backyard flocks.

Try to establish a relationship with an avian or exotics veterinarian in your area. The Association of Avian Veterinarians is a great resource for finding one.

Chickens are very good at hiding illness until they’re very sick, so it’s important to have your pet chickens evaluated annually by their veterinarian.

This annual checkup can help find problems while they’re still treatable. Your vet will evaluate the chicken’s body condition and beak and nail health and look for signs of parasites or traumatic injuries.

Blood work and vaccinations may be recommended, depending on where you live and what your vet finds on exam.

Enrichment and Toys

Chickens are very intelligent birds, and keeping their minds stimulated is important for their health. Swings and roosting ladders allow them lots of exercise in a small area.

Hang fruit and treats in treat holders. Some chickens will even play with treat-dispensing balls.

How To Keep Your Backyard Chickens Happy and Healthy

Keeping backyard chickens does come with some lifestyle changes, and those who keep them need to ensure they are safe and healthy.

This takes daily effort.

Making good choices early on will help significantly in the long run. When having chickens is done right, you will find that it brings more rewards than fresh eggs!