How to raise egg laying chickens for beginners + free pdf guide
Do you want to eat fresh eggs every day from your own chicken? Read along and learn everything you need to know on how to raise egg laying chickens for beginners or download my free pdf guide.
What do I need to think about before I start raising chickens as beginners?
Chicken are really easy animals for beginners. It is for good reason that they survive in bad circumstances in meat production. And with a little effort they won’t just survive but thrive in your backyard! There are a few things you need to think through before you raise egg laying and also meat chicken as a beginner. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Do I have the time and money it takes to raise chicken?
- Do I have enough space?
- Do I like to eat a lot of eggs?
- What happens to the chickens if I go on vacation?
Reading this blog you can find information about those questions and more.
How much money does it cost to raise chickens for beginners?
The costs for raising egg laying chickens as beginners vary a lot depending on how you want to keep them. You need to buy or make the following things to start:
- Chicken
- Hen house
- Fence around chicken coop
- Ground cover (wood chips, straw, sand)
- Chicken waterer
- Chicken feeder
- Chicken food
We DIY our henhouse from an old onion box for 10 bucks and used thrifted fence to build a chicken coop. Our costs for the waterer, feeder, ground cover and chicken was less than 120$. So if you want to, money doesn’t have to be a problem.
If you want to have an automatic door to let the chickens out with sunrise and close the hen house with sunset you have to invest a little more up front but you will save a lot of time for sure!
How much time does it cost to raise egg laying chickens for beginners?
As you start raising egg laying chicken as a beginner you might invest 15 minutes every day for the following tasks:
- Letting the chickens out of the henhouse in the morning
- Getting the eggs every day
- Closing the door to the hen house
- Changing the water
- Feeding them
We clean the hen house every week and that takes approximately 20 minutes. Adding everything up you need a little more than 2 hours every week for the chickens.
How many chickens do I need
Chickens love to live in groups. You should at least buy three chickens. Depending on how many eggs your breed lays you can count from there on how much space you have and how many eggs your family eats. We started with three chickens and as they grew older and laid less eggs we added two more.
Which breed is best for raising chicken as beginners?
Generally there are two different egg laying chickens. One kind of breed lays eggs all year round for a few years and then stops. The other lays eggs in the summer and stops in the winter. This breed generally lays eggs longer than the first one.
I love the breeds that lay eggs all year round. Our oldest chickens are 3 years old. As we started raising chickens as beginners we had eggs for two full years. As the older ladies started to lay less eggs we added two younger chicken to the flock. That way we have regular egg supply all year long.
Chicken coop
In my opinion chickens need a big chicken coop to walk and scratch all day long and only a small space to sleep at night. The recommendations about how many square feet you need vary a lot and also depend on your chicken breed. Generally speaking I would recommend you at least 200 square feet for your chicken coop for three chickens to start and 30 to 40 square feet for every additional chicken you add to the flock.
Chickens love fresh greens. The bigger the coop the bigger your chances that the grass has a chance to grow back before they are able to destroy it again.
Hen house
There are also recommendations on how big your shelter should be but if you let your chicken out all day they really don’t need much space to sleep in at night. The following things should fit into your shelter.
It might be obvious even for beginners that if you raise egg laying chicken you need a nesting box. Make a space for the chicken to lay eggs in: the nesting box. They love to hide away for laying eggs so ideally it is a dark lowered corner somewhere. It helps if you can excess this space from the outside to remove your eggs easily.
Make sure to fit a chicken roost into the shelter. The chicken love to sit up high at night. After all they are birds!
If you have space to fit in water and food for the chickens that’s ideal but not necessary.
Food and water
We love to feed our chicken organic layer pellets. They contain everything the chickens need and when it gets humid they don’t stik together as easily. Keep in mind that your eggs will only have organic quality if you feed the chickens all organic food.
We love to use a rat save feeder since mice and rat love to eat chicken food as well. The chickens weight will lift a lid in order for them to feed. Because rats are to light they are not able to reach the food at all.
I can remember really good that raising chickens as beginners was stressful to me and my husband as we didn’t know what to expect. We learned quickly that chickens don’t need a whole lot to be happy. But one thing you should not compromise on: chickens need clean water! They tend to poop into the water which can make them really sick. Therefore clean the water every day and use a waterer that keeps the water clean.
Matching chickens, clipping wings, diseases and more
There is so much to learn when you want raise chickens as a beginner. Stay tuned as I will share more information about all of those topics in the future and read all about clipping wings on my blog.
What do you want to know to raise your chickens as beginners? Leave a comment below, I would love to hear all about it!
