Who came first, the chicken or the egg? Fortunately, you would not have to think about the answer to that age old question when it comes to searching for ways to raise your own chickens. This is because you would be able to choose any of the methods to start your coop.
Of course, when you decide to raise chickens, the first order of business would probably be to determine your source for the chicks. You would have to find ways for you to be able to start your collection of chickens and base your needs from there.
Here are some of the methods that you could use when it comes to getting chicks for raising your own chickens:
Purchase Day Old Chicks:
You could choose to start with day old chicks. As you can probably base from the name a day old chick is a chick that is already for sale a day (or a few days really) after it has already hatched from its egg. The best thing about this is that you would not have to get your own incubator yet as they are already hatched from the egg.
Aside from not having to purchase an incubator immediately, another advantage that you can get from purchasing day old chicks to start raising chickens is that they are significantly cheaper than purchasing a chicken that is already an adult.
Of course, you would still need to purchase specialized feeds so that they would be able to grow well into adult chickens. The day old chicks are usually available around spring time in local feed stores.
Hatch Chicks from eggs:
You could also decide to hatch chicks from the eggs. To be able to do this, you would need to purchase an incubator or even create your own. The incubator would take care of the temperature that the eggs need in order for a chick to properly hatch from it.
Despite the cost of an incubator, eggs are generally much cheaper than chickens so it evens out. You should also consider that you would really need an incubator anyway, so you may as well buy it from the start.
Note that the eggs that you need to purchase are those that have not been processed yet, and not the ones that are already sold in the supermarket! Some people actually commit this mistake and wonder why chicks are not hatching from the eggs that they purchase.
Taking over for someone:
Another way to start raising your own chickens would be to just take over for someone who had raised chickens before.
These are people who are perhaps already too busy to work on their coops, or are already moving out into other places. You can search various bulletin boards, classified ads, and forums to search for people who are willing to sell their chickens to you.
Now that you know where you would be able to get your chicks, you should try and analyze your current situation and find out which of these methods would be best suited for it.
Shannon Stansberry has been engaged in the business of raising chickens for more than 12 years. In 2016, she accomplished the Agriculture & Natural Resources program at Mt. San Antonio College. At present, she tends to more than 80 chickens on her 4-hectare farm. Shannon regularly shares her insights and experience on how to raise healthy and contented chickens on the platform Typesofchickens.com
