With the price of eggs more people are taking to keeping chicken as a way to offset the cost of eggs.
Where I live 2 1/2 dozen eggs are now just shy of $20. They was $7 at the start of last Summer.
I had gone into a farm supply store looking for the brew kits they sold. I learned that they no longer sold them but I was offered a dozen chicks for free. At the time I wasn’t set up for them and didn’t feel I had the time to build proper housing for them and so I turned the offer down.
Little did I know eggs would become so pricey.
When it starts to warm up I will build a coop and order some chicks. I have the location picked out and most everything but the wire.
The coop will be insulated and have a heat lamp along with a decent sized portable run that can be moved to where weeds are starting to grow.
I will try to find a smaller non working ice box to use for storage of their food. I have a kitchen cabinet that will be modified into a coop/nesting boxes. The cabinets could be modified fairly easily to work with a couple of the free coop plans I’ll give at the bottom.
I may even get some ducklings, though they take more room and work. The eggs are bigger though so the extra work may be worth it.
I’ve been saving my kitchen scraps for the compost piles I have going, however after I get chickens, all scraps that are edible for chickens will be given to them.
The resulting mess will then be cleaned up daily and put into the compost pile or used for side dressing in the garden.
If I end up with more eggs than we can use, I will dehydrate them for later use. So far I have dehydrated some 3 dozen store bought eggs and they take hardly any space in storage.
The shells will be broken up small and mixed into their feed for extra calcium or sprinkled in the garden area. If shells are left in tack it could lead to them eating their own eggs. If that happens throw a few golf balls in the coop and they will stop peckingvthe eggs fairly quickly.
Here is a link for information on keeping chickens.
https://www.almanac.com/raising-chickens-101-how-get-started
And as promised here is the link to free chicken coop plans.
https://www.almanac.com/raising-chickens-101-how-get-started
Slocum's Creak 