The Benefits of Raising Chickens

   

These are Silky chickens.

   There is a trend in the United States permitting those in quasi urban and suburban neighborhoods to own chickens.  Most of them have restrictions sufficient to prevent all night cackling, and I have read that many cities outlaw roosters, but I see the change in zoning to allow at least some chickens,   as a good thing.  Chickens allow families to have eggs, often in abundance, and that alone, can make them very worthwhile. Chicken manure when composted can be some of the best fertilizer.
          Chickens can also be incredible pets.  We have raised several injured chicks by hand who were simply thrown away by the feedstore, and each of them grew to be intelligent, cooperative and loving creatures, and one of them was a congenial rooster.   At our maximum here we had one hundred chickens. We presently have about fifty and they are either Rhode Island Reds or Bantams.  Many mornings I eat a large hard boiled brown egg fresh from one of the hens.    Linda from the blog  Practical Parsimony can vouch for what fantastic companions chickens can be. 

Chicken coops don't have to conjure Great Depression era shacks.  They can be attractive additions to yards, and actually a selling point to a particular home or an area.

I love this one.  It looks like it has a screen door.

This one has a greens tray for growing greens for them, or for you.

    

This coop can be moved around your yard, permitting your grass to recover, and allowing your hens weekly fresh grass.

              All the pictures above which have appeared on this blog post were taken by, and were constructed by

     Laughing Chickens.     


   They are custom built, but are available to be constructed and sent via UPS in modular fashion, so that they can be easily assembled all over the country.    They are also constructed of reclaimed wood.

You can e-mail the owner at:          duck@laughingchickens.com


 You can call Duck at     (415) 295-4696


You may see additional and larger pictures at the Williams-Sonoma catalog online.

         

         Or, you can use all of this as inspiration, and build your very own


http://www.freechickencoopplans.com/

http://smallfarm.about.com/od/farminfrastructure/ss/sbscoopbuild.htm

    We have so many eggs at the moment , but they decrease in Winter.

This is what we do with them:


*Have eggs for breakfast.   (We all have low total cholesterol)

 * Make a variety of different quiches, and freeze them in the freezer as quick dinners or lunches.
    (We make Quiche Lorraine, Broccoli and Cheddar, Chive and Cheese, Veggie and Herb)

* We cook them and add them to dog, and sometimes cat food.  Our animals are long lived and have great coats.

* Eggnog when the season is right.

* Give or trade some to friends.

*Make your own egg custard.


Egg custard recipe
(Although we use white sugar instead of brown in this, and we use less.)

                                                          _____________________


This is another chicken coop builder who makes wonderful structures:

This allows you to walk inside and collect eggs without a lot of bending or squatting.

     The two coops at the bottom of the post come from:

                         http://amishcoops.com/.

UPDATE:

     This is the excellent post on eggs which Linda mentioned in her comment above. Please take a look. It discusses not only freezing eggs, but also increasing the Omega 3 fatty acids in the eggs by having the chickens eat greens.

       http://practical-parsimony.blogspot.com/2013/05/freezing-eggs.html

Additional UPDATE:

      These are additional chicken coops that a man on Craigslist will build for customers.  This is a reminder to check Craigslist in your area to see if someone in your own area does this too !