Raising chickens can be a fun and rewarding hobby or business. However, like everything that is worth doing, it can also be hard work and when done wrong can be very stressful.
The Good
The advantages to keeping chickens are eggs, meat, fertilizer, and the knowledge that you have become more self sufficient. Regardless of what happens to the economy or your local grocery stores, you will always have your chickens at home churning out a steady supply of delicious eggs.
Another advantage to raising chickens is the fact that you control what your chickens eat and how they live their lives. This means that your eggs can be natural and organic which is much healthier for you and your family.
Many people also make money off of their chickens. Chickens do not cost much money to buy or keep and yet they can make organic eggs throughout the year that you can sell at a good price.
For those of you that live in an area that allow for roosters, you can make your own baby chicks that can be sold to others that want to take part in raising chickens, or kept for yourself to make even more eggs.
Also, chickens do not need much space to be healthy and happy. Two to four square feet of space is all a chicken needs to live a great life.
In addition to this, pet chickens are social animals and love to live in groups.
This means that as long as you give them enough space, you can have a large flock of chickens living together.
Raising Chickens – The Bad
The disadvantages to owning chickens come to those that do not have the experience or training to do so. As we all know, chickens can get diseases like salmonella.
These diseases can then be spread to you, your family, your friends, and maybe even your customers.
Diseases like Salmonella usually come into play when people do not keep their chickens in sanitary living conditions.
When raising chickens, sanitary living conditions include good coop air flow, proper coop cleaning, and proper food and water distribution. It also includes being able to recognize health issues so that unhealthy chickens can be quarantined and eventually brought back to health.
Another disadvantage is that people living in urban or suburban areas will not be able to have a rooster without having surgery done on its voice box.
Fortunately, chickens will lay eggs regardless of whether they are fertilized or not. In fact, most eggs that you get at the grocery store have never been fertilized.
Unfortunately, without fertilized eggs, you will always have to buy new laying hens when your chickens get old and stop producing.
For those of you that want to avoid the pitfalls of raising chickens, you might want to consider buying a good book on raising chickens. A book that I highly recommend is Jonathan White’s chickens 4 wealth.
This book goes over all of the disasters that can happen when trying to raise back yard chickens. He’ll show you everything you need to avoid so that you don’t end up with sick or even dead chickens.
If you are even considering raising chickens, I highly recommend you go buy his book and video tutorials right now. I guarantee you that the time and money the books and tutorials will save you will more than make up for the small investment in his course.
