The Pros and Cons of Raising Your Own Chickens

There are a lot of reasons why people want to raise their own chickens as well as there are a lot of reasons not to as well.  Here are some points to consider:

Pros

Low Maintenance

Keeping chickens in your backyard is quite inexpensive, in comparison to a prized dog or cat, taking care of chickens is more affordable mainly because they are not very picky with food.

They Have Yield

Another good thing about raising your own chickens is that they have yield. You can eat them without really feeling icky about it unless of course you keep them as ‘pets’ and learn to love them as such. They also lay eggs which you can either eat yourselves or sell for profit.

They Don’t Need Much Attention

Chickens don’t need much attention, they don’t require much grooming and you don’t need to bring them constantly to the vet for vaccinations and shots.  Just make sure you feed them daily with food from your friendly poultry supplies shop or your leftovers and scrap food and have clean water and you’re good to go. You also don’t need to clean their coops every day, once a week or once every other week is enough depending on how many chickens you are currently handling.

For Pest Control and Your Natural Fertilizers

Aside from the eggs, your chicken’s poop are also natural fertilizers, so surely your plants will grow healthy with chickens around, plus they are natural pest handlers.  Roaming freely they spot worms, bugs and insects and eats them promptly, lessening your insect problems.

Cons

If there are pros then there will be also be cons, here are a few

Not guard dogs

Yes, chickens can cluck and coo but they are really not guard dogs so they won’t tend to bite a stranger or anyone who looks suspicious.

Chickens can be messy

They are not trainable so to speak so they will go wherever they want and poop wherever they want as well, so you might want to take a second look if you don’t like to clean.

All for One, One for all

Generally this is how to describe a coop of chickens, so if one gets sick, everyone get sick as well. So if one chicken gets infected with a flu for example, every chicken in the coop will have the same flu.

In the end raising chickens is your decision. Whether you choose to raise them yourselves or choose to buy your chickens and eggs in the grocery is up to you, but if you do decide to care for them, make sure you know everything you need in order to care for them properly.  Contacting your local poultry supplies store can also help you determine if you can care for your chickens or not.