I will start this article off by telling you a little about where we live. We do not live in the middle of Phoenix and we do not experience horrific heat in the summer like those areas. We live in the White Mountains of Arizona. It is beautiful here and we love it. If you don’t know where that is, don’t worry, I didn’t either until I met my husband five years ago. But the weather is nice here and we do have a nice little piece of property behind our house and it is perfect for our girls!
If you’ve been around for any amount of time, you will know I have an obsession with our backyard chickens. I first wanted chickens because honestly? I HATED eggs. I thought maybe if I got some chickens of my own, I would be able to enjoy eggs more. If you’ve ever had eggs from a backyard chicken, you know how much better their eggs taste! I liked knowing how they were being treated and what they were being fed.
We (my husband) made our chicken coop one day when we saw asked on Facebook if anyone had laying hens and they did. Overnight we found ourselves with 12 more children. Michael did such an amazing job on the coop and I want to get him on her to do a step-by-step post of what he did! It really worked great for our little flock and we loved it a lot.
Recently we came into a few more chickens. And by “a few more”, I mean about 20 more!! I was elated. MORE CHILDREN! We decided to make our backyard chicken area more “open concept” and give them more room to run and play. We had the perfect little piece of land out behind our house for them. So once again, Michael made a quick trip to Home Depot, made a fence and a perfect watering bucket for them, and BAM! We were set!
So let’s talk details….backyard chickens are amazing! But what does it really entail?! We tend to our chickens every single day. We do have our 8 year old tend to them as her chore (feeding them, making sure eggs are gathered, etc.) and we help with getting the water out there when needed.
We feed our girls a combination of poultry feed and kitchen scraps as well as oyster shells and shells from their own eggs. This is the brand of oyster shells we are currently using: https://amzn.to/2MJZQuh
As far as their regular food, we get it from our local feed store and we put it in a chicken feeder like this: https://amzn.to/2M8orI6. It has worked really great for us so far!
Michael made their watering bucketing with a 5 gallon bucket and some wood and it is perfect for the girls outside! They really love it. (Well, as much as I think a chicken that can’t talk would love anything else.)
We really love our chickens and they have been a great joy for us to have in our backyard! Do you have backyard chickens? What is your favorite part of them?! I would love to talk more and be chicken mama friends!
