Egg Prices, Chickens & Building a Coop
If you’re reading this at the beginning of 2023, you along with many others are noticing, if not feeling the burden of the current egg market. It’s a bizarre thing, and if you’re an elder millennial like me (yes, there is a distinction), it’s something most of us living in the United States today have never felt until now. Soaring prices and record inflation were all too familiar to our great grandparents, and they could likely tell us a thing or two about inflation and going without. We however, haven’t really had to exist in that capacity, and though we are far away from such dire straits, some of us are starting to feel uneasy.
Right now, a dozen eggs with cost you near $4.88 give or take at most grocery stores in Southeast Pennsylvania, where I live. It’s not life altering to purchase at that price for most people, but it’s definitely being felt, and people are starting to cut back. If you search the internet for why we are experiencing such an un-eggciting increase in eggs, you will find mixed answers. Some experts are stating the avian flu is to blame, while others are stating increasing feed and energy costs is limiting output. Whatever the case may be, one thing is for sure and that is people are turning their eyes to backyard chicken keepers and their eggs which in the past seemed just fancy and overly expensive!
If you scour social media, the latest jokes from backyard chicken farmers are those of secretive egg-dealing, gangster-like exchanges in back alleys, and chickens going on strikes in their coops. It’s comical, but it has a lot of people considering the idea, could they actually raise their own chickens? The answer is a resounding yes, you most certainly can raise your own chickens and be quite successful at it. I want to let you know all the nitty gritty stuff first so you can make an informed decision and really know what you’re getting into. The first thing you’re going to want to consider is if you can legally keep chickens where you live. Now I know, I know, a lot of people, including people you probably already know, keep chickens illegally and have never had issues. This is true, and for most people, this isn’t usually a problem.. until it is. You know, your favorite neighbors of ten years move, (how dare them!) and you get a crabapple next door who is not ok with your feathery friends and she reports you to the township in which you live. The next thing you know you’re begging people to take your flock and you’re taking down a chicken coop that you paid good money for. I don’t want that to happen to you, so check and recheck the laws where you live, it’s not worth the headache.
The next thing you’re going to want to do is decide how many chickens you’re going to get, whether they’ll be free ranging or kept in a run, and if you’ll be doing anything else with the space you are creating for them. For us, we were allowed to have six hens where we live, no roosters, our coop could only be eight feet tall, our chickens may not free range, and must be kept in a run exclusively. We decided to max out our height allowances and my husband and father built a walk-in chicken coop with a sheet metal roof which will eventually have water catchment, once we finish hanging gutters. We decided to completely build a coop from the ground up, so we could customize it. We did purchase a coop plan online for a few bucks and then made changes and modifications from there. You can absolutely buy a prefabricated coop as well; the options are really quite expansive and endless. One little tidbit I will add here is, put cheap laminate flooring down in your chicken coop for easy cleaning and shoveling. It will prolong the life of your coop and it will be so much more manageable and cleaner.
Once you have your chicken coop, you’re ready for chickens! Depending on the time of year and age of your chickens will determine whether you start your chickens inside or right in their new coop. When we first got chickens, we wanted to get day-old chicks mainly because I wanted to pick the breeds and wanted really colorful eggs. I ordered my chicks online and they arrived via our local USPS where I was called to pick them up. Day-old chicks will need to be taken care of inside your home or in a garage where you can keep the chicks at a very consistent temperature, and you will need supplies. I am not going to go into depth here on that process, but if you would prefer to start off with baby chicks definitely do the research. I will say, my children absolutely loved the baby chick process and I’m thankful for those memories. Moving forward however, we will likely go with pullets unless we get a larger property down the road and can let our hens hatch their own eggs. Pullets are near egg laying age, can regulate their own temperature, and can be put right out in your chicken coop. Be mindful however, that if you are incorporating new pullets to an already established flock there are actions you should take and can research to ensure a smooth transition.
I have some surefire tips I will talk about next that I heavily researched before getting chickens. I’ve had a ton of success raising chickens and they have been a pleasure to keep because I took these few steps before getting them.
Step One: Never allow food or water in your chicken coop with one exception. Chickens should only ever sleep and lay eggs in their coop. You want their coop to remain dry and free from moisture. By keeping their water in their run you minimize moisture. Food should be kept in their run as well because if you encourage eating in there, you will also have more chicken poop to clean up. When the sun sets, chickens are ready for bed and just like humans, they need proper sleep hygiene which includes sleeping and not eating in their bedroom. The one exception to this rule is when you first introduce your flock to their new home. When introducing a brand-new flock of chickens to your coop, lock them in their coop for three full days before allowing them to go into their run/free range. This is crucial if you do not feel like putting your chickens to bed each night and having to do that every night manually. When our chickens were ready to be transferred to their outdoor living facility, we locked them in their coop for three days so they would become acclimated to their surroundings. During this time, their nesting boxes were completely sealed off and we allowed food and water in with them. After three days, we opened their coop door, and they were allowed into their run. As soon as it was dusk, they walked right up into their chicken coop and went to sleep. Their food and water has since been kept outside in their run. Chickens can’t see well at night, so as soon as the sun sets, they are normally roosting and nestled snug in their coop.
Step Two: Get Clean Eggs!! Do not allow your chickens to go into their nesting boxes until they are at egg-laying age. How do you know when they are ready to lay eggs? You’ll find a random egg somewhere in their coop or chicken run. When starting with baby chicks, its important to train them to only lay eggs in their nesting boxes. Yes, you can train your chickens! They need to learn not to poop and play chicken games in there. Until baby chicks reach the egg laying stage you can board or block off this area. Once you find your first egg wherever they may lay it, you know its time! Place ceramic eggs, one in each nesting box and unblock their nesting boxes so they may explore. They will soon realize what this area is for, and you will have clean, debris free eggs always!
Step Three: Just let a broody hen be a broody hen. I learned this the hard way and got so much varying levels of advice from online resources; I couldn’t keep it straight. A broody hen will surely occur by the second year of owning chickens. A broody hen, is a hen that feels the natural urge to sit on their eggs, steal other hens’ eggs to sit on, and just wants babies. This process can take up to 30 days before a hen gives up, and during this time you may have to fight the hen (physically remove her from sitting on them) to collect the eggs. If you have a rooster in your flock, you may allow your hen to keep sitting and hatch eggs or collect them. If you do not have a rooster, you will need to collect them often. Do not allow a hen to keep sitting on eggs that have not been fertilized, they will rot. When I first experienced a broody chicken, I separated her from the flock, put her in a cage, elevated it to allow airflow to “cool” her down and it was a total failure. I was successfully able to break one hen this way, but the effort involved on my part was incredibly time consuming and the poor hen was just acting how nature intended. So, I resolved to just let her sit, as long as she needed, mostly just on air until another hen would lay an egg and she’d run over and grab it and scurry back to her “spot”. I even tried placing frozen water bottles under my hens and looking back I was a very inexperienced, emotional chicken mama! The only intervention I provide now is during egg collection, I push the hen out of the nesting box, which prompts her to usually scurry out of the coop to grab a quick bite and some water. I typically bring food scraps or treats when I collect eggs, so this is the best time to push the broody hen off the eggs because food scraps and treats are usually motivation enough to take a “sitting” break!
Step Four: Predator proof your coop right the first time! I can’t stress this enough; I constantly hear about hens getting killed by wildlife, and its completely preventable. Any fencing other than half-inch hardware cloth is not predator proof. I completely understand that not everyone can afford an enclosed run, or half-inch hardware cloth but it is a chicken keepers’ responsibility to ensure that the coop in which their chickens are housed at night is predator proof. If you are unable to afford hardware cloth around your chicken run, you must ensure your chickens are safely locked up at night in a coop that is secure from other animals. You should also ensure that any access point to your hen house is secured by raccoon proof locks as well. Raccoons are very smart (believe it or not) and can open many traditional locks. We have two separate and different types of locks on our coop doors to make it more challenging should a raccoon want to spend hours trying to open them. It is also smart to skirt out hardware cloth wherever you have your fencing to make your coop even more predator proof. By skirting your fencing, when an animal starts digging, they will keep hitting hardware cloth and eventually, hopefully, give up. My husband and I recommend skirting at least 24 inches.
Step Five: Your coop does not have to smell. One misconception in keeping chickens is that they stink, are dirty, and are just a hard animal to consistently maintain. This couldn’t be farther from the truth and with proper maintenance your coop and run can remain clean and fresh. Over the winter, I maintain my coop by utilizing the deep litter method. I come in monthly and turn over my chicken coop matter (I use large pine flakes) and I sprinkle (I actual chuck it by the handful if I’m being honest) Sweet PDZ coop refresher, Diatomaceous Earth, and First Saturday Lime. I also put this stuff in my chicken run, nesting boxes, and around my coop. In the spring and summer, I do not utilize the deep litter method and instead I completely clean out my coop twice and keep the pine shavings to a minimum because of the heat.
Step Six: I do not use artificial light, but it is a personal choice. Just like the human female, chickens are born with the number of eggs they will lay in their lifetime. My husband and I feel as though nature intended the hen to rest during the winter months, and so we do not use light in our coop. I will say, this winter has been semi-frustrating because we normally still get some eggs, but this year we haven’t gotten any since early November. There is a whole online community that is saying the same thing and blaming feed quality, but I’m not too overly concerned yet. The biggest piece of advice if you decide to use light, is to secure it, and then secure it again. Lighting can be extremely dangerous, and it is the number one reason for coop fires today. Also, give your hens some resting time, and only keep the lights on early in the morning. If using a timer, avoid letting your coop lights stay on at night because the hens will assume they can still roam around and then when the lights abruptly go off, some may get injured trying to get onto their roosting bars with the sudden turning off of lights. Chickens need around 15 hours of light to lay consistently, so by having your lights go on early in the morning, it is safer and more in tune with nature.
I hope these tips help you at whatever stage of chicken keeping you are at. Whether you’re a seasoned pro, or just researching the keeping of hens, I hope this post finds you well and you continue to thrive in your journey. As always, may God keep you and bless you, all the days of your life.
-Sarah