Things to Consider Before Getting Backyard Chickens

(Affiliate disclosure: I may receive a commission if you purchase something through links in this post. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying puchases. See more details here:)

If you're thinking about getting chickens then it's a good idea to do some research beforehand and to be aware of what it's really like taking care of chickens. When I was first getting my chickens, I read a lot of articles and watched a lot of videos to see what other people's experiences were like and to see some of the pros and cons so that I knew what I was getting into when I got my chickens. And now that I've had mine for a little while, I'm sharing some things I've experienced with taking care of chickens and that I think are important things to consider before getting backyard chickens.

The last thing that I would want to do is to discourage someone from getting their own chickens because I think that having backyard chickens is a lot of fun and that it would be great to have more people doing it! It's also true, though, that chicken keeping isn't always ideal, and the idyllic scenes and pictures you might see online aren't always what it's like in real life. So I wanted to share some of the aspects of chicken keeping that can be less fun and a bit more challenging at times.

Some days having chickens means collecting a basket of eggs and feeding them treats out of your hand on a beautiful warm sunny day. And sometimes having chickens means shoveling out the coop after a snow storm and having an empty egg basket because they haven't laid any eggs at all that day. So these things to consider are some of the "real life" side of chicken keeping to help you to hopefully get an idea of what to expect if you decide to have your own chickens.

8 Things to Consider Before Getting Backyard Chickens

1) Logistical Considerations

First things first, you would want to make sure that it would make sense for you to have chickens in your specific location. A few questions to think about would be: Does your town allow chickens? Are there any permit restrictions or HOA issues that would make it a problem for you to have chickens? Is your yard big enough that you would have enough space for a chicken coop and run that would give adequate space for the number of chickens you want to get? How will you fit taking care of chickens into your daily schedule? If you like to travel frequently, who will take care of your chickens while you are away?

These basic logistical factors are important to figure out before getting chickens because it's a lot better to think through these things before you bring home baby chicks than it is to realize later on that you should have planned ahead more thoroughly.

It's also a good idea to think about whether you are going to get all hens or whether you will have a rooster in your flock, too. Some towns don't allow roosters, so if you were only going to have hens then you would want to find a place where you could buy female chicks. Some hatcheries will check the sex of the baby chick so you can order only females (often called "pullets"), and some breeds of chicks have different colorings for the male and female chicks so you can tell them apart right away. The term you would want to stay away from is "straight run" because straight run chicks are a mix of male and female and you wouldn't know which you are getting.

2) Chickens Take a While to Start Laying Eggs

Depending on how old your chickens are when you first get them, chickens can take several weeks or even several months to start laying eggs. If you get baby chicks, you will be taking care of them for several months before they start laying eggs. The age at which a hen will lay her first egg varies quite a bit by breed, so it's a good idea to research the typical age of maturity when you are thinking about getting a particular breed. Some breeds of chickens start laying eggs as soon as 16-18 weeks old, and some breeds don't start laying until they are 6 months old or even older than that.

And the time of year that you get your baby chicks makes a difference, too. If you get chicks in the spring then there is a good chance that they will start laying eggs before the darker days of winter. If you get chicks in the summer or fall, though, then it's possible that they might not start laying eggs until the early spring when there is more daylight.

If you don't want to wait as long for eggs, you can also get what are called pullets (sometimes referred to as started pullets.) These chickens are usually several weeks old or sometimes a couple of months old depending on where you get them, and they are female chicks that are almost old enough to be ready for laying eggs. These pullets cost more than baby chicks cost, but you also don't have to spend as much money on feeding them as babies or on a brooder setup.

One of the downsides of getting pullets that are already several weeks old is that it might be more difficult to get them used to being around you and being picked up, etc. So if you want friendly chickens that are easier to handle, it can be easier to achieve that when you have baby chicks that are used to being around you from a very young age. (It's also really fun to watch the adorable baby chicks growing up, too!)

3) Chickens Don't Always Lay Eggs Consistently

This depends a lot on the breed of the chicken and on the age of the chicken, but generally speaking, chickens will lay more eggs in the spring and summer and less eggs in the fall and winter. Chickens will often take breaks from laying eggs if they are molting, if the daylight hours are short during winter, and sometimes even if the weather gets really hot in the summer. Some breeds are very productive and will lay 300 or more eggs per year, and some breeds are less productive and will lay only 150 or so eggs a year. And then there are are breeds that will lay eggs in between those amounts. So if having a consistent supply of eggs is one of your main reasons for getting chickens it's definitely a good idea to do some research and choose breeds that are known for being productive layers.

The age of the chicken will also be a factor in how many eggs they will lay. Younger chickens will usually lay eggs more consistently than older chickens will, and chickens typically lay less eggs as they get older. Some of the hybrid production breeds are also known to lay a lot of eggs in their first couple of years and then have dramatically lower eggs production after that. I've never had a hybrid breed myself, but I have heard that from others. Heritage breeds, though, are typically supposed to have a more gradual decrease in egg laying over time. So if you want hens that you can keep as pets for a long time who will also continue to lay eggs as they get older then heritage breeds might be the way you would want to go. This is the reason why I chose all heritage breeds for my chickens.

4) Chickens Sometimes Have Health Problems

It's also important to be prepared for the fact that chickens can sometimes have different health issues. It's a good idea to do some research to be aware of some of the common health problems chickens might have (like sour crop, impacted crop, bumblefoot, mites, being egg bound, etc.) It also might be a good idea to think through whether or not you would want to treat any of these issues yourself at home or if you would be able to take your chicken to a vet because in some places it can be hard to find a vet who will see chickens.

And I know that the list of possible chicken health issues can seem pretty long and even a bit overwhelming, but just because there is a long list doesn't mean that your chickens will end up have all of these problems. As of the time I'm writing this, I've been keeping chickens for over two and a half years now, and so far the only real health issue I've had to deal with is bumblefoot (which is basically an infection on the chicken's foot). It's good to have some basic knowledge of the different possible health problems chickens might have, though, because then you will know what signs to look for and what symptoms might be an indicator that something is wrong with your chickens. And learning about these different issues can also help you to have the knowledge to be able to do some things to try to prevent some of these things from happening, too.

5) Chickens Can Live for Several Years

It's also important to know that chickens can live for several years. Each breed and each individual chicken is different, so it's hard to give an exact age, but many chickens can live to be well over five years old and some can live up to ten years old or even older than that.

And as much as it's not fun to think about, it's also important to consider what you will do when your chickens get older and lay less eggs or stop laying eggs altogether. One option is to treat your chickens like pets and let them live out the rest of their lives with you. Of course, this also means that you need to keep feeding them and taking care of them even when they aren't giving you any eggs anymore. Another option might be to give your chickens to someone else who is looking for pet chickens and who doesn't mind the fact that they aren't laying eggs or are laying less eggs. This option isn't as ideal because it can be challenging to remove chickens from a flock and integrate them with an existing flock and it might be hard to find someone who would want an older chicken. It's possible, though, that someone could be looking for a chicken or two to be a companion to another older chicken who lost her flock mates or a situation similar to that. And the third option would be to humanely cull the chicken if you weren't able to keep taking care of her and if you couldn't find anyone else to take care of her.

Some people choose to treat their chickens like livestock and to cull them when their egg production drops and then to use their meat for the dinner table. And some people treat their chickens like pets and give them names and wouldn't want to harvest them for meat. And some people do a little bit of both and have a designated egg laying flock and raise separate flocks of chickens to harvest specifically for meat. Whichever you decide, it's important to realize that chickens can live for several years and they most likely won't be good egg layers for all of those years and you will have to figure out what you are going to do with them after that point.

6) Chickens Still Need to Be Taken Care of in Bad Weather

No matter what the weather is like outside, chickens will still need to be taken care of. Depending on where you live that might include taking care of them in the rain, in the cold, in the heat, in a snowstorm, etc. I was recently reminded of this fact as I was trying to shovel out the coop after a snow and ice storm that made taking care of the chickens extra challenging because the ice was making all of the doors have trouble with opening and closing.

How much care your chickens will need during bad weather will depend a lot on how your coop is set up, though. If you have a coop with an automatic door set on a timer that will let your chickens in and out of the coop then you wouldn't have to go out as often to open the door yourself. And if you have large enough feeders and waterers that you don't have to fill them up as often then you might be able to leave your flock unattended for a longer period of time in bad weather. (Although, personally, if it was a long enough storm I would probably still feel like I needed to check to make sure they were ok and that everything was working well with the door and that their water didn't freeze, etc.) But if your coop wasn't set up that way then you might still need to take care of your chickens even in the middle of the storm.

Most of the time the weather isn't a big problem when it comes to taking care of chickens, but it's good to be prepared for the fact that you might have an occasional day where the weather conditions are less than ideal. And it's a good idea to do some planning ahead of time also to see what would be a good setup for your coop to make it so that you wouldn't have to venture out in the very worst weather conditions if possible.

7) Chickens Go to the Bathroom a Lot

Chickens go the bathroom several times a day and they produce a lot of manure in a year's time. So before getting chickens it's a good idea to have a plan for what you are going to do with all of that manure. If you have a garden or flowerbeds then you can put the manure to good use by composting and aging it and using it as fertilizer. Or if you don't have any gardens in your yard then you might be able to find a neighbor or friend who would like some composted chicken manure to use for their gardens. Whatever you plan to do with it, though, you'll need to find a place in your yard where you can keep a pile of manure and bedding to compost after you clean out your coop and run, so it's a good thing to think through where in your yard you might be able to put that pile.

8) Chickens Can Make a Mess of Your Yard

This factor is one that would only apply if you were going to let your chickens out of their run to free range in your yard. There are pros and cons to free ranging. Some of the pros are that the chickens really enjoy it and they can find and eat all sort of bugs and grasses and greens, etc. And some of the cons are that there can be safety concerns with predators like hawks and that the chickens can potentially make a mess of your yard.

So if you decide that you want to let your chickens free range and be "pasture-raised" for part or all of the day, it's good to be aware of what they might do in your yard. For one thing, chickens go to the bathroom whenever and wherever they want, so be prepared to find chicken poop on the ground and on any other place that they might have access to like a patio or porch. It's also possible for chickens to dig up flowerbeds and gardens to look for bugs or to take a dust bath. If you have large enough yard or a small enough number of chickens then you might not notice too much of a problem, but it's important to realize that parts of your yard might not look picture perfect anymore if your chickens have the freedom to go wherever they want.

One possible solution would be to fence in an area in part of the yard that the chickens can use for free ranging. Then the chickens can still have some access to fresh grass but you can still have a part of the yard that looks nice, too. (Although some chickens will figure out how to fly over fences if they really want to. My Barred Rock, Mary, has no trouble getting over a five foot fence, so once a hen is determined to go somewhere it's hard to stop her!) Another option some people use is to have a mobile chicken tractor that can move to different parts of the yard so that the chickens are still contained but they have access to a different part of the yard each day.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully some of these things to consider were helpful to get an idea of the reality of what chicken keeping can be like and to help you decide if it is something that you would want to do. If you have any questions about something I didn't mention, or if you already have chickens yourself and you think of something else that I missed feel free to drop a note in the comments section below!

(Lori Elliott is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.)

The information in this post is not to be taken as medical advice and is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease.