Your chickens will need a coop that properly protects against predators as well as inclement weather.
Space Requirements
Chickens need room to roam. How much, exactly, depends on how large your flock is. The jury is still out on precise numbers per bird, but a good rule of thumb that many chicken keepers follow is to provide 4 sq. ft. (0.4 sq. m) of coop space per bird if they free-range daily and 10 sq. ft. (0.9 sq. m) of space per bird if they are confined to a coop, pen, or outdoor run full time. You can’t really give a chicken too much space; in this area, more is definitely better.
The only hard-and-fast requirement is that the space be located outdoors. To be a chicken keeper, a backyard space is a must. A small flock could conceivably live indoors and have their basic needs met, but I wouldn’t recommend this route. Raising chickens indoors would deprive them of their very nature to scratch, dig, peck, and dust-bathe. And giving laying hens a better life is one of the reasons we get into chicken keeping in the first place.
Time Requirements
We’ve touched a little on the basic time requirements needed to tend to a small flock of chickens. There will be a few (very easy) daily chores but also some (moderate) weekly maintenance, and once a year or so, there will be a (rather messy) coop cleaning. For now, be prepared to devote some time to your coop’s maintenance and chicken care.
Chores aside, when you share a life with chickens, there will be some lost time that goes unaccounted for: watching baby chicks in a brooder, spending time in your garden as your flock follows you around, and watching young pullets lay eggs. These are the “chores” that make all of the poop scooping worthwhile.
Peeps, Pipsqueaks, and Poop: Kids and Hygiene
Chickens and kids can—and often do—get along famously. Many of the small chores needed to properly care for chickens are perfect for little hands. Children are often endlessly entertained by chicken antics, and raising chickens for eggs offers valuable insight into where our food comes from.
To make the most of this relationship, though, children will need adult supervision in several areas. The most important factor is hygiene. Chickens aren’t the neatest and tidiest pets there are, and anyone tending to them will become quite accustomed to navigating around their waste. Proper hand washing should follow any contact with chickens. Wearing appropriate chicken attire (such as muck boots) for anyone working or spending time in the coop is also a must. By creating a hygiene routine for children directly involved in chicken care, everyone can rest assured knowing the poop stays outside where it belongs.
Kids are fascinated by animals, so it’s only natural they will want to help tend the chickens.
Four-Legged Flock Members: Other Pets
Another consideration for the pre-chicken keeper is other pets. If you already share your space with and care for other animals, you’ll need to consider how well they will fare with chickens and how well chickens will fare around them. Indoor birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils, amphibians, and other similar critters are usually quite compatible with a flock of chickens—mostly because they never cross paths. Other barnyard animals, such as horses, goats, pigs, and cows, were practically made to cohabitate—whole books have been written on successful pasture rotation including ruminants and chickens, but I won’t cover that in this book. Other poultry, such as turkey and ducks, on the other hand, can share some nasty parasites with chickens, putting the health of all at risk, so do your research before integrating flocks of poultry.
Generally, cats do not pose a viable threat to most adult chickens. Outdoor cats may cautiously interact with free-range chickens, but there are rarely major conflicts. On the other hand, cats do pose a threat to small chicks and even some fully-grown bantams. Even a seemingly timid house cat can cause serious harm or death to either. Chicks brooded indoors around house cats should be properly protected: Predator-proof the brooder so that cats can’t jump into it or reach in and claw at the chicks. If at all possible, brood chicks in a separate room where you can close the door and keep cats away completely. Introductions between the species can happen with your supervision, but the two should never be left together unattended.
While cats have a fairly predictable set of hunting behaviors, dogs are an entirely different matter. Some dogs are very aggressive toward animals they perceive as prey and wouldn’t hesitate to kill a chicken (or an entire flock). Others may be disinterested or even compelled to protect the flock. Chickens and dogs may not seem to be the most compatible of species, but with an early start, some good training, and a watchful eye, certain dogs (of any size) can find a very harmonious existence with a flock of backyard chickens. You may find that keeping one of these compatible canines nearby can ward off a number of unpleasant predators all while fulfilling your pup’s need for a job.
Dogs and Chickens: Know Your Pooch
Can dogs really be trusted around chickens? You’ve likely heard a few disaster stories: traumatic events that ended in a bloodbath with dead chickens and Fido to blame. Others swear by their pooch’s loyalty, and you’ve no doubt seen the social media photos of placid, sleeping canines with fluffy chicks happily perched all over them. But when it comes to chickens and dogs coexisting in reality, there are no hard and fast rules. The real answer is that every dog is different.
Chicken breeds, while they vary widely in color, shape, and sometimes personality, are relatively uniform when it comes to temperament. They are creatures of prey, and they don’t want to be eaten, so they’ll do everything they can to avoid that fate. This makes them pretty predictable in terms of how they will react around most “predator” animals (dogs and cats are included in this category). On the other hand, the personality and temperament (not to mention size) of many dog breeds, in combination with a dog’s individual personality, can vary so dramatically that only you will be able to determine if your pup can be trusted around chickens. Here are some of the different factors that contribute to your dog’s trustworthiness around prey animals.
Working with Breed
Before you can move toward any conclusions about your dog’s behavior (or potential behavior), know his breed. If he is a mix from a shelter, then make your best guess. If you’re completely stumped, consult a canine trainer or dog expert for his or her advice. Knowing your dog’s dominant breed and the general traits of that breed is important because it will tell you a lot about what to expect of your dog around smaller animals. Read about the breed and what purposes or tasks it was developed for. Was your dog’s breed cultivated for herding? Hunting? Companionship? These offer very important clues to your dog’s underlying temperament and will help inform whether he or she will get along with chickens.
The reason this is important is that some breeds have a relatively high prey drive. Prey drive is the tendency or inclination to attack or pursue, and sometimes kill, smaller animals that are perceived as prey. Prey drive is not the same thing as aggression. Some breeds have a lower or higher prey drive depending on what they were bred to do. It is possible to train a dog around its naturally inclined prey drive, but this takes time, commitment, and, above all, consistency from the dog’s owner.
Working with Personality
Even a dog of a passive, unassuming breed can still pose a threat to your chickens if its personality is aggressive or overly playful. My 90 lb. (40 kg) retriever mix would never intentionally harm one of our birds, but she is playful, very large, and doesn’t know her own strength. While playing, she could easily pounce on a chicken and inflict a fatal wound, even without harmful intentions. On the other end of the spectrum, one of our Chihuahuas (we have two) seems to believe that everything, and everyone, exists to play with her. She likes