Even though I live in suburbia, my family and I this summer got into chicken keeping. We can legally have up to 6 hens. I know 6 hens is not a lot, and we could buy eggs cheaper, but it is nice to know exactly where our food comes from.

As far as prepping goes, this is a skill building exercise. When the SHTF... all of the things we have not only learned but practiced will be very valuable. We are going the all grain route for feed (instead of expensive rations), so it is also handy for prepping to have multiple 5 gallon buckets of oats, rye and hard red wheat lying about!

When an emergency hits, we could have the ladies doing a lot of foraging while we share the grains with them.

We had chickens when I was a kid. One of my chores was to periodically clean out the coop. This is just me, but given the choice between raising chickens again or having my eyes gouged out with a hot poker, I'd have to think about it.

Have you had any problems with dogs yet? Or other predators?

Onward and upward,
airforce

They are only 8 weeks old, out in the yard for only 3 weeks.

Our run is fully covered and well protected, inside a fenced yard. So no problems yet.

The breed we got is called "Speckled Sussex" which is a very hearty and tough heirloom breed from England. They are known for being extremely tame and easy to work with.

So far I'm enjoying it. I'm "up cycling" a lot of my kitchen and garden scraps by feeding them to the girls instead of composting in the garden. They go ape excrement over the green carrot tops as I'm thinning the rows of carrots!

One trick I did when I was a kid was to trap flies and other insects, to feed to them. It's protein, the birds love it, and it's free.

Onward and upward,
airforce

We live at 8'000 elev. in Colorado and we keep about 40-chickens and sell their eggs to cover our feed costs and to provide a better product for ourselves and our dogs.We also have a large flock of ducks and geese (to sell the eggs also and for meat), a dozen goats, nine sheep all ewes and two miniature donkeys (we had to sell the other full-sized ones).

Try taking that grain and spouting it, it's alittle bit of work but well worth it for the chickens and your family.

http://www.raising-happy-chickens.com/sprouting-seeds.html

We are fermenting the grains now. Lacto-fermented grains break down the protective coating on the grains. Cut the feed to 1/3 what it was before since the grains swell up and nutrients are more available. Also cuts down on the poop end as well! I'm going to also try the sprouts as well.