I’ll admit it. We got pandemic chickens. There was a lot of judgement in the chicken world about people buying pandemic chickens. In our case, we’d always wanted to have backyard chickens but the pandemic gave us a reason to jump right in. COVID-19 showed the world that being self-sufficient or at least attempting self-sufficiency is something very desirable when the future is uncertain.
You’ll find no judgement here about pandemic chickens!
My in-laws have always had chickens, at least since I’ve been in the equation, so we weren’t total novices. I’d even raised a batch of peeps for my mother-in-law about ten years ago. Owning our own chickens, however, was a lot more involved, as we soon found out.
First, I got my dad on board to build us an awesome coop. He made the pieces in his workshop and then brought them to our house in his truck to assemble onsite. It’s 6x8x6, and has a nesting box on the outside. We painted it green with white trim.
Next my husband got busy making a run.
I was super paranoid that my chickens were going to get eaten by something, so I had him make it with hardware cloth. It butts up to our goat pen and is covered. Almost a year after we got our first run finished, my husband made a second, auxiliary run that is slightly smaller in order to have a place to put younger chickens that are ready to be outside but not ready to be with the rest of the flock. We also intend to use it for breeding purposes.
Then I was just a matter of buying supplies to feed and water the chickens. I like this waterer from Amazon. We typically feed on the ground for the chickens, unless it’s muddy then we’ll put down a feed bag or bowl for them.
We get enough eggs now, for our family of five to eat and some to sell or give away. I’m loving having our chickens in the backyard. They are such fun to watch when we let them free range. If you’re on the fence about getting backyard chickens, I recommend it, but do your research! It’s best to build the coop and run before you even bring the chickens home–ask me how I know. We didn’t do that and scrambled but it worked out. We have no regrets about our pandemic chickens! Let me know in the comments if you’ve got backyard chickens and what breeds you love!
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