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One of the main things you will need to know is how to raise your chickens so
they are easy to care for and are in a healthy state.
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First you have to buy a baby chick.
When chicks are newly born they can be put in an incubator for around 24 hours.
The baby chick’s feathers will not protect them from the cold so you will need to keep them warm.
They should probably stay indoors for around 5 weeks.
The first place the baby chicks live is called the brooder.
This could just be a cardboard box.
The bottom of the box should be cover with something soft like newspaper.
This liner should be changed every couple of days so it is clean and dry.
Chicks will need a lot of water so the water will need to be checked frequently.
The first things the baby chicks will eat are ‘crumbles’.
The chick’s beaks will need to be trimmed when they are very young.
They need to be trimmed because if they aren’t the chicks will begin to peck each other which
could cause problems.
Along with their beaks the chicks wings will also need to be clipped this is so that the chicks don’t
fly away.
The clipping of chick’s wings doesn’t hurt them because you will only need to clip some feathers.
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Chickens usually live in a chicken coop where they lay and roost.
They also need a chicken run to get exercise.
Their coop needs to be dry and clean.
There also needs to be a place to hold food this has to be clean and dry and have a tight lid.
Most chickens will search for their own food but you can throw in some oyster shells for calcium
and grit for their beaks to work properly.
Adult chickens can live in a cold environment if they have a coop to live in.
All chickens have a threat of being eaten by a predator; small chickens have a greater risk.
Ways to prevent this are by making fences around where your chickens are kept.
Chicken behaviour is largely to do with what breed they are and their gender or size, but all breeds
will be more placid (calm) if they are handed at birth.
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Through this investigation it is clear that chickens are quite easy to care for
although they can sometimes be a bit aggressive.
They are low maintenance and they wouldn’t take to a lot of time to care for
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The owner of the chickens must learn how to farm and care for them when they
are baby chicks and fully grown birds.
To start a chicken farm you need to have an appropriate budget.
This budget will cover the costs of starting the farm for example: building or
buying chicken coops, water systems, weekly budget and buying the chicks.
First you need to have a piece of land that is specifically sized for the amount of
birds and their size.
The chickens need to have a house called a coop.
You can make a coop or you can buy it online or from a dealer.
We’ve worked out that for 20 families we would need about 3 chickens per
family, so that would give you on average 2 eggs a day (because most families
won’t eat eggs everyday).
You will only need 2 roosters in your farm and you must keep them separate from
the hens or else your eggs will be fertilised.
For 1 chicken you need at least 10sq feet of land, so if the families had
about 60 chickens (overall) they would need 600 square feet of land.
 The land must have specific netting fenced around the land.
 This netting is called chicken mesh and it is used so that the chickens are
enclosed and are safe from predators.
 The land must have grass for the chickens to eat and find food in.
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The coops need to be a specific size.
 There needs to be 4sq feet per chicken.
 The coop must be opened all the time (including winter) so the chicken can
have fresh air to be healthy.
 If the coop is not opened then the chickens will get diseases and will be
stressed which causes them not to eat.
 The coop needs to be opened so the chickens can get out and exercise.
 You will also need to clean out the coop at least 4 times a week so the
chickens are in a healthy environment.
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The chickens will also need to be checked by a vet to ensure that they are
healthy.
 When you are going to start a backyard chicken farm you need to make
sure that you are obeying the law, so you will need to check the regulations
for poultry farms.
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Through this information it is easy to see that the 20 families would need a lot of
land, equipment and time but if everyone cooperated everything would work out.
From this information I agree with it and everything makes sense.
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Although chickens are a fairly easy animal to care for there are some issues that
may arise when owning and/or breeding chickens.
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Curled toe/s this is when the chick’s toes begin to curl sometimes this is genetic and something’s it just
begins to happen; to help this condition you can splint the toes and that will straighten them.
Another disease is called ‘egg break disease’ this is when the chickens is nearly reaching the age of
menopause and they are deficient in calcium and the shell of the eggs are not strong; this disease is
usually fatal.
Egg eating: this is when the chicken start acting with bad behaviour and can start eating eggs this can
be cured by a large amount of attention.
Spider mites are small red insects that bite chicken.
Tape and Round worms will give the chickens a drop in egg production and diarrhoea.
Lice is another issues that affects chickens.
Red mites will make the egg production go down.
Northern mites will give chickens a scabby comb, face and wattles.
Chickens can also create problems for humans because chickens carry bacteria that can cause illness
to humans; chicks are especially prone to shed bacteria. The most important bacteria humans need to
be aware of is salmonella.
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Through this information I can see that chickens do have some issues with health
and sometimes can affect human’s health although I think if the community
worked together to make sure the chickens are always in a clean, safe
environment and checked for health issues often , so that this would not affect the
way they live and the chickens would be fine.
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Before grocery stores had dozens of eggs piled up on their shelves priced at $4 a
dozen, thousands of people were finding out the benefits of raising their own
chickens.
Other than the obvious benefit of having a regular supply of eggs, there are seven
other benefits from starting your own backyard flock of chickens:
Factory-farmed chickens live their lives never touching the earth and are
treated poorly. They are also fed unnatural and unvaried food. These
circumstances are made for chickens to produce eggs quickly and cheaply.
But the outcome of it is that the egg is less nutritious than eggs that are
produced by chickens that have been able to run and scrounge around for
bugs and worms.
 It is proven that factory-farmed eggs have less vitamin E, vitamin A, omega3 fatty acids and beta carotene than free-range eggs.
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Fresh food always tastes the best. When you go to the supermarket to buy
eggs, are they really fresh?
 When you have your own backyard flock you’re the person who picks up
the eggs, which insures that your eggs are fresh and unharmed.
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The manure from your chickens can be used as highly nutritious fertiliser for the
garden.
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Chickens eat grubs, worms, earwigs and other bugs which help keep your garden
pest free which makes everything more convenient.
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Their scratching will keep the top layer of soil loose which gives the soil effective
water absorption.
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It is cheaper to raise your own chickens for laying eggs because it doesn’t cost you
anything apart from the additional feed and tools that might be needed to build
the coop. You can even sell your eggs to other families.
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Once your egg-laying chickens cannot lay any more eggs you can sell them off to
meat companies/factories that will use the carcasses.
Egg-laying chickens can be discarded by having them for tea as this is another
sustainable way.
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From viewing this information you can see that there are lots of good benefits
from raising chickens. It shows that chickens can be sustainable in many ways and
that it is uncostly too.
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If you’re going to begin using chickens for meat and egg production, you need to
know how to house them or who knows what might happen.
Even though there are only a few points, they are very important and must be
remembered.
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Male chicks are separated from the female chicks
This is because the male would fertilise the eggs of the females and this is
unnecessary unless you are trying to breed chickens.
The egg-layers are separated from the chickens bought up for meat
This is so the chickens do not get mixed up and it’s convenient for you anyways.
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We only found a few bits of key information that was important for this question.
It was hard finding information but the bits of information we did find are logical.
In our opinions I think these bits of information are useful.
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http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/00044/id33.htm
http://www.small-farm-permaculture-and-sustainableliving.com/how_to_raise_chickens.html
http://stonybrookfarm.wordpress.com/farming-practices/farmingpractices-meat-chickens-aka-broilers/
http://www.ehow.com/how_5168706_start-egg-chickens-foodprofit.html
http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/Raising_Chickens_for_Eggs
http://www.demesne.info/Garden-Help/Keep-Chickens/
http://www.diychickencoops.com/raising-chickens/pros-and-cons-menu
http://www.small-farm-permaculture-and-sustainableliving.com/how_to_raise_chickens.html
http://www.ruleworks.co.uk/cgibin/TUfaq.exe?Guide=Poultry&Category=Poultry%20%20General#q5
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKRaisingChicks.html
http://www.examiner.com/x-346-Gardening-Examiner~y2009m1d18Ten-benefits-of-raising-backyard-chickens
http://www.mnn.com/food/farms-gardens/stories/thebenefits-of-raising-chickens
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http://www.grit.com/daily-commute/Best-Tasting-HeritageChicken-Breed.aspx
http://www.grit.com/blogs/Choosing-A-Chicken-.aspx
http://www.lifestyleblock.co.nz/poultry/article/260-whatbreed-of-chicken-to-choose.html
http://www.articlesnatch.com/topic/raise+chickens+for+mea
t
http://www.motherearthnews.com/eggs/resources.aspx
http://smallfarm.about.com/od/farmanimals/a/buildyourfloc
k.htm
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/CGA/Broil/BRKMeat.ht
ml
http://www.startupbizhub.com/how-to-start-a-poultryfarm.htm
http://www.startupbizhub.com/starting-chicken-farmbusiness.htm
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http://www.alibaba.com/member/sobhiabdin.html
http://www.backyardchickens.com/
http://www.chickenhop.com/info/info.html
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/AD4.pdf
http://www.elsenburg.com/infopaks/els/058/058e.html
http://egglayingchickens.com/best-egg-laying-chickenbreeds.html
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/feeding.html
http://www.enc-online.org/GoodNews.htm
http://www.alive.com/454a2a2.php?subject_bread_cramb=816
http://www.mybackyardchickenfarm.com/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Backyard-Chicken-Coop/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Backyard-Chicken-Coop/
http://www.google.com/search?q=+requirements+needed+to+fa
rm+a+chicken%3F&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1
From answering our sub-questions we then found out the answer to our main
question.
Here are ways chickens are sustainable:
 They are easy to care for.
 The are not costly to farm.
 They do not necessarily need lots of land.
 They provide different food options for us.
 They provide natural pest control.
 If we farm chickens, later generations will be able to farm them too in a
similar manner.