Chicken starter advice for a city boy

[qslim]

I'm getting chickens. I like eggs and I also need all the responsibilities I can find to farm out to my little kids so it's not a total free for all while school is closed.

I live in the burbs, one half of my backyard is all gravel where I built the wood shop and the other half is grass. I have a big ass willow that covers up one corner, I was thinking maybe putting the coop there so it's shaded in the summer? Plus the grass there is shitty half-dirt anyways. I'm thinking maybe 3 or 4 hens? Who knows about chickens? I can get a little coop from TSC for 4 or 5 hundred, are those any good?

 

[Alex01]

I use to own chickens. We had 4 and they provided us enough to give away to others. I built the coop myself for about $200 out of plywood and 1x1's.

 

[TJ4Jim]

My sister has had quite a collection for years now and she complains constantly but still enjoys having them but they do come with problems you need to be aware of such as critters. They are a magnet for fox, coyotes, mountain lions and rats around my rural area. A lot of folks in my neighborhood use a website called Nextdoor to help monitor critters on the prowl. It's used for a lot of community stuff but people with coops post critter alerts if they've been hit.

https://nextdoor.com/find-neighborhood/ut/

 

[Fixer6]

Don’t plant them too deep, or you’ll have to get more of them.
sorry, I couldn’t resist throwing that out there

 

[Swamp Yankee]

Chickens are easy and can become pets, keep in mind when you go on vacation and need someone to feed them and collect the eggs your friends become hard to find.
They will make grass into dirt where they are fenced in, but you can let them out to eat bugs in the yard when your home, and they will follow you back in the coop normally with food in your hand. They will more or less roost/sleep in the same spot every night so make sure they are back in the hen house every night and not the willow tree.
I would definitely bury the wire fence down at least a foot so critters don't dig under, I ended up using a thicker rabbit cage wire at the bottom 1/2 under 1/2 above ground, damn neighbors dog couldn’t get in after that.
Nothing better than 1day old eggs except they do not peel easy if you hard boil them.

 

[EDRN]

Chickens are easy and can become pets, keep in mind when you go on vacation and need someone to feed them and collect the eggs your friends become hard to find.
They will make grass into dirt where they are fenced in, but you can let them out to eat bugs in the yard when your home, and they will follow you back in the coop normally with food in your hand. They will more or less roost/sleep in the same spot every night so make sure they are back in the hen house every night and not the willow tree.
I would definitely bury the wire fence down at least a foot so critters don't dig under, I ended up using a thicker rabbit cage wire at the bottom 1/2 under 1/2 above ground, damn neighbors dog couldn’t get in after that.
Nothing better than 1day old eggs except they do not peel easy if you hard boil them.

Pretty much this. My brother and I had a few chickens when we lived together in college. If you have a stationary coop they will absolutely destroy the grass. We also built one of those mobile coops out of 2x4s and chicken wire that we used for probably a month, but it was a pain in the ass to move, and to get them in and out of it. May be easier if you tell the kids to do it.

Also, think about how many eggs you eat in a day. Some people think they want a few chickens not realizing they'll get one egg per chicken per day. So if you're eating monster omelets for breakfast every morning, then get a bunch but if you can stand to save up 1-2 eggs a day for a few days before you eat them, then shoot for a couple chicks. There's always neighbors and friends to give them away to, but after a while they tend to forget you have free eggs and stop asking for them.

I'm not sure where you plan on getting them from, but the local tractor supply sells them here and are pretty good at sexing them, but you may get an errant rooster. Get rid of it. They're mean, territorial, defensive and noisy. And they just go around terrorizing your hens.

 

[Mr. Bills]

My neighbor had chickens, but culled out the roosters to keep the noise down as well as complaints from the neighbors. We live in a typical suburban residential development within the city limits.

Then we had the Carr Fire and her chickens became fried chicken.

She has not replaced them after rebuilding her house because the neighbor on the other side had experienced quite enough of her chickens and ratted her out to the city, which has a municipal code section specifically prohibiting chickens and other barnyard critters in areas within the city limits zoned residential.

Moral of the story: Check your local ordinances and any CC&R's before you go to the expense of building a coop.