Australorp
"The overachiever."
🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚 ~300/yr
Holds the world record: 364 eggs in 365 days. Calm, glossy, quietly judging your productivity.
New here? Start here 🐣
From "hmm, chickens?" to your first backyard egg in six honest steps. It's easier than the internet makes it sound.
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1
Check your local rules
Most towns allow 3–6 hens; many ban roosters (your neighbors sleep, apparently). One search: "your town + backyard chickens ordinance".
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2
Plan the coop first
Before chicks, not after — they grow at cartoon speed. Budget ~0.4 m² inside + 1 m² of run per bird, and hardware cloth everywhere.
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3
Get at least 3 chicks
Chickens are flock animals — a lonely hen is a sad, loud hen. Pick 2–3 breeds from the cast below for an egg-color rainbow.
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4
Brooder weeks (0–6)
A box, a heat plate, chick starter feed, and water. They'll live indoors, grow feathers, and perfect the art of kicking bedding into the waterer.
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5
Move-in day (~week 6)
Fully feathered = coop time. Keep them locked in the coop for 3 days so it imprints as "home" — after that they'll put themselves to bed forever.
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6
First egg (~week 18–22)
You'll hear the "egg song" before you find it. It will be small, possibly weird-shaped, and you will absolutely photograph it. Welcome to the club.
The snack bar 🌽
Layer pellets are the boring-but-important 90%. The other 10% is where you become their favorite person alive.
✅ Happily devoured
- Leafy greens — hang a cabbage on a string, enjoy the piñata.
- Watermelon — summer air-conditioning you can eat.
- Mealworms — chicken currency. Shake the bag, become a deity.
- Cooked oats, rice, pumpkin — warm oats on a cold morning = pure joy.
- Scrambled eggs — yes, it's weird. They don't think so.
🚫 Never ever
- Avocado skin & pit — persin is toxic to birds.
- Chocolate & coffee — theobromine, hard no.
- Raw dry beans — phytohemagglutinin. Can't say it, don't feed it.
- Green potato peels — solanine.
- Moldy anything — the compost bin is not a buffet.
💡 Treats = max 10% of the diet
🦪 Oyster shell in its own dish, always
💧 Clean water beats every supplement
🪨 Grit if they don't free-range
A year in the yard 🍂
Chickens don't read calendars, but their needs change with the weather. Here's the whole year, one card per season.
🌸 Spring
- Peak egg season — check nest boxes twice a day.
- Deep-clean the coop after winter (they will supervise).
- Chick season! Quarantine newcomers for 2–4 weeks.
- Mud management: wood chips in the run save your sanity.
☀️ Summer
- Shade + cool water. Heat kills faster than cold ever will.
- Frozen watermelon > everything.
- Shallow water pan for foot-dipping on scorchers.
- Watch for panting and droopy wings — move birds to shade.
🍁 Fall
- Molt time: everyone looks terrible. It's fine.
- Bump protein to 18–20% while feathers regrow.
- Eggs slow down as days shorten — that's normal, not illness.
- Rake fallen leaves INTO the run: free entertainment.
❄️ Winter
- Ventilation without drafts — moisture causes frostbite, not cold.
- Petroleum jelly on big combs on the coldest nights.
- Warm oatmeal breakfast: watch the flock lose its mind.
- No heat lamps. Coop fires are real; chickens wear down coats.
Meet the gals (and one loud guy)
Every flock is a sitcom cast. Choose your characters wisely.
Buff Orpington
"The golden retriever."
🥚🥚🥚🥚 ~220/yr
Will sit on your lap. Will follow you to the mailbox. Will go broody and hatch anything, including golf balls.
Leghorn
"The espresso shot."
🥚🥚🥚🥚🥚 ~290/yr
White eggs, industrial output, zero chill. If a hen ever learns to open the feed bin, it'll be her.
Ameraucana
"The indie artist."
🥚🥚🥚🥚 ~200/yr
Lays blue eggs. Has fluffy cheek muffs. Looks permanently surprised by your life choices.
Silkie
"The cloud with feet."
🥚🥚 ~110/yr
Black skin, blue earlobes, fur instead of feathers, can't see through its own hairdo. 10/10 with kids.
The Rooster
"The alarm clock nobody ordered."
💤 0/yr
Not needed for eggs! But he'll guard the flock with his life and announce sunrise, lunch, and absolutely nothing at 3 a.m.
The Egg-dex 🌈
Shell color is decided by breed, not by feed — and every egg is identical inside. Collect the whole rainbow:
WhiteLeghorn
CreamSilkie
BrownAustralorp
ChocolateMarans
BlueAmeraucana
OliveOlive Egger
Pink-ishEaster Egger
Crack a fact 🐣
Six eggs. Six gloriously useless chicken facts. Crack them all.
The coop shop 🛒
Gear we'd actually put in our own run — no gadgets for gadgets' sake. Links open Amazon in a new tab.
Automatic coop door
Opens at dawn, locks at dusk. The single best "sleep in on Sunday" purchase in chicken keeping.
See on Amazon →No-waste hanging feeder
Stops the scratch-it-all-on-the-floor Olympics. Pays for itself in un-wasted feed within weeks.
See on Amazon →Nipple waterer kit
Clean water that stays clean — no more dumping green soup every morning. Hens learn it in minutes.
See on Amazon →Nesting box herbs
Lavender + mint blend for the boxes. Calmer hens, nicer-smelling coop, very spa-day energy.
See on Amazon →Poultry first-aid spray
Wound + skin care spray belongs in every coop kit. You'll need it exactly once — urgently.
See on Amazon →Dried mealworms
Chicken currency. Buy the big bucket — the small bag is a rookie mistake you make only once.
See on Amazon →🥚 Heads up: as Amazon Associates we may earn from qualifying purchases — at no extra cost to you. We only list gear we'd use with our own flock.
Join the flock 💬
Brag about your first egg, show off your coop build, ask the "is this normal?!" questions. We're hatching a community on: