Thinking about a few chickens? Here are a dozen reasons why you should have them in your backyard:
Fresh, healthy, delicious eggs, free of pesticides and antibiotics.- Cruelty free raised food.
- Chickens eat table scraps, reducing municipal solid waste.
- Chickens produce a rich fertilizer by-product, high in nitrogen, eliminating the need for petrochemical fertilizers.
- Chickens eat bugs, reducing our backyard pest population.
- Keeping heritage chickens increases numbers of endangered breeds that have been replaced by industrial breeds; we need to preserve our genetic diversification especially in food production livestock.
- Backyard chickens contribute to a zero mile diet as they are as local as your backyard.
- Keeping chickens is an efficient food source as eggs are rated by the UN Food and Agriculture as a more efficient source of protein than the other four top sources, higher in value than cow’s milk, fish, beef, or soybeans. A chicken coop can be as small as 1 square meter (10 square feet) for a confined full grown large breed; eight chickens can fit in a coop that is only 10×6 feet.
- Keeping backyard chickens puts you in control of your own food source and we can access eggs year-round even when we cannot garden or in the event of disruptions in the commercial food delivery system. The UN FAO has stated that the right to food is a basic human right.
- Chickens make great pets as they are affectionate, intelligent, and entertaining.
- Children and adults receive a rich education about food sources and responsible animal keeping when they keep livestock and that teaches a positive relationship and respect for food. Knowledge and respect for food encourages healthy weight maintenance.
- Keeping backyard chickens is a historic tradition that has been recently phased out in favor of profit driven commercial food delivery. Keeping livestock is a traditional and basic survival skill. Common knowledge of basic survival skills increases the recovery of a population after a disaster.
Get a copy of COOP: Chicken Owners Online Pamphlet V1.0 here.
For a sneak preview of what you’re in for, check out this fun little video from the Montreal Gazette.