A great way to help with being more self-sufficient, other than having your own garden, is adding two to three chickens to the mix. Chickens? Even in a small backyard? Yes! Even in a small backyard. Keeping chickens can help reduce a lot of food waste since chickens are omnivores. They will gladly eat up many types of kitchen scraps that may have been thrown in the trash. Please allow me to convince you with 5 reasons below to keep chickens in your backyard.
Top 5 Reasons to keep Chickens
- Receiving fresh, local eggs. You may even have enough to share with neighbors.
- Chickens can help with the weeding, tilling, and turning the soil of your leftover vegetable patch or garden bed.
- Pest Control needed? Chickens one of the best natural forms of pest control.
- Need Fertilizer? Try chicken manure. Chicken manure is high in nitrogen and potassium and can be used as a fertilizer right away or added to your compost pile for the next season.
- Chicken Manure is great for your compost pile.
If this list did not convince you, then check out the website My Pet Chicken: https://www.mypetchicken.com. The website, first launched in 2005, contained valuable information for backyarders, and grew to include such best-of-breed resources as the free e-book, The My Pet Chicken Guide to Chicken Care. Today, My Pet Chicken continues to lead the way in the urban chicken space.
Photo by Casey Bebernes and Photo by Shannon Pixie McWilliams