Yes! You Can Produce Eggs in Your Backyard!

➡ Marjorie discusses the rising cost of eggs and suggests raising chickens as a solution. She recommends starting with six laying hens, which can produce around 1500 eggs a year. She also provides tips on setting up a coop and run, buying chicken feed, and setting up a watering system. Marjorie also mentions resources for further information on raising chickens and creating a sustainable food source.
➡ The text suggests that raising chickens can be a rewarding and practical activity. It’s best to buy mature hens rather than chicks, especially from local backyard producers to avoid vaccinated birds. Chickens are great for heat regulation in different climates and can provide a source of entertainment and responsibility for children. The author also mentions that hens don’t need roosters to lay eggs and encourages exploring ways to feed chickens for free to save on costs.

Hey, this is Marjorie, and we’re going to go outside here. Woo! It’s bright. I hope I can make this look good, but I want to talk to you about chickens. And you’ve noticed the price of eggs. Of course you have, right? I can’t believe it. The only thing that I could find were those cheapie eggs that you probably should meet because God knows what’s in them. $10 a dozen is incredible. Like, whoa! What planet are we on here? Yeah, so it’s happening. And it’s, you know, I mean, like it went up, you know, even these are official government statistics, which you normally shouldn’t ever believe, but they’re like, oh, it went up 8% in January, and then it went up like 13% in February.

And we expect that it’s going to go up 42% more throughout the rest of the year, which means that might actually be next month. So, you know, it’s happening. And, you know, if you haven’t gotten chickens and you’re on the fence, I really want to have this little conversation with you to get you started on it because it’s really delightful. It’s fun. So first of all, let’s talk about how many chickens do you need. And you really only need about six laying hens. So a good laying hen will produce about 250 eggs a year. And if you think about it, six laying hens, that’s going to be 1500 eggs a year.

And that is the same as three egg omelets every morning for breakfast. And then plus 33 dozen eggs for you to give away or trade or use as other ingredients. So we’re talking about having breakfast handled for the rest of your life with six laying hens. And let’s talk a little bit about what that looks like. So, you know, you don’t have to be afraid of this, right? I want you to do it because you’re going to need to. You really can put them in about the size of a parking spot. So the coop, yes, you are going to need a coop.

Especially if you’re in the northern areas, you’re going to want something that’s got some good insulation in it so that they can stay warm in the wintertime. And, you know, you want a place for them to stay dry and cool and all this stuff. And you really only need a little room like that’s maybe, you know, four foot by six foot or six foot by eight foot. And then a lot of people build another little run attached to it. But again, that’s going to be like, you know, eight feet wide by maybe 10 feet long. It’s a place for them to get out in the sun and scratch and things like that.

And occasionally you’re going to want to let them out and run around in your yard to eat bugs and eat grass and eat stuff. Because when they’re in their own run, they’re going to eat everything up immediately and that will just turn into kind of a, you know, a patch. So it’s not going to be that useful for that long. Now, sometimes people actually will take segments of their yard that they fence and then they let the chickens into different segments at different times, kind of like rotational grazing. And that can work real well. But let’s keep it simple for now.

You know, just get a coop, build a little run for it. You know, honestly, you know, that webinar that I have, the free one at backyardfoodproduction.com, I’ve got drawings in there and plans to show you how to do it and how simple it is. So if you want to go see that. And that’s it’s a really easy seminar. And I, you know, I will not be offended if you watch it at one and a half X speed. All right. You know, just go watch it. I want to give you the overview now. So to inspire you.

So you six laying hands. I also recommend six. You want a minimum size flock because they are flocking birds and they do count. They depend on each other for security and protection. Like everybody likes to eat chicken. Everybody. So, you know, and they do kind of help you. You know, they’re always looking around and helping out. I don’t recommend getting a huge amount because, you know, you want to start small with anything you do, you know, because you’re creating a new thing, you’re creating a new lifestyle, you’re creating new habits. And, you know, don’t start out with a hundred chickens, right? You know, just start out with a few.

So I would really recommend six. You know, maybe it doesn’t. Let’s talk about feed. So chicken feed, I would really, really recommend you buy your chicken feed in the beginning. Now, it is totally possible to come up with a hundred percent of your chicken feed for free. And yes, I’ve got a free video for you on that, by the way. It’s at FreeChickenFeed.com. Oh, my God. My URL collection is to be admired, right? Oh, man. What the hell is going on? Everybody’s like really busy. This is a crazy street that normally never has anybody on it.

Maybe they all know I’m giving you a video. So, yeah, FreeChickenFeed.com. Justin Rhodes and I did this a few years ago for a summit I was doing. And we’ve got that there as a free video. So go hit one of my URL collection, FreeChickenFeed.com, and you can get that free video. You know, also go to the BackyardFoodProduction.com, and there’s that whole, this will be, this whole system will be laid out for you. So I would recommend buying chicken feed to get started, right? You’ve got a lot of things to learn. Chicken feed is still cheap. It’s still cheap as chicken food.

So, you know, and people do, do I need organic? You know, if you want to do organic, that’s fine. Honestly, I, what I believe and what I use is I try to find a local or regionally produced non-soy, non-GMO feed. And that is usually pretty good. Most farmers who are doing non-soy, non-GMO are farming organically or with the intent for organics. Whereas, you know, the organic stuff is an expensive label that’s honestly being usurped and not really that meaningful. So, you know, do the best you can with what you have. Water, set up a watering system ahead of time.

You know, watering them is pretty simple. You just put some pans out there and then just, you know, clean the pans every day and change the water every day. There’s a very, very simple little off-grid water that you can make out of a five-gallon bucket and a float valve. And I promise you, there’s lots of float valves around, even if we have a whole total grid down situation. There’s a float valve in the back of every toilet, if you think about it. So, very simple to make and really fun to do with kids. And the plans for that are, I think both of those are actually, one might be at the BackyardFoodProduction.com and the other one, I think the FreeChickenFeed.com website also will get you access to that.

But it’s an e-book that I had written on this really wonderful little water, which is great. I recommend having two of those. They’re really easy to make out of a five-gallon bucket and a couple of float valves. Again, a great project to do with kids over a weekend. This will save you tons of time. You know, you just need to fill that thing up once a week, check them, make sure they’re working, and that’s it. So, I could cut you out hours. Time doesn’t involve any electricity or any of these very simple, practical, mechanical setups. So, that’s what we love, right? Very simple things.

My mom used to tell me when I was growing up, she says, you know, all those cars, all those fancy buttons for electric windows that go up and down. She says, there’s just more stuff to break. She always wanted one of the cars with the roll-up windows. I totally agree with her on that. So, we got feed, we got water, we got the coop, we got the number of chickens. People often go obsessing over breeds of chickens. I’ll give you the thumbnail wisdom on that. And that is, laying hens generally tend to be smaller and a little more skittish than other birds.

And it’s going to depend on where your region is. By the way, the classic laying birds are white leggings and brown leggings. A really good friend of mine who’s passed now, who grew up in West Texas, and I asked him, I said, hey Bill, you know, you got all these, like, there’s like a million chicken breeds out there in feathers and all kinds of crazy stuff. And I said, did y’all have all that when you were growing up? And he said, nope, we only had brown leggers because they produce and they do well. And, you know, those are good fundamental chickens.

So, if you’re up in a northern climate, you’re going to want birds that are a little stouter, that are a little heavier, that have more feathering, that have less, you know, the thing on the top is called a comb and the thing under here is called a waddle. You want small of those if you’re up in the north. Now, in the south, we want birds with big combs and big waddles because they dissipate heat. And you generally want leaner, thinner birds in the south because they can deal with the heat better. And that’s a rough overview.

I really, really recommend, you know, just go on Craigslist or hit up a feed store, you know, start talking to people. And I really recommend you get on this right now. I don’t know if you remember in 2020, but the price of a laying hen shot up dramatically until they became unavailable. So, I really recommend you get some real soon, like today would be good. Yeah, I’ve also heard that they are starting to vaccinate all these chickens with marinade or whatever the latest bullshit toxin is. So, I would really recommend picking them up from a backyard producer.

By the way, that’s a whole other small business you can get into eventually. Do not buy a bunch of baby chicks and raise them from baby chicks. I know it sounds fun. It sounds wonderful. It is a wonderful homeschooling project. It takes about six months for a hen to be up to laying age and you don’t have six months. And it actually takes a slightly different set of skills and equipment to raise up babies to laying hens than it is to have laying hens and just be collecting eggs every day. So, I don’t recommend picking up a bunch of baby chicks at this point in time.

Yeah, and when you go buy the hens, you know, maybe you’re going to make a friend, right? Hopefully you’re buying it from somebody off Craigslist or Facebook or, you know, somebody in your neighborhood you see that has chickens. And then you’ve got a connection there and you’re going to want to be friends with these people. And, you know, when the, oh, no, I got mites or, you know, something happens, then, you know, you’ve got somebody you can talk to and connect with. And then you can also see how those birds were raised. You know, like I said, I’ve heard all the hatcheries now are giving them vaccine injections and you do not want, you do not want laying hens that have had the mRNA or whatever vaccine in it.

You just don’t. That’s not something you want to mess with. That’s not going to be real food. So it’s real fun, by the way. Chickens are unbelievably entertaining. When we first moved out to the land years ago, we didn’t have television. We didn’t even have a house. We were living at first in a tent and then up in the barn. And we had just some amazing, wonderful family evenings watching the chickens roost. And I know it doesn’t sound like much, but when you get into watching them, they’re really hilarious. And children do especially well with chickens.

Actually, taking care of the chickens is historically children’s work, you know, collecting the eggs and bringing them in and making sure the hens are watered and fed and all that kind of stuff. And it’s very deeply meaningful work. And kids really do need meaningful work. Little kids can do this. I was watching a guy at Ann Archiboco talking about, he had his two-year-old daughter collecting eggs. I’m like, wow, that’s young, but, you know, it works, right? Those kids want to help get them working at that age. So we went over food and water, breeds, roosters, the big rooster myth.

You do not need a rooster. Hens will lay eggs just fine without roosters. You don’t need a rooster. If you ultimately want your eggs to be fertile and then have your hens laying on those eggs and then hatching them so that way you can perpetuate your flock. Yes, you do need a rooster, but you do not need them just for egg production. Those hens will lay eggs with or without a rooster just fine. And I don’t know, you know, is a fertilized egg more healthier than a non-fertile? Let’s not go down there. We’re talking about just having eggs, period, right? So, again, I go into this in a lot more detail and I have the drawings and I can show you more exactly what it looks like at BackyardFoodProduction.com and then head over to FreeChickenFeed.com to pick up that free video on ultimately how to feed all your chickens for free, right? Because chicken feed is going to get very expensive at some point in time.

But in the beginning, you’ve got a lot to learn and a lot to figure out. So just buy your chicken feed and as soon as you get those systems stable and you’ve got that kind of dialed in, then start looking at how are you going to, you know, start feeding your chickens for free. And you can. I just want to let you know you can. All right. I hope I’ve inspired you. It’s time. It’s time. This is the year. This is 2025. And the slogan for 2025 is, please stay alive. And, you know, the eggs are the canary.

The chickens are the canary in the coal mine for this year. I hope I’ve inspired you. Definitely put some comments down below. If you have any questions, I’d be more than happy to get back to you. I’m really wanting to be more active on this channel in terms of getting you practical, useful information that you can work on and get yourself more self-reliance. So there you go. OK. The two websites again, BackyardFoodProduction.com and then FreeChickenFeed.com. And both of those are free. So see you there. [tr:trw].