Backyard Poultry – Why Owning Chickens as Pets Is A Good Thing

Backyard poultry is all about raising chickens in an urban setting. I’ve had chickens now for about a year and a half, and I find them truly inspiring pets to own, and I hope I can share some of that with you now.

I’ll explain in another post about some of the ways to get started raising backyard poultry, but for right now I just wanted to talk about the benefits of having backyard poultry as pets.

For starters, let’s talk about the obvious. Chickens lay eggs. Eggs are good. Backyard poultry lay eggs everyday, which is good. Any questions?

Ha, but seriously, it’s hard to beat a pet that feeds you every day. And to top that, your backyard poultry is going to give you much better eggs than you can find at the store. I have literally compared them side by side and there is no comparison. Store eggs (even the organic ones) are runny with yellow yokes, and backyard poultry eggs are firm and bright orange from all of the extra nutrients. Studies show they are better for you, and I think they taste a lot better too.

So if you like eggs, backyard poultry is your new best friend.

And if you don’t like eggs, you can probably find a friend that does and just enjoy backyard poultry because chickens are fun to have around. I totally get a kick out of mine and spend a lot of time just watching them run around or peck at random stuff in the yard. Chickens are timid, but they can also be curious and wait around while you dig for worms for them as a treat, or follow you around the yard just to see what you’re up to.

My chickens’ latest fascination has been to watch me from a ground level window while I work at my computer in the basement. If they weren’t there as company, I would have moved my computer up into another room a while ago, but they really are fun pets to watch and spend time around.

And, in case you are wondering, backyard poultry is both relatively easy to get into (if it’s allowed in your area) and easy to take care of. I’ll go into that next, but I really wanted to emphasis just how cool having backyard poultry can be and why anyone should seriously consider chickens as pets. I didn’t realize how great they were until I got them, and now it would be hard to get me to give them up. So give backyard poultry a shot, and make some new friends that always bring food when they come to visit!