A Beginner's Guide to Keeping Backyard Chickens

At Cummings Lane Farm we engage in sustainable, regenerative farming on a budget. We understand firsthand that farming is expensive, and have watched as, since the covid pandemic, many young, would-be farmers joined the fray only to abandon their progress a few years later in the face of increasing costs and mounting debts.

We don’t operate that way. Simply put, our advice aims to empower beginners to raise chickens in a cost-efficient manner for the long haul. This is preferable for people and poultry.

What follows in A Beginner’s Guide to Keeping Chickens is a distillation of everything we’ve learned since we began chicken farming, along with the essential knowledge we wish we had back when we first started out. While our primary audience is those beginning this journey, we are confident that parts of this manual will prove useful to novices and seasoned poultry veterans alike.

Some of the topics covered include:

• Selecting a breed of chicken for your backyard
• Shopping for chickens
• Creating the perfect backyard coop
• Chicken fencing options
• Winter poultry care
• Constructing nesting boxes and bedding options
• Guarding against predators and dealing with common ailments
• Dealing with broody hens, egg eaters, and chickens who peck other birds
• How to hatch chickens yourself at home
• And so much more!