My problem with chickens.

If you look through my Instagram or just peruse the the site a while, you will see that I have and love having chickens. They are so easy to keep around, fresh eggs are flipping awesome, and they are hilarious just to sit on the back porch and watch. But they do have their own issues. I know you're probably thinking that they stink or that they are messy, but that comes with pretty much any homestead animal. They all poop right? No, my issue with chickens isn't talked about much in the homesteading world and I personally think it should be. Most people will tell you to start homesteading with chickens, and there are a lot of reason for that. They are small and easy to manage, don't take a lot of upfront capital to get into the yard, and to put it bluntly, easy to dispose of. If it doesn't work out for you, there is always a crazy chicken lady, or me, who would be willing to take them off your hands. You could also just eat them. Either way, the point is that they do not take a huge amount of commitment which is a plus to new homesteaders. What you aren't told is that they are one of the least resilient homestead animals you can keep. What do I mean by that? The way I look at it, a major pillar of homesteading is food independence and self reliance. Chickens, in most contexts, do not meet either of those criteria. Chickens require constant outside input to keep and manage. Let me explain. Let me ask you a simple question. If you couldn't run down to local TSC or mill to get feed for your chickens, would they survive? For the vast majority, I would say that your answer is a resounding no. Most homesteaders who keep chickens take it for granted, but they lively hood of their chickens is solely based on outside input. If for whatever reason there was a shortage in said feed, it would cause a whole heap of problems. Think about a guy like Joel Salatin, who runs close to 1000 hens in one of his egg mobiles. How would he feed that one single flock if he didn't buy in his grain? Sure, they will peck around if you let them free range. They will find some bugs and eat some greens and the like, but unless you are letting them really really free ranged, with no restrictions, there is actually very little to feed a decent sized flock. At least not enough to keep them producing steadily and gaining weight as they should. If you do let them free range and go wherever they want, you are most likely going to have a huge predator problem. This is what I mean by they are not a resilient animal on the homestead. If you were to compare them to say a ruminate of some sort, its a completely different story. You give it pasture, maybe some hay... and you pretty much good to go. Don't think I'm saying you shouldn't have chickens, or that guys like Joel are doing something wrong. He is a farmer, he is doing it to create food to sell, not necessarily homestead. I have a great respect for him and others like him, but I think that a lot of modem agriculture has skewed our minds a little when it comes to certain homesteading aspects. So that's my problem with chickens. They lack resilience which is major aspect of why I chose to homestead. Being resilient in times of need. Whats my solution? Well, i'm not really sure yet. I'm pondering a lot of systems to implement next spring to try and produce as much of their food as I can. Here are a few you can look forward to: -I'm looking into different types of chicken feed and how they are formulated so that I can potentially create an easy simple recipe that I can grow in my own back yard. -Start a few(or a lot) vermicomposting bins for worm breeding purposes. They take my waste and make food for my chickens and my gardens. Good deal. -I have plans to hang pots on the fence runs filled with pea plants. The peas will grow down instead of up, providing food for them that they can browse when they want. -Get goats(big if) and feed them excess milk.

-Use chicken coop roof as a green roof and grow some plants there specifically for them to eat. As I said, I love having chickens, but I don't love that if SHTF, they could become a huge liability instead of an asset. Hopefully we can come up with some systems to help avoid that. Let me know what you think. Do you have any ideas to help make a backyard favorite more resilient?