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ArjinFerman  Tinfoil Gigachad  3d ago (text post)   461 thread views

Tinker Tuesday for February 25, 2025

This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.

Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.

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Have any motteizeans kept chickens? I have a lot of unused square footage in my backyard and can potentially split costs, but almost certainly not labor.

We have chickens. 4 is the max we are allowed legally. It would be cheaper to buy the eggs. But labor is pretty easy. I give them fresh water daily and need to top up their food about twice a week. I check for eggs when I give them fresh water. I clean the coop once a week and do a more thorough cleaning every other month. They're in a chicken tractor that has worked to protect them from predators and I move it during the weekly cleaning. So less than half an hour a day on average I would guess.

It's a bastard depending on where you are. Lots of predators, some (like weasels) very clever about getting in. If you don't have enough forage for them, the feed costs negate most of your savings on eggs. You'll often have either way too many or none at all. Hens will go broody and sneak off to lay in the woods (or under a neighbor's deck) until the eggs go rotten or something eats her. If you can't rig up an automatic gate you'll need someone there every night and morning to shut them in and let them out. If they forget this probably means a coon tearing one of them apart, or a weasel killing everything for fun.

If you're set up well, are handy, can rig up some lights for winter, and have a good source of free forage on hand, they're great.

My backyard is fenced- will that make a difference in going rogue? I know chickens can fly but generally prefer not to.

The only daytime predators are hawks, feral cats, and coyotes. I’ve never seen the latter but the city government and Nextdoor assure me they’re present. I have seen hawks and feral cats in my yard, both of which would necessitate keeping chickens confined to a coop or run. I’m an HVAC tech with construction experience, so ‘being handy’ and ‘set up well’ isn’t a high bar to clear for me. I can get a house sitter if I go out of town who won’t think ‘bring water and food and let the chickens in/out’ is a big deal. Again, it’s possible for me to find someone to split costs, but not labor.

I've seen a "heritage breed" chicken fly 20' straight up into a cedar tree for the night (neighbor's walked a quarter mile to visit, God knows why), but yeah the modern ones can hardly flap their way onto a 3' perch.

Feed is probably your biggest issue on a suburban lawn. Especially doing it in a way that doesn't bring the rats around, and doesn't cost more than the eggs would have.

If you have hawks, then you need to build a very large movable enclosure for them to forage in during the day or buy chicken feed.

Not entirely necessary unless the wife or kids get unreasonably attached to them. Just some shiny strands overhead and a tolerance for losses is all you need. I only ever had one taken by a hawk, out of a few dozen lost to coons, cars, and Mysteriously Stone Dead Syndrome.

Damn thing must have been desperate to make the run, because it nailed her on the back of the neck and realized it couldn't carry her up out of the clearing. Dropped her after a few ft.

They're a very good animal for introducing kids to the mysteries of life and death, and answering where we go when we die (the compost pile)

Your hawks must be chill, then. I know of a prepper from Kiev who stopped having chickens because he had no recourse against hawks and wouldn't pay for feed, trying to be a 100% self-sufficient prepper and all that.

It's all about cover. Chickens are a brush bird, not open range creatures. They like bushes, rotting logs, low tree branches to perch on, and a protective canopy overhead.

I live alongside a ridge with a road on it, where hawks hover all afternoon on the thermals. They only dive on field rats and such out in the open. They're very nervous about going anywhere near brush, because being caught on the ground is a death sentence for them.
It's pretty common to see eagles circling above a dead deer in a bush, never having the balls to go for it until the vultures show up and take their lunch.

If someone has a bunch of open pasture... Get sheep, not chickens. They're the real ultimate prepper animal.

I assume I’m missing something obvious, but can’t you just keep the chickens in a coop/cage to stop the hawk getting in?

You have two options: keep them in a coup and feed them or let them eat whatever they find in your backyard but leave them unprotected.

It's "free eggs" only if you don't have to buy chicken feed.

I suppose it wouldn't be impossible to put a cage or net over the entirety of your backyard, would it? Aesthetics would suffer, of course.

More comments

You don’t do the chicken cannibalism thing?

Redpill me on the shiny strands overhead- I’d definitely be more worried about feral cats, but reasonable precautions.

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