Why We Raise Chickens, Finding Your Why in Backyard Poultry

In this episode of The Coop Podcast with Meyer Hatchery, Phil and Lauren discuss the key question in backyard poultry keeping: your why. They explore reasons for raising chickens, such as fresh eggs, food security, pest control, family bonding, and teaching responsibility. Phil shares personal stories, while Lauren reflects on her upbringing with poultry and the lessons learned from caring for a flock.

Insights from Meyer Hatchery’s customer service highlight common motivations for new chicken keepers. The hosts discuss practical aspects like meat birds versus laying hens, composting, and the benefits of backyard chickens. They also introduce a fun segment, Cluck Cluck What the Heck, featuring real-life chicken antics.

Whether you’re a beginner or expanding your flock, this podcast aims to educate and inspire your poultry journey. New episodes drop every other week. Subscribe, leave a review, and share your poultry questions or stories at podcast at meyerhatchery.com.

Don’t forget to place your Meyer Hatchery order! 🐔 Use code THECOOP at meyerhatchery.com for 10% off your order (one-time use per customer).

Transcript

00;00;07;19 - 00;00;21;03
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Coop Podcast with Meyer Hatchery, where we talk all things poultry in hopes of educating chicken keepers and inspiring future flock owners. I'm Phil, and I'm here with Lauren from Meyer Hatchery as well.

00;00;21;05 - 00;00;22;22
Hey guys.

00;00;22;25 - 00;00;31;26
And today we're going to begin the talk about the basics of backyard poultry. Where to begin and how to plan for the chickens.

00;00;31;28 - 00;00;54;20
It makes it sound so terrifying to say the chickens, but it's really. You have to decide to go by chicks. So for a long version, Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, Phil, what is your? Why? Like, I know I have mine and every other chicken keeper has theirs, but what's yours? My is a little bit. It's a little bit of a story.

00;00;54;27 - 00;01;35;29
So, I am a foster parent, and I have adopted as well. And one of the reasons that we started with chicks was purely by accident. But then I committed. Yeah. One of my daughters, her physicians had talked to me about getting her set up with equine therapy and we could not find equine therapy near us that was affordable or that was we were able to get off school and things like that to participate in.

00;01;36;00 - 00;02;03;22
And so the next best thing was a chicken. She definitely took off with that. Chickens became her thing. It became our thing that we could bond together on. And for me, I just remember as a child we had chickens. All of the chores and the character that it built, having them and taking care of them and looking beyond the two-foot bubble that was around me.

00;02;03;24 - 00;02;29;20
To to build something bigger than myself. And, so that's how that's how we got started. And now, I've got seven kids in the home, and everyone here participates in some way, whether they like it or not. In chicken chores or taking care of the chickens or bonding with the chickens. So, I mean, that's really how we got started and why it's continued.

00;02;29;20 - 00;03;05;10
And now, you know, chicken math happened. We're going to add graduating from chicken math into cow math, hopefully. And piglet math, and have the whole old MacDonald had a farmer situation going on at our house. I love that that's truly the dream. Honestly. I, I didn't actually consciously start my chicken journey. Which kind of sounds a little weird because I feel like you kind of have to consciously start your journey.

00;03;05;13 - 00;03;41;09
But I walked down one day after opening up my Easter eggs, and there were chicks in my basement. I was probably about like 5 or 6, honestly. I was a little one, and my parents had been in agriculture and my dad had raised rabbits when, he was younger. So it kind of made sense. And yeah, my whole childhood, I grew up running after the chickens, changing the litter, hung out with the chickens, had our favorites.

00;03;41;09 - 00;04;12;25
We had one named Bailey Magic School bus flowers. Yeah. That's about we were indecisive children at best. My sister and I. But yeah. No, it was just kind of. We were raised to respect nature and respect animals, and I honestly think that made me a better person today. Well, one thing that, we did here before production was we asked our CSR team more about their why.

00;04;12;27 - 00;04;40;16
And overall, the biggest and the biggest thing that we heard back was the fresh eggs. One store bought smelled not to cut you off, but for viewers that are just now tuning in, the CSR team is our customer service team. Over here at Meyer Hatchery. My my apologies. I use we get all into our acronyms here in the chicken community.

00;04;40;19 - 00;05;05;00
Yeah. Well, and and one, when planning for the episode, I wanted to reach out to our, our customer service team because all of our listeners, they've probably dealt with us at some point. As a dealt with the customer service team at some point, with help with their orders, help with their chick selection, help with advice on how to raise chicks.

00;05;05;02 - 00;05;32;01
So we wanted to bring some of that sage wisdom to you guys as well. And like, I like I was saying a lot of folks that responded. They definitely touted the taste difference that you get between store bought and yard eggs. Yeah. But also having the ability to know where your eggs are coming from, what's going into the chicken that makes the eggs?

00;05;32;03 - 00;06;06;05
Yeah. And those are things that we hear from customers regularly, too. So, I mean, the what the are wise probably not all that that big of a difference in them. When it comes down to it. But just knowing that and having that nutritional control and knowing where your food is coming from, knowing that you can expect it to come unless your chickens are molting or the sudden we're in Ohio with the weather and it's it's zero freezing.

00;06;06;08 - 00;06;41;13
I got one egg on Tuesday after Monday's negative. I haven't even gotten that foul. I haven't I haven't gotten any. My girls do not like the cold, honestly. Yeah. So those fresh eggs, I mean, I think when you're starting out and you don't know a whole bunch about chickens, just knowing that the eggs will come and go as the the chicken matures, as the chicken goes through its life stages, like a human, you know, it has its ups and downs and egg production is definitely affected by the environment.

00;06;41;14 - 00;07;05;06
So, that's one great why I think is, you know, knowing where your eggs come from and what you're, what you're getting from them. Yeah, absolutely. I feel like for newbie chicken keepers, that's also kind of a terrifying moment when your chicken's not laying. Like, what's wrong with my chicken? Like, what's going on? And we've all had that happen.

00;07;05;06 - 00;07;27;03
So if you're having that right now, please breathe. You're chicken is not well. I don't want to say it's not having issues because it may be okay, but it's not the end of the world. But also with the, discussion of knowing where your food comes from. I think that's also why a lot of people will raise meat birds as well.

00;07;27;05 - 00;07;52;05
Just to make sure that there's no none of the, like, artificial hormones or artificial anything going into their birds. They control how it's raised. They're they're controlling every factor of production. And I think that's really important to a lot of people. I know some of our customer service team and our marketing team actually, that's what their purpose is for their flock.

00;07;52;05 - 00;08;17;13
And, I think that's a really cool thing. I've never dabbled into that, but I have, I, I am too gentle hearted for that. I could. I know my dad could. I could not actually. Well, I, I got into my flock, started with laying hens that were just companions. And we talked a little bit about that before.

00;08;17;15 - 00;08;45;05
You and I, and, just by chance, we started raising me. Bird. I've. I've tried the Cornish cross. I've tried dual purpose as well. And I think the biggest thing is just, again, knowing what you're feeding your chickens, knowing that the food that you're consuming, you know, the chicken that you're consuming, where it came from, and it had a good life.

00;08;45;07 - 00;09;25;17
Yeah. And that it it wasn't a poultry barn chicken. You know, unless that's your thing, there's nothing wrong with that either. Yeah. It's just some people are looking for more. Getting back to basics and knowing where their food comes from versus going to the grocery store and and purchasing boneless, skinless chicken breast. You you actually get to see the, the breast on the chicken and know that, you know, you did something great there and that chicken was treated well and the different practices and raising them or you know, all you have control over that process.

00;09;25;19 - 00;09;53;20
Yeah, absolutely. When we first got our flock and I know Phil, we were chatting about this a little bit as well. We had a black widow problem, a horrible black widow problem around our house, I know, terrifying. I hate it. So we got our chickens as well because of that problem. So letting them free range and control all of the parts and all of that was a big part of my parents.

00;09;53;20 - 00;10;22;27
Why not my why, but my parents? Why? So we were chatting. And so you had a little bit of a passion for pest control. Yes. I've taken several courses in college about pest control and I do have to say the most humane and natural way is for, you know, having is to have a chicken. They are they do great at getting all the different bugs, ticks, tearing down your weeds in your yard.

00;10;22;27 - 00;10;45;10
It's not just bugs and things like that, but, you know, they they are great for compost. They're great for being garbage disposals, if you will. You can feed almost all of your food scraps to chickens. There are certain foods that you shouldn't. But chickens typically know that if they shouldn't eat that, not to eat that.

00;10;45;13 - 00;11;17;07
Yeah. So I think it helps a lot when you look at the full picture of why, whether it's eggs, meat production, pest control, all of those reasons combined are great reasons why you should hope you should be a chicken tender. Yeah. I call myself a chicken tender all the time because, you know, they they live their lives, as wholly and naturally as as possible on the farm here at my house.

00;11;17;07 - 00;11;54;09
And I know a lot of folks are really into that and set that up for their homestead as well. Yeah, totally. And I think having it as this kind of natural vibe or even, run or whatever, however you raise your chickens, having them around can also have some unexpected benefits as well. I know as a kid it taught me a lot about I know a little bit morbid, but the life cycle and respecting that and realizing that it's not permanent and I know, so morbid.

00;11;54;12 - 00;12;32;24
Geez. But also learning the responsibility for that flock. Like, I remember going out with my dad and feeding the chickens, tending to the chickens, etc. and it just instilled in me this responsibility. I had a rabbit for ten years, almost, and I know that's kind of insane because they don't live for very long, but it the whole experience just kind of gave me this responsibility and this pride and as a child, I think that really benefited me growing into the person I am today.

00;12;32;24 - 00;13;01;13
But it also I remember my mom saying she was watching her chicken TV, watching her chickens out in the yard. So, I think that also benefited me in the stress area because I could just go out and hang out with my birds and be like the antisocial little kid I was, for. Yeah, I think that flocks can come with such tangible benefits, but also such intangible benefits as well.

00;13;01;15 - 00;13;30;05
Yeah. And I mean, my my flock has definitely been a learning experience for my kids. My kids are all we're all raised in the, in the city for the most part, until we started taking chickens in and and, you know, with my wife, as far as, you know, not being able to to get it quite in therapy for my daughter, but we could get chickens and make it much more accessible, that stress relief and that connection with something.

00;13;30;10 - 00;13;51;20
Oh, there's my house chicken. I have a whole chicken. His name is Jasper. He's in the background. He's not well liked by the rest of the flock, but we love him. So he gets to live in the house. He's our honorary co-host. Absolutely. He's going to. He's going to be mouthy in the background. He's got some opinions on how to raise your chickens.

00;13;51;23 - 00;14;18;01
Yeah, he wants to talk about the benefits too, I think. But yeah, you know, and and it's fun to watch them. It's fun to bond with them. It's fun to watch them. They all have different personalities. And each each one is different with its little quirks. I have one hand. We we've named her Bad Becky because she always shows up where she's not supposed to be.

00;14;18;03 - 00;14;56;01
But she is definitely a loved part of the flock, and and just drives me crazy because I always have to find her and make sure she's where she's supposed to be at night. And. And you mentioned, you know, learning, Being more connected and learning where your food comes from and things like that. One thing that I think has been huge for my family with, with raising chickens, has, has just been building character and knowing that when the going gets tough, the tough still have to get going and the work still has to get done.

00;14;56;01 - 00;15;20;17
Even though, you know, we had a barn delivered on Monday, it was negative nine degree wind chill. A new coop for our chickens on the property. And even though it was subzero, we still had to be outside. We still had to take care of them. Even though it was uncomfortable for us. It was more uncomfortable for them to be, you know, out there in the cold.

00;15;20;17 - 00;15;47;11
And we needed to make sure that they had what they needed in order to survive those temperatures. So it's it's been a huge a huge benefit to my family. And, and all of the, you know, the, the very glaring, obvious reasons why. But then, as you mentioned, the unexpected benefits, that they're so numerous, in my opinion.

00;15;47;13 - 00;16;12;00
Truly, truly. And if you guys have any stories you want to share with us, please let us know. You can comment on our socials, send us an email at podcast at Meyer Hatchery. My podcast, The Meyer hatchery.com still get new set email, guys. Sorry about that. But yeah, we would love to hear your stories about your why and maybe some of your funny benefits that you found with your flock.

00;16;12;02 - 00;16;34;22
But we have a lot of resources here at Meyer Hatchery, and I think we're kind of, I think that's kind of a luxury to work here, that we get to learn all this stuff. But we do have a lot of book recommendations. So, Phil, if you would like to give us some book recommendations. Yeah. And one thing that we want to tie in to the podcast is just how Meyer can help.

00;16;34;25 - 00;16;58;05
Everybody has their resources. But one way that Meyer can help is we do have quite a few books on in our product selection that you can order both online or pick up in our retail store. Oh. There's Jasper again. Jasper thinks you should. Definitely. He got some of those poultry book that poultry books that we recommend.

00;16;58;08 - 00;17;26;04
Are definitely ones to add to your library, not just borrow and Meyer, we we have a lot of different poultry keeping book recommendations that we reference and share information from. A few of those are, and we'll put links in the description so you can find them easily. One is the Chicken Health Handbook. And then Stories Guide to Raising poultry.

00;17;26;07 - 00;18;07;14
I know I have both and I have used both religiously throughout my trip, keeping time. Absolutely, absolutely. And then finally, the chicken Encyclopedia, an illustrated reference. All three of those have come in extremely handy, when helping customers call in, when they have questions. We have we have cited these resources several times. It's it's part of the onboarding process at Meyer that we receive the Chicken Health Handbook so that we can become more knowledgeable in ways to help you as customers.

00;18;07;17 - 00;18;35;23
So it's definitely, if for nothing else, get the Chicken Health Handbook. It is a an amazing resource. And did you know that you can save 10% of that order off your next order at Meyer Hatchery for $50 or more by entering the coupon code the coop, and that's thp c op at checkout. So again, you totally should so you can build up your library.

00;18;35;26 - 00;19;01;05
Absolutely. Save 10% on that next book. And again, it's the coop. And when you go to check out at Meyer Hatch Recon and if you have any additional questions, if there's anything in the that's not covered in the handbook, by all means send us an email, chat with us online. You can go to our website and chat with us with our customer service team for help.

00;19;01;07 - 00;19;31;28
We're always happy to help at Meyer Hatchery, and we want to make sure that you are successful with raising your chicks. Speaking of successfully raising your chicks, we have a really fun segment that we're going to chat about. Are you excited? So I am really excited. It's called cluck cluck. What the heck? Because chickens are crazy at all times, and we wanted to just chat about some of the crazy antics our our coop our flock got up to this week or in the past.

00;19;31;28 - 00;19;51;06
Or fun for a fun story. So Phil, do you want to take it away first or I can take it away? Why don't you go ahead? Sure, absolutely. So, like I said earlier in the podcast, I started out my chicken keeping journey as a little kid, so I didn't quite understand that chickens like to take things from you.

00;19;51;08 - 00;20;13;23
They will take things from you when you hold it out to them. So my dad had this tradition of bringing us home. I don't know if you've ever had this before, but the gold rush, like gold nugget gum. Yes. He worked right down the street from a candy store. So he would bring us home this gum. And I love the gum.

00;20;14;00 - 00;20;35;07
This is like my prized possession. So I went out, and I wanted to show my friends I have gold rush gum. So I was showing the chickens, and there was this one particular coach in. Her name was hoppy. She had a little bit of a one, so I didn't think she could run away as fast as she did, but she grabbed it and sprinted with my gum.

00;20;35;10 - 00;20;37;16
The fastest ever ran. Oh, yeah.

00;20;37;23 - 00;20;53;21
So I am yelling after her, Curse You hoppy! So my parents just heard, curse you hoppy from the from their little girl in their backyard. I did get the gum back. Don't worry. It was no worse for the wear.

00;20;53;21 - 00;21;18;07
But I think that's my cluck. Cluck? What the heck for this week? That is hilarious. I love that story that you've shared it before, and I just it it definitely is the personality of a chicken to take it and run it really. And it had like gold like handles on it. So I'm sure she saw something shiny and she was just like mine.

00;21;18;09 - 00;21;46;14
This I know like Finding Nemo with all the seagulls, but yes, with chicken. Oh yeah, truly the real thing. They, they they will take anything and take off with it. It's so funny. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So what's yours? I would say I didn't have anything really crazy this week except for human craziness. As I already mentioned, we had a new coop barn, delivered.

00;21;46;14 - 00;22;11;12
And of course, it was on the coldest day of the year, so of course it was this Monday. This Monday, that we've just in no more than got on the ground and we were back in the house. We said, we can't do this today. Cluck, cluck. What the heck is going on with this weather? And so it's we're waiting to to build it out on the inside.

00;22;11;12 - 00;22;37;05
The, the building itself is there, the structure is there. But we still need to get all the roosts and everything in. Yesterday I did move my, class of 2025 chicks. They're about three months old now. And we moved them into the. I take that back two months old. But we moved them into the coop.

00;22;37;07 - 00;23;00;07
They still have their little heat lamp above them just to keep them a little bit warmer, but they're pretty much feathered out and about ready to be off of heat soon. So we got them into the coop. But we still need to do, a lot of a lot of planning and and creating in the coop to make it accessible and and ready for the rest of the flock.

00;23;00;09 - 00;23;28;12
Absolutely. I know coop construction. We've done multiple coop constructions in my time, so good luck to you on that. Seriously. And I'll be I appreciate that. And I just want to say that kind of leads me to the next segment and what's coming up next. We're about done for today, but I just wanted to, give you a little bit of a teaser for next time.

00;23;28;14 - 00;23;58;06
We'll be talking about zoning laws and HOA regulations or homeowner association, regulations. Thankfully, I moved out of the city with my flock, which I definitely didn't follow the zoning laws. Because I think the statute of limitations has run out on that. Don't worry. Yeah. I mean, if you have chickens, you know that chicken math is a thing, and it's hard to maintain the size of your flock, especially when you want one.

00;23;58;13 - 00;24;32;24
A chicken of every flavor and every color. Which is my family isn't true. So the so what we have coming up. Again, we're going to talk about zoning laws. We're not going to dig too specifically into, them just because every community is different. As far as the laws that are, that are guiding you on coop size, number of chicks like chickens that you can have, where you can place your coop, all of those things.

00;24;32;26 - 00;24;59;21
Every community and even down to the homeowner's association, if you live in 1 in 1 of those areas, has different rules, but we just are going to touch on them generally. And hopefully point in the right direction of where to go. If you have, questions about, you know, can I have 25 chickens on my little, suburban homestead?

00;24;59;23 - 00;25;25;23
Probably not. Probably not. Probably not. But we just want to dabble in that. And if you have any questions about zoning laws or HOA regulations, we definitely want to hear from you. Please send us an email. At podcast at Meyer hatchery.com. If you have questions like what do you need to do in order to get a permit approval?

00;25;25;26 - 00;25;52;08
Is a permit required in your area? If you have crazy stories about dealing with zoning, and with, the extension office on how the, your local extension office on how to get started in all of that kind of good stuff. Yeah. And there's a lot of information out there. It's hard sometimes to navigate. So hopefully we'll be helping out with that.

00;25;52;11 - 00;26;22;02
Yeah, totally. And I think that just you got to find the information. So I hopefully will touch on that a bit more next week. And we just want to thank you guys so much for listening and being so excited about this podcast. I know we've had people come up to us at Ohio National and just be so excited about this podcast, so be sure to like, subscribe, drop us a review and if you have any poultry related questions like Bill send, shoot us an email.

00;26;22;04 - 00;26;29;07
And with that, I think we'll see you guys next week. Have a great day. See you guys. Bye everyone.