Chicken coops are increasingly becoming a backyard fixture. Even in urban areas where space is scarce for both humans and animals, chicken coops are growing in number. This may have to do with the local food movement, our increasing environmental awareness for organic meats, a steady source of protein, and significant savings on groceries. In the same way that building your own backyard vegetable garden ensures food supply at-hand, chicken coops ensure protein source security. Fresh eggs and grain-fed poultry are the leading benefits of raising your own flock in the backyard, but there are other equally significant benefits to raising your own poultry.
Chicken Coops Benefits
1. Better quality protein source. Meat harvested from livestock and poultry raised in industrial conditions is less tasty compared to meat grown in the backyard under humane conditions. The rising demand for meat-based protein has led to growing livestock and poultry in a massive scale, and this in turn affects the methods of raising them. Industrial chicken coops often house more chickens than recommended to save space and resources. Chickens are also injected with a whole range of chemicals to boost their growth and achieve marketable weight in a short time. As a result, chicken meat tastes bland and contains trace amounts of harmful toxins. When you grow your own chickens in backyard chicken coops, you can ensure organic quality as long as you feed them with protein sources you can find locally.
2. Fertilizer source. Because chickens eat protein sources they can find in your micro-ecosystem, vegetable garden included, their manure tends to be high in nitrogen (as opposed to manure from industrial poultry). The manure you collect from the chicken coops or the runs (the fenced area outside the coop) can be composted to serve as organic matter in your vegetable beds.
3. Natural pest control. Chickens are predators, too. They feed on cockroaches, tomato horn worms, aphids, bugs, grubs and other pests that may flock into your vegetable garden. These are rich protein sources for them, which means you need not buy commercially-prepared protein concentrates. The garden bed-chicken coops cycle is fairly easy to maintain so you avoid using pesticides and enjoy organic harvests from your backyard.
4. Recreation. In the same way that canine and feline pets provide comfort and company, chickens too are a non-conventional source of amusement. Chicken farmers observe that they, too, have personalities, much in the same way that dogs and cats have. Children can be taught to feed and water them, while seniors in retirement can repair chicken coops and make chicken-raising a productive pastime.
5. Local food movement. Building your own chicken coops is not just about saving grocery money or raising your own protein source. Collectively, growing chickens locally can be an integral component in the local food movement, where your community need not import food from hundreds of miles away. Since food is exchanged in a smaller scale, fuel consumption is diminished, and greenhouse gases are mitigated. Creating your backyard chicken coops is apparently not just money-saving, but environmentally-friendly too.
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