There are increasing numbers of people who are taking up raising chickens in a bid to become more self-sufficient.
For the uninitiated it may seem a rather complicated thing to do, but in fact it is really quite simple.
There are, however, a number of issues to consider.
Firstly, you will need to consider housing for your chickens.
What sort of chicken coop you should have is dependent upon how many chickens you intend to keep; obviously the size of your chicken coop should be directly related to how many chickens you keep.
You can, of course, buy a ready built chicken coop or you can build your own.
There are chicken coop plans available to download to help you build your own chicken coops.
Your chicken coop will need cleaning out often, particularly during wet periods as the chickens tend to bring the mud into the coop.
For bedding in the coop you can use straw or wood shavings.
You can also buy bedding that made from shredded newspaper.
Chickens will go into their coop at night by themselves, but you need to make sure that you shut up the coop in good time to make sure that they kept safe from predators.
You may want to consider securing your back yard to try and dissuade your chickens from wandering into your neighbor's property.
You may not be able to completely secure your back yard as chickens are particularly adept at hopping over fences.
If you have a particular problem with your chickens wandering then you may want to clip one of their wings to make it more difficult to get over fences.
I tend to clip just one wing rather than both as this gives them more of a chance of getting away from predators.
Raising chickens is one step towards a degree of self-sufficiency and for me the satisfaction is in being responsible for producing some of our own food.