Three hens will keep a family in eggs and teach you everything you need to know before you scale up. Most first-time keepers overbuild the flock and underbuild the fence.
Start smaller than you think
Chickens are composters with feathers. Scraps go in, rich bedding comes out, and the garden beds they scratch through come up cleaner next spring.
Ask any of our backyard growers: the morning routine takes ten minutes, and the eggs alone justify every one of them.
