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Keeping Backyard Chickens

Space, feed, water, predators and the rules

5 minBeginnerUpdated Keeping Backyard Chickens
You will learn
  • Size a coop and run for a small flock
  • Set up daily feed and water correctly
  • Protect birds from predators and heat
⚠️ Wash your hands after handling birds, eggs or bedding: poultry can carry Salmonella.
⚠️ Check local rules before keeping any livestock; larger flocks may need registration.

Check the rules before the birds

Chickens are livestock, and most towns have rules about them. Common limits: a maximum number of hens (often 4 to 6), no roosters in built-up areas because of noise, and a minimum distance between the coop and a neighbour’s house. In Portugal, small flocks for home use are generally allowed, but the câmara municipal or junta de freguesia may have local rules, and larger flocks need registration with the DGAV animal health service. Ask before you build. A quick call saves you from removing a coop later. Also talk to your neighbours: a few free eggs go a long way.

💡 Start with 3 hens. They are social, and three gives you eggs most days without the workload of a big flock.

How much space they need

Crowded hens peck each other and get sick. Plan on at least 0.4 m² of coop floor per bird and 1 m² of outdoor run per bird, and more is always better. The coop is the sleeping and laying box: it needs a roost bar about 40 cm off the floor (5 cm wide, so feet grip comfortably), one nest box per 3 to 4 hens, and ventilation high up so warm damp air escapes without a draught blowing on the roost. The run needs shade, dry ground and somewhere to dust-bathe. If your garden is small, a movable coop you shift every few days keeps grass alive and spreads the manure.

💡 Ventilation, not insulation, is the priority. Damp air causes far more illness than cold.

Feed and water every day

A laying hen eats roughly 120 g of layer pellets a day and drinks 250 to 500 ml of water, double that in hot weather. Layer feed (16 to 18 percent protein with added calcium) gives strong shells. Kitchen scraps are a treat, not a diet: vegetables, cooked rice, fruit are fine. Avoid raw potato peel, avocado, chocolate, mouldy food and anything salty. Keep a small dish of crushed oyster shell so hens top up calcium as they need it, and a dish of grit if they do not range on soil. Water must be clean and never run out. A hen without water for a few hours can stop laying for weeks.

💡 Raise the feeder to the height of a hen’s back. Less scratching, less waste, fewer rats.

Predators and the nightly lock-up

Almost everything likes chicken: foxes, stone martens, rats, dogs, hawks, and in rural Portugal genets and mongooses too. Foxes dig, martens squeeze through 5 cm gaps, hawks come from above. Use welded hardware mesh with holes no bigger than 12 mm, not chicken wire, which a fox tears open. Bury the mesh 30 cm down or lay a 40 cm skirt flat on the ground around the run. Cover the run with netting. Then the most important habit: shut the coop door every evening at dusk and open it at dawn. An automatic door on a timer or light sensor is the single best upgrade for a small flock.

💡 Rats come for spilled feed, not for the hens. Store feed in a metal bin with a tight lid.

Heat is the real enemy

Hens cope with cold far better than heat. Above about 30 °C they pant, hold their wings out and stop laying; above 35 °C they can die. In a Mediterranean summer, shade is not optional. Put the run under a tree, a shade sail or a north-facing wall, and give the coop cross-ventilation. Offer water in two places, in the shade, and drop in a frozen bottle on the hottest days. A shallow tray of damp sand or a wetted patch of ground lets them cool their feet. Feed early morning and evening, not in the midday heat. In winter, a dry, draught-free coop is all they need; do not heat it.

💡 A hen with an open beak and wings held away from the body is overheating. Act within minutes, not hours.

Check yourself

Roughly how much coop floor space should each hen have?

About 0.4 m² of coop floor plus 1 m² of run per bird keeps a flock calm and healthy. More space is always better.

Which mesh keeps foxes out of a run?

Foxes tear through chicken wire. Small-hole welded hardware mesh, buried or skirted at the base, is what actually stops them.

What is the biggest weather danger for hens in a Mediterranean climate?

Hens handle cold well but pant and stop laying above about 30 °C. Shade and cool water are essential in summer.

Which of these should NOT go in the scrap bucket?

Avocado, raw potato peel, chocolate and mouldy food are toxic to chickens. Vegetables, cooked grains and fruit are fine treats.

Try it for real: Plan your flock on paper

  1. Find out your local rules on hens, roosters and coop distance
  2. Measure a spot with shade and draw a coop and run for 3 hens
  3. Price a coop, hardware mesh, feeder, drinker and a bag of layer feed
  4. Identify your local predators and note how you will block each one

🛒 Gear for this skill

🐔Chicken coopSee on Amazon →🌽Chicken feederSee on Amazon →🧤Work glovesSee on Amazon →🏡Self-sufficiency bookSee on Amazon →

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Next lesson: Eggs: Collecting, Cleaning and Storing →

Sources

Written and checked by the Human Skills team against the sources below. How we check our content

  • FAO Small-scale poultry production
  • RSPCA Chicken welfare guidance
  • DGAV (Portugal animal health authority)

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