Essential Chicken Raising Supplies: Complete Checklist
Welcome to my essential checklist for chicken supplies! Before adding chickens to your homestead, ensure you’re well-prepared with the best chicken supplies, the necessary tools, and equipment to meet your chickens’ needs.
As someone passionate about raising happy and healthy chickens, I’ve learned firsthand the importance of having these essential items on hand.
If you’re new to raising chickens, you may be overwhelmed by all the options available.
If you’re anything like me, when faced with too many choices, you will feel stressed and even pressured into buying the wrong item.
After raising chickens for over nine years, I quickly discovered that we had purchased many unnecessary items.
So, in this post, I hope to help simplify what you need for your new flock. This guide is for adult birds, not baby chicks.
Don’t have time to read? Grab my free printable “Complete Checklist to Chicken Supplies” by signing up below.
This chicken supply guide is for pullets (4 months old and older). To grab my supply list for baby chicks, head on over here.
In this guide, I’ll explain everything you need to know about essential chicken supplies and why investing in them beforehand is crucial for ensuring the well-being and success of your flock for years to come.
This guide will go over these essential poultry supplies.
Need more time to read the entire post? Sign up for my free printable Essential Chicken Supply checklist.
1. Selecting a chicken coop size
There are a few factors to consider when building or purchasing a chicken coop.
Chicken coops do not need to be fancy like those seen on Pinterest; chickens don’t care.
They are happy as long as they are kept safe from predators and extreme weather and have space.
- Hot Climate—If you live in a hot climate and never really get snow, you will have more freedom in the type of coop you choose. Your coop can be more open and not require insulation. It will need to be well-ventilated so your chickens stay cool.
- Cold Climate—We live in N.D., close to the Canadian and Minnesota borders, so we get chilly, minus -45 degrees during January and February. When my husband built our coop, we knew we needed it to be insulated, have windows and electricity, and be fully enclosed during our harsh winters. Plus, we needed enough room to house 40 hens in confinement throughout the winter months. Read here how to winterize your coop.
- Space per Chicken: There should be enough space to comfortably house your chickens and their nesting boxes. On average, you need about 4 square feet per bird.
- Roosting spot: We have a nice, sturdy 7-foot roost along one side and additional roosts on the nesting boxes.
- Space for nesting boxes:
- Space for feeders: during cold or wet seasons, feeders will have to be moved indoors to save feed.
- Ventilation: windows that open or vents.
- An enclosed chicken run is ideal if you live in a rural setting and want to protect your chickens against predators or have a farm dog that likes the taste of chicken. Some coops have attached runs, and if not, you can easily build your own.
My husband built us a garden shed and turned it into a coop. It is very basic but serves its purpose well.
2. Types of Chicken Coop Bedding
The kind of bedding will again be based on your climate.
We use straw since we already have it on hand, and we live in a colder climate. The straw helps insulate the chickens during the winter and quickly breaks down once tossed in the garden or the manure pile. It’s also reasonably cheap.
Here are some common bedding materials for poultry & livestock
- Straw
- Sand
- Wood chips/ pine shavings
- Sawdust
- Newspaper/shredded (great way to reuse)
Sand works great if you’re using a deep litter method in the coop. It’s great for warmer climates. My sister uses this method in her chicken coop, but she has a small flock of about 10 hens, and her coop has a dirt floor and is heated during the winter. It works great for her small flock.
A friend collected shredded paper from her workplace and added it to her nesting boxes as a cheap alternative.
3. Best Nesting boxes for your Chicken coop
There are many nesting boxes available to purchase or make. You only need these if you are raising egg layers.
The type also depends on your budget. Check out my post about “Raising chickens on a budget.” (coming soon!)
Our nesting boxes are vintage ones purchased from a flea market and another from a friend who had it in his parents’ old coop from the 1950s.
They needed some TLC, so my husband repaired the box bottoms, welded a few parts, and fixed the roosting bars. Our hens love them.
We had purchased a brand new nesting box with a roll-out egg tray and drape, but our hens refused to lay eggs in it. So we sold it.
Here are some ideas for nesting boxes.
4. Best chicken waterers for your climate
Choosing the right waterers depends on your climate and the number of chickens you have.
If you have a flock of 50 chickens, they will require more waterers than having a flock of 20.
Here is a list of the waterers we use for our chickens.
We have an automatic livestock float (pictured below). We screwed it to a 2×4 board and attached it to a wooden post in the run, and hooked a garden hose to it. It works great for both the chickens and the ducks. This costs an entire $40! Best investment ever.
By doing so, we eliminated the need to fill the waters in the warmer months; it’s the best piece of equipment we added!
This waterer (pictured below) is the one we use during the winter months inside the coop. Keep in mind our coop is insulated and heated, so we have no use for a heated waterer. Very sturdy waterer.
If you’re not ready to spend money on a quality chicken waterer, we used old roaster pans one summer because our chicken waterers kept leaking. Anything that holds water works, doesn’t need to be fancy.
5. Selecting a chicken feeder
The size of your flock determines the size of feeders you will need. If you have over 35 chickens, you will need larger feeders unless you want to spend your time refilling feeders.
We made a self-feeder from a plastic trash can and PVC attachments. The can holds 3- 50 lb bags of chicken feed, and it also eliminates waste since the chickens cannot scratch out the feed.
I have also seen some PVC pipe feeders that attach to the run, which we may add for the feed we need in smaller amounts, such as oyster shells.
Smaller flocks will do great with the feeders shown below.
We also keep many different sizes of chicken feeders on hand. New Baby chicks need a smaller feeder and as they grow, we move up a size larger.
6. Type of Chicken feed for your chickens
If you’re raising layers or meat birds, their type of feed will vary greatly. Ask the store clerk if you are confused as to what you need; the wrong feed will not hurt your chickens, but may lead to a decrease in egg laying or growth rate.
- Meat birds require a higher protein diet to pack on the pounds faster.
- Layer Chickens require more calcium, nutrients, and protein.
- Pullets, young birds under a year old, will need feed formulated for growth.
- Baby chicks will need a feed formulated for nutrients and growth.
Chicken feed types
- *Starter Feed – Crumble feed formulated for baby chicks.
- *Growers Crumble– feed specifically for growth in young (pullets) chickens. (We usually go straight to layers crumble)
- *Broiler Feed– For meat birds, specially formulated for growth.
- *Layers Crumble or Layers Pellets-Provides the nutrients and protein for egg-laying hens.
- *Organic Certified Feed, Available in all types.
- *DIY– Make your own feed blend if you have a feed mill nearby.
- *Black Sunflower Seeds– only needed if your hens are mottling or their feathers look dull.
- *Scratch Grains– not required as part of their diet, but are helpful in the colder months.
7. Dust baths and why you need one
A dust bath is simply a container filled with dry dirt. In the wild, chickens will find an excellent, dry spot and dig, lay, and toss dirt on themselves.
This is their natural way of preventing lice, mites, and other issues.
To make a dust bath, you will need- Read this simple recipe here.
Here are 14 easy and cheap dust bath ideas to get you started.
- A large dish (a kiddie pool works great)
- A large bag or 2 of Diatomaceous Earth Powder
- Sand or dirt (we usually get our own from a field or the ditch)
- Wood ash (we burn wood, so we toss ashes into the pool)
- Covered area out of the wind and rain. It must be kept dry.
8. Must have medical supplies for your chickens
Read here for a detailed list on making a chicken first aid kit. This should be on hand if you live in a rural area or plan on having chickens for years.
9. Chicken supplies needed for a cold Climate
Read my 15 cold-weather strategies for winterizing your coop for chicken care.
- Coop light
- An extension cord if you need to connect to the coop to electricity
- Water heater for the coop
- Heat lamp or other heat source
10. Chicken supplies needed for hot climates
Even though we do not live in a hot climate, we experience some hot days here in North Dakota; when it hits 95 degrees, we tend not to go outside, fearing we may die or melt.
But here are some essential supplies for caring for hens in hot weather.
- Fan
- An extension cord if you need to connect to the coop to electricity
- Plenty of fresh water
- Shaded areas
- Electrolytes
11. Non-essential chicken supplies are not needed, but are great to have!
Chicken Snacks: Everyone loves a treat, and chickens are no different. Treats do not have to be expensive or even from a farm supply store. I have a DIY flock block recipe that is great for our hens and easy to make with the ingredients you already have on hand.
A head of cabbage or a watermelon are great treat that chickens love. Weeds from the garden or grass clippings and table scraps are also treats for my chickens.
Chicken entertainment and toys to keep chickens from getting bored.
There are many DIY chicken swings, ladders, and ramps to keep chickens entertained while enclosed in a run.
But they are not essential.
12. Chicken vitamins and electrolytes
This is optional, but it should be on hand if you have a large flock. I have only had to use electrolytes once on some new baby chicks.
- B12 Vitamins (if needed, not included in feed.)
- Electrolytes are added to water to prevent dehydration and provide much-needed energy. I’ll write a post on these someday! We use different types of glucose/electrolytes to save baby animals on the farm.
