To receive a backyard hen permit in my home county, you’re required to attend a Backyard Hen Seminar through our local University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Science (UF/IFAS) extension office to make sure you have at least some idea of what you’re getting into with raising chickens. The class is offered a couple of times a month, and the demand (especially recently) has been high, so my sister and I were stoked to be able to squeeze into the last slots of this month’s class after they had a couple of cancellations.
While I’ve been doing a lot of research on my own (following homesteading and backyard chicken accounts and groups online and reading a lot of books), I still got a lot out of the class and found it helpful for addressing some questions I’d been collecting during my self-study.
It was also nice to check out the extension office’s demonstration coop and observe/talk through some of the solutions they’ve found for predator-proofing, keeping food and water supply readily accessible but free of debris, and ideas for chicken enrichment.
I’ve also been weighing the pros and cons of having a permanent vs. mobile chicken coop, and after seeing the benefits of the mobile coop in action, it seems like the best choice for our property/goals.
Up next?
– Getting my hen seminar certificate
– Applying for my hen permit
– Purchasing/building the coop