Benable — create shareable lists of things you recommend!
E.g., products you love, local businesses, travel recs - you can add anything to a Benable list!
Chicken Keeping 101: First-Time Flock Owner Checklist
18
items A starter checklist of essentials for new chicken owners — housing, health, feed, and first aid basics. This list is not exhaustive; every flock and climate is different, so be sure to do your own research and join local/backyard chicken groups for o...
Sections
4
Housing & Safety
Health & First Aid
Feed & Treats
Other Essentials
Housing & Safety
The things that keep your flock secure, comfortable, dry, and protected from the many creatures that would love to make a chicken dinner out of your chickens. Coop basics, fencing, predator protection, roosting, and the stuff that makes chicken-keepi...
You can absolutely buy a coop instead of building one from scratch. Just don't assume that putting a prefab coop in your yard means you're finished. Many of the inexpensive ready-made coops still need upgrades for things like predator protection, ven...
DIY Chicken Coop Plans: 50+ Free Beginner Builds
For chicken safety, look for **black galvanized welded hardware cloth with 1/2-inch openings**—not ordinary chicken wire. The smaller openings help keep predators from reaching through the fencing, and galvanized steel holds up better outdoors. Black...
Hardware Cloth Fencing
Chickens need a comfortable place to roost at night, and these are made specifically for that job. Carolina Coops offers custom roost bars with rounded edges, or you can use their options as a starting point if you want to make your own. Either way, ...
Roost Bars
Nesting boxes give your hens a designated place to lay, but don't expect them to follow the plan. Chickens will happily decide that a corner, a flowerpot, a pile of straw, or basically anywhere else looks like a perfectly reasonable nesting spot. You...
Nesting Boxes
Not sure what you're supposed to put on the floor of a chicken coop? This guide compares common bedding options like pine shavings, straw, sand, and hemp, including how they handle moisture, odor, cleaning, cost, and maintenance. A really useful read...
Chicken coop bedding compared: pine shavings, straw, sand, and hemp
An automatic coop door can make chicken keeping a whole lot easier by opening the coop in the morning and closing it at night without you having to remember to do it yourself. This battery-powered VEVOR model is especially handy if you're not always ...
VEVOR Automatic Chicken Coop Door, Battery Powered
Health & First Aid
The things worth having on hand before somebody gets hurt or starts acting weird. Basic first-aid supplies, health essentials, and things that can help you deal with the everyday problems that come with keeping chickens.
A ready-made first-aid kit for those moments when a chicken gets hurt and you suddenly realize you have no idea what you need. This one puts basic chicken first-aid supplies together in one place, so you can have the essentials on hand before an inju...
Stafford Hill Farms Chicken First Aid Kit - Chicken First Aid Kit
A poultry dust for dealing with certain external parasites and insects around chickens and their housing. This is the kind of thing I’d rather have on the shelf before I need it than discover a pest problem and start scrambling for supplies. Read the...
Y-TEX Gardstar Garden and Poultry Dust Insecticide, 2 lb.
Food-grade diatomaceous earth (DE) is commonly used by chicken owners as a dry pest-control aid, particularly around coops, nesting areas, and bedding where it may help control certain crawling insects and external parasites. Some people also mix sma...
Pure DE Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth 20 lb., 20 lb.
Feed & Treats
What goes into the feeder, what makes a good occasional treat, and the little extras that help keep a flock well fed. The everyday stuff your chickens actually eat, plus a few things they’ll be very happy to see you carrying.
Chicks need a different diet than adult laying hens, and this is where the whole “starter vs. grower vs. layer” thing gets confusing. Chick starter is the high-protein feed you give young birds while they're growing, but the exact switch point depend...
Cluck & Co. Organic Chick Starter Crumbles Poultry Feed, 25 lb
A complete layer feed for hens that have started laying, with 18% protein and extra calcium for egg production. **But if you have chicks, a rooster, or a mixed-age flock like I do, you may be better off feeding everyone an all-flock or starter/grower...
Healthy Harvest Whole & Hearty Layer Crumbles, 40 lb
Oyster shell is a simple way to give laying hens extra calcium for strong eggshells without putting your entire flock on layer feed. If you have chicks, roosters, or a mixed-age flock, this is especially useful because you can offer oyster shell **fr...
Manna Pro Oyster Shell Poultry Treats, 50 lb.
Grit is basically the chicken version of teeth—since chickens don't have any, they use small bits of hard material to grind up food in their gizzard. If your chickens free-range and have access to natural soil, they may already be picking up enough g...
Nutrena NatureWise Grit Chicken Feed, 7 lb. Bag
A fun treat made with dried mealworms and other crunchy bits that chickens go absolutely nuts for. Treats like this are fine in moderation, but they shouldn't replace a complete poultry feed—think of them as the chicken equivalent of snacks. If you'r...
ImPECKables Crawler Crunch Chicken Treats, 11 lb., 11 lb
Chickens love snacks almost as much as they love scratching around looking for them—mine would happily eat things like mealworms, vegetables, fruit, and plenty of whatever I'm holding. But not everything that looks like a good chicken treat actually ...
10 Foods You Should Never Feed Chickens
Other Essentials
All the chicken-keeping odds and ends that don't neatly fit into the other sections but make life with a flock easier. The little tools, supplies, and practical things you don't necessarily think about until you need them.
A hanging feeder keeps chicken feed up off the ground, which can mean less spilled feed, less scratching through it, and fewer opportunities for chickens to poop in their dinner. The hanging design also makes it harder for some pests and rodents to g...
Harris Farms 30 lb. Hanging Poultry Feeder
A large-capacity waterer that means fewer trips back to the coop with a bucket of water. The top-fill design makes it easier to refill without having to turn the whole thing upside down (which is a giant pain in the neck), and the 7-gallon capacity c...
Farm-Tuff 7 gal. Top Fill Poultry Waterer Fountain
A low-profile heater that can provide supplemental warmth in the coop when temperatures drop, particularly for backyard flocks in colder climates. It gives chickens a warm surface to gather against without using a traditional heat lamp. If you're som...
Producer's Pride Chicken Coop Brooder and Heater for 10 Birds