Berta is one of the hens in reporter Tom Meade’s flock.

EXETER –– Collecting eggs from a small flock of chickens is a rewarding experience that more Americans are discovering.

The demand for spring chicks is increasing, says Debbie Learned of Gillette’s Agway store in Exeter. It’s taking longer for retailers to receive chicks, ducklings and turkey poults from large hatcheries this season, she says. Poultry fanciers who order birds online or through catalogs started to notice longer waiting periods for chick deliveries last autumn.

Chickens that are allowed to wander, or “free range,” have a more varied diet than birds that are cooped up, so free-range eggs are more flavorful, and the birds are like living lawn ornaments. The downside to their lawn-ornament appeal is that they love to scratch holes in the lawn and garden. Vegetable gardens must be fenced to prevent free-ranging birds from destroying tomatoes and other fruit. Also, wandering chickens are more vulnerable to predators including coyotes, foxes and hawks.

If you want to keep a small flock of chickens, determine whether they will be legal. Some municipalities ban them outright and others have a minimum acreage requirement to keep farm animals. Other towns may require the written consent of abutting neighbors.

Many feed-and-grain stores sell chicks, ducklings and turkey poults by advance order. Prices range from $2.99 for a three-day-old chick to $11.99 for a Narragansett turkey poult, says Learned.

Some states, such as Rhode Island, require consumers to order at least 12 birds at a time. The law aims to prevent people from buying “cute” chicks or ducklings and abandoning them when the fowl become foul. If 12 chicks are too many, split an order with a friend. Six hens will lay enough eggs for a family of four over two or three years, during spring, summer and most of autumn. During the darkness of winter, they tend to lay less unless they receive artificial light.

To start a small flock, it’s necessary to buy a feeder, waterer, heat lamp and bulb, altogether costing about $35, says Learned. An enclosure is also necessary. Mac Hedgpeth of Charlestown uses a children’s wading pool. It easily holds two dozen chicks, and it costs about $10 at a discount store. A 50-pound bag of medicated chick food costs about $15. If the chicks are not exposed to other birds or bird droppings, they probably do not need medicated food, according to Jay Rossier, a Vermont chicken keeper and author of Living With Chickens, Everything You Need to Know to Raise Your Own Backyard Flock. It’s a useful and beautiful book with photographs by Geoff Hansen.

Besides Rossier’s book, there are several good guides to raising poultry, available online, in bookstores and libraries. Many state and county extension agents offer free brochures on keeping a small flock.

There are several blogs and Web sites that also offer advice on keeping chickens. The “Raising Chickens 101” page on backyardchickens.com is a great place for all kinds of information with lots of links and designs for coops.

A garden shed will be adequate for a small flock. The general rule is to provide about two or three square feet per chicken inside the hen house and four to five square feet per chicken in an outside run. In their book, Chicken Tractor, The Permaculture Guide to Happy Hens and Healthy Soil, Andy Lee and Pat Foreman offer plans for a mobile hen house.

Hens do not need roosters to lay eggs. Roosters are noisy, and they can be pugnacious.

Females generally start laying eggs when they become “pullets” at about 18 weeks old. To skip the whole process and expense of raising chicks to the pullet stage, some poultry fanciers buy “started pullets,” juvenile birds that have just begun to lay. (Recently, a Connecticut farmer was selling pullets for $8 each on craigslist.com, but they generally cost between $10 and $15 each at commercial hatcheries.) Pullets arrive at New England feed-and-grain stores around the end of June, says Debbie Learned.

Some breeds are more prolific than others. Dave Marshall, manager of Peckham Farm at the University of Rhode Island, prefers Orpingtons and Black Sex Links over Rhode Island Reds. Fred Launer, an adjunct professor at URI, likes Delawares, a somewhat rare “heritage” breed.

A hen’s breed determines the color of her eggs. Such breeds as Barred Rocks and Rhode Island Reds lay brown eggs. Leghorns lay white eggs. Araucanas and Ameraucanas lay blue, green and pink eggs. “They’re Easter egg chickens,” says Learned.

Several breeds, such as New Hampshire and Rhode Island Reds, are “dual purpose” birds, grown for either their eggs or their meat. Large hatcheries, such as Murray McMurray (mcmurrayhatchery.com) sell 25-chick assortments of dual-purpose birds.

A chicken’s natural lifespan is about five to 11 years. Laying hens are most prolific in the first and second years of life. Then, their egg laying begins to taper off. Some backyard chicken fanciers eat the old birds in stew, and others keep them in retirement as living lawn ornaments.

tmeade@projo.com