One of the things that makes chickens the easiest, most bang-for-buck project to start your microfarm with (and there are many) are a result of the steep part of that learning curve..
You see, nearly everyone starts their chickens with a vision of them scratching a living in their backyard - happy, maintenance free, carefree, and healthy. But no one has a backyard that can do this. At first..
To mix two mechanical images into a useful metaphor... the training wheels used by new chicken owners also repair, fuel, crank, and supercharge a trusty old seized-up engine back to life. (The purchased->processed feed is excellent for getting farm soils back on their feet)
We started with day-old chicks, and quickly learned they needed a special diet. With so much else to learn we immediately settled into the easy-out of buying the bagged starter feed. We also quickly learned about nature's love for chicken dinners too. To keep the predators at bay the chicks were confined to a stationary and well fenced area. As they matured we continued down these slippery slopes. The bags of feed were brought in, the eggs came out, the manure built up, the chickens happily scratched and "sang". After awhile we tried to start trying to return to the good old fashioned farmhouse ways and started bringing them treats of all our household vege' scraps.
(This is probably one of the biggest and least subjective aspect of how chickens dovetail so perfectly with the life of a small family farm. As such it will probably rate it's own soliloquy soonest.)