Originally posted by Rhapsody:

I haven't actually tried raising any yet, but I think I'd try something like this:

Find an isolated, naturally sheltered area away from your home base. A ruined castle or high peak with cave in mountains might serve well.

Use terrain tools to manipulate the area to your liking. Set up campfire, workbench and portal. Dismantle workbench when you no longer need it to bring down base building count from 3 to 2 to prevent invasion events from occurring.

Experiment hatching with one egg and chicken at a time.

Feel free to point out if there's something wrong with the above. As I said, I haven't actually tried it myself yet.

Basically, what I've always done is to keep my farmland away from my home base.

there's no need to build your chicken pen outside of your base. you can put it in meadows.