Showing posts with label city chickens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label city chickens. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 03, 2017
This Moment
New baby chicks are here! Currently they are residing in a cozy box in our guest space, until their feathers grow and the weather warms up.
Monday, January 05, 2015
Chickens love the snow (man)!
What a funny moment today, watching our hens trying to eat the carrot nose off the mini snowman Maya built. I think we might build a few more bird-friendly snow creatures around our yard, with sunflower seed eyes, carrot noses, berry mouths...
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Marigolds for happy chickens
In the past weeks, since the garden is basically harvested, we've let the hens have the run of the yard. They love the freedom! Usually, during the growing season, we give them plenty of room to run in their extended pen and short stints around the larger yard to eat bugs and greens while still corralled in temporary chicken fencing so they don't devastate our veggie garden.
But now, with the whole yard as their domain, they are happily running about eating the last greens, dandelions, worms and odds of vegetable remains. They love their dust baths, most recently a farourite spot has been under an old red wagon since it's the dryest place in the yard with our recent weeks of damp weather.
The funniest thing was how interested they all were in eating our marigolds. We have loads of the African and French marigolds planted throughout the garden as companion plants to our vegetables. Many of these are still blooming in the late fall and just now starting to go to seed. The tall yellow marigolds are more than 2 feet high and so the hens stand below and jump up with long stretched out necks to taste the flowers. It was so curious to watch how intent the hens were on eating these marigolds that I did some reading about marigolds and chicken health, and realized our hens know what they are doing! Marigold extract is commonly added to commercial chicken feed, mostly to add darker orange colour to the egg yolks, but also to provide carotenes, flavonoids, and other nutrients. Folk tradition talks commonly of feeding marigolds (fresh or dried) to hens or lining their nest boxes with the petals to repel fleas and mites. Marigolds have natural antifungal and antibacterial properties so can be made into a tea or salve to heal chickens when they are dealing with skin irritations. They aid in skin tissue repair, blood vessel growth, and are a toxin remover. Amazing! And so wonderful to watch nature follow it's own intuition. These smart hens!
But now, with the whole yard as their domain, they are happily running about eating the last greens, dandelions, worms and odds of vegetable remains. They love their dust baths, most recently a farourite spot has been under an old red wagon since it's the dryest place in the yard with our recent weeks of damp weather.
The funniest thing was how interested they all were in eating our marigolds. We have loads of the African and French marigolds planted throughout the garden as companion plants to our vegetables. Many of these are still blooming in the late fall and just now starting to go to seed. The tall yellow marigolds are more than 2 feet high and so the hens stand below and jump up with long stretched out necks to taste the flowers. It was so curious to watch how intent the hens were on eating these marigolds that I did some reading about marigolds and chicken health, and realized our hens know what they are doing! Marigold extract is commonly added to commercial chicken feed, mostly to add darker orange colour to the egg yolks, but also to provide carotenes, flavonoids, and other nutrients. Folk tradition talks commonly of feeding marigolds (fresh or dried) to hens or lining their nest boxes with the petals to repel fleas and mites. Marigolds have natural antifungal and antibacterial properties so can be made into a tea or salve to heal chickens when they are dealing with skin irritations. They aid in skin tissue repair, blood vessel growth, and are a toxin remover. Amazing! And so wonderful to watch nature follow it's own intuition. These smart hens!
Friday, April 19, 2013
This Moment
{This moment} - This moment - an end of week ritual, no words, just a
special photo to remember, savour, enjoy.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Happy hens
The chicks are growing so fast - since last week they live outdoors full time, with the "old girls" (our 4 year old hens). Today we noticed a little one drinking from the big hen water dispenser for the first time, and another trying to eat a grub. When I brought out the weekly health treat of homemade yogurt mixed with raw garlic - a natural anti-worm tonic for the older hens (see other natural worming remedies using herbs), one young one bravely came over to taste the mix too. The little ones have learned to jump up onto the high perches for night roosting, side by side with the other hens, and, although the four young ones like to stick close together, they have somehow worked out a mutual agreement that everyone is welcome with the old hens. We weren't sure how the transition of adding new young hens would go.
Learn more about urban hen keeping - Waterloo Coop Tour, May 28 in uptown Waterloo
If you are interested in the local chicken-keeping debate, love hens, picture yourself keeping hens someday, want to join the local hen association, or already have a small flock at home, make sure to check out the 2nd annual Waterloo Coop Tour tomorrow, Sat May 28 from 11 am -3 pm. A great way to meet other hen keepers and urban farmers, tour interesting backyards, and join in the discussion about hen-keeping in the city. A family-friendly event! Maps can be picked up at the uptown Waterloo town square - just look for the hens on display in a modern style "urban coop"!
Thursday, April 07, 2011
New chicks arrive
Four new little chicks joined our household this week! At one day old they are not a large addition, their little house (a clear rubbermade bin with mesh cover, warmed by a heat lamp) taking up only a small corner of our bedroom on a table right next to where our dog has her bed, near the woodstove. In about 8 weeks, when they are ready for the great outdoors, we'll move them out to join the rest of the hens...but for now, they make irresistable indoor companions. We chose the varieties - Columbian Rock x Red, and New Hampshire x Barred, for their winter hardiness and "gentle and quiet dispositions", from our local Frey's Hatchery.
Friday, February 04, 2011
Biodynamic & permaculture approaches to backyard chicken care
We love our hens...they tap on the back door each morning letting us know they are awake and ready for attention. We've been trying to give special care during the past weeks, as the weather has been especially cold around here. We've piled up mounds of clean straw in sunny spots in the yard where they like to hang out on warm days, and yes, we admit we even let them sneak in the house to warm up for a few minutes on occasion. We try to bring them special food treats each day, like sprouts or carrot peelings, oats soaked in warm water, and extra grains and seeds, but it's certainly not the naturally healthful diet they get when foraging in the yard for bugs, greens and grass in the warmer months. A friend mentioned she sprouted oats for her hens in winter, which seemed like a simple yet effective thing to do. I am currently researching biodynamic chicken care, and in general biodynamic principles that can be applied to the small farm/urban farm and garden. I found some useful articles about chickens here, and the site Backyard Biodynamics looks promising (but the part I really wanted to learn about was just in point form as it's the outline for a sustainable gardening course they are leading - in Australia!), as well as the Small Farm Permaculture & Sustainable Living website. This page, Pasture Restoration of Heirloom Chickens looks really great, on the Permaculture Institute (New Mexico) site. They offer ideas such as introducing perennial woody plantings, poultry forage and groundcovers like chicory, various brassicas (radishes, mustards), comfrey, alfalfa, vetches and clovers in the pastures where the hens roam. The plant list for the permaculture approach to chicken pasturing also includes Nanking cherry, sand cherry, siberian pea shrub, day lilies, apples, plums, raspberries, mulberries, sea buckthorn, apricot, and comfrey. On a small scale property at least some of these plants could be included in the layout, offering forage food for free roaming hens...ah, planning for the new season ahead.
Speaking of permaculture plants like these, a friend just loaned me her catalogue from Windmill Point Farm, an organic permaculture farm in Quebec (near Montreal) that also operates Green Barn Nursery that we've mentioned on this blog before. They offer a staggering list of berries, fruits, nut trees and other permaculture varieties that grow hardy in our zone - incredible - and I wanted to order one of everything! Check out this website if you are thinking of adding a forest garden or any permaculture plants to your yard.
Speaking of permaculture plants like these, a friend just loaned me her catalogue from Windmill Point Farm, an organic permaculture farm in Quebec (near Montreal) that also operates Green Barn Nursery that we've mentioned on this blog before. They offer a staggering list of berries, fruits, nut trees and other permaculture varieties that grow hardy in our zone - incredible - and I wanted to order one of everything! Check out this website if you are thinking of adding a forest garden or any permaculture plants to your yard.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
First snow at the urban farm...
First real snowfall came overnight! Fortunately, the hens have had most of their feathers grown in by now (2 weeks of molting) but they are still huddling on our back patio in the warmest sheltered corner they can find. This is actually good, not just because we want them to keep warm - we've also seen the neighbourhood hawk circling around our property the past week, and we'd prefer the hens to keep out of eyesight! As some of you might recall from a much earlier post, we lost one hen (Neko) to the same hawk last fall. This is the cycle of life though. Now that winter is finally here, we have to make sure the hen's always have access to unfrozen water and extra food (as their foraging season is now over), and have insulated their coop with strawbales. The heat lamp will be installed again soon.
Today's snowfall also gave us opportunity to play - and a little snow lady appeared. She has a carrot nose, plucked from the garden of course; eyes made of little round black eyed susan seed heads, and long dried queen anne's lace hair - topped with a handknit hat she made a lovely attendant at our garden entrance.
Today's snowfall also gave us opportunity to play - and a little snow lady appeared. She has a carrot nose, plucked from the garden of course; eyes made of little round black eyed susan seed heads, and long dried queen anne's lace hair - topped with a handknit hat she made a lovely attendant at our garden entrance.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Chickens at the homestead
As said before, we love our hens and they really have become an important part of our little homestead. They sit under our bedroom window in the morning cooing to wake us up, they preen on the back porch waiting for sunflower seeds, they still like being held and petted, and are a great source of entertainment for us. Recently we had our extended family visiting us, and the hens were a big part of the week's activities for the kids. I loved watching the kids leap out of bed in the morning, running out of the house in pajamas to see if any eggs had been laid yet!
There have been some questions regarding where to source chicken feed and supplies. Here are a few ideas. Locally, the easiest place to purchase chicks as day-olds (starting in February) is from Frey's Hatchery (in St. Jacobs). They have an online catalogue, which talks about breeds and basic chicken care. You can also purchase pullets from Frey's later in summer (pullets are hens, at least 20 weeks old, that have started laying but have not moulted yet). Frey's offers white egg layers (Leghorn), brown egg layers (Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Barred Rock, New Hampshire x Barred Rock, Columbian Rock x Red, Red Shaver, etc), and "meat birds". You can choose hens based on certain qualities such as winter hardy, friendly-disposition, good egg laying, and so on, depending on what you are looking for. Frey's also offers roosters, turkeys, ducks and pheasants - if you have the space to raise these!
Of course there are many local farms where you would be able to purchase chicks as well. There is one nearby farm that raises specifically heritage breeds and unique varieties - so if you are looking for something like a Buff Orpington, Australorpe, or Silkie, you might have to ask around a little more but you can probably find it. Another old fashioned way to purchase specialty chickens (like blue or speckled egg layers), is going through a mail-order hatchery that will ship chicks by cardboard box across North America! In any case, you need to have your pen or coop ready, with bedding, water, food, shelter, for the day your chicks arrive home.
When we first got our day old chicks they lived in a large hampster cage lined with bran as bedding, in our kitchen. They cuddled up to sleep on a pile of old woolen socks, and when they had learned to eat and drink, and the weather was warm enough for them to go outside, we transitioned them into a smaller run and finally the larger coop with enclosed run. Their nest boxes are still lined with fresh wheat bran, and straw covers the coop floor. Most days they free-range around our yard and garden, and find their way into the coop for egg laying and at night.
As for feed, you can make your own, or purchase - there is a starter crumbles mix for young chicks, and then Omega layer rations, plus scratch grains (cracked corn, etc) which is more of an occasional snack. To purchase these locally you can go to Jones Feed Mill near the Waterloo Market, or purchase an organic chicken feed through Bailey's Local Foods. Of course, they also eat loads of fruit & vegetable peels and other food scraps that are destined for the compost, plus garden greens, dandelion, herbs like comfrey, etc. Some ideas of good food for hens are lettuce, greens (spinach, kale, chard), tomatoes, corn, bread, pasta, cottage cheese. Bad foods are spicy, rotten, sour, processed foods, raw potato peels, cabbage (makes eggs stinky). Hens also need constant access to water, and grit to help digest their food (e.g. crushed eggshells, crushed oyster shells, limestone).
If you are going to make your own feed, the book Backyard Poultry Naturally, by Alana Moore gives some recipe ideas for making your own chicken feed. For example:
Recipe a)
65 % mixed grain, 7% alfalfa meal, 8% soya meal, 6% ground oyster shells, 3 % bone meal, 1 % trace minerals
Recipe b)
2 parts wheat grain, 1 part wheat bran, 1/2 part oats or oat bran, 1/4 parts corn meal, 1 1/2 parts greens (alfalfa, comfrey)
There have been some questions regarding where to source chicken feed and supplies. Here are a few ideas. Locally, the easiest place to purchase chicks as day-olds (starting in February) is from Frey's Hatchery (in St. Jacobs). They have an online catalogue, which talks about breeds and basic chicken care. You can also purchase pullets from Frey's later in summer (pullets are hens, at least 20 weeks old, that have started laying but have not moulted yet). Frey's offers white egg layers (Leghorn), brown egg layers (Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Barred Rock, New Hampshire x Barred Rock, Columbian Rock x Red, Red Shaver, etc), and "meat birds". You can choose hens based on certain qualities such as winter hardy, friendly-disposition, good egg laying, and so on, depending on what you are looking for. Frey's also offers roosters, turkeys, ducks and pheasants - if you have the space to raise these!
Of course there are many local farms where you would be able to purchase chicks as well. There is one nearby farm that raises specifically heritage breeds and unique varieties - so if you are looking for something like a Buff Orpington, Australorpe, or Silkie, you might have to ask around a little more but you can probably find it. Another old fashioned way to purchase specialty chickens (like blue or speckled egg layers), is going through a mail-order hatchery that will ship chicks by cardboard box across North America! In any case, you need to have your pen or coop ready, with bedding, water, food, shelter, for the day your chicks arrive home.
When we first got our day old chicks they lived in a large hampster cage lined with bran as bedding, in our kitchen. They cuddled up to sleep on a pile of old woolen socks, and when they had learned to eat and drink, and the weather was warm enough for them to go outside, we transitioned them into a smaller run and finally the larger coop with enclosed run. Their nest boxes are still lined with fresh wheat bran, and straw covers the coop floor. Most days they free-range around our yard and garden, and find their way into the coop for egg laying and at night.
As for feed, you can make your own, or purchase - there is a starter crumbles mix for young chicks, and then Omega layer rations, plus scratch grains (cracked corn, etc) which is more of an occasional snack. To purchase these locally you can go to Jones Feed Mill near the Waterloo Market, or purchase an organic chicken feed through Bailey's Local Foods. Of course, they also eat loads of fruit & vegetable peels and other food scraps that are destined for the compost, plus garden greens, dandelion, herbs like comfrey, etc. Some ideas of good food for hens are lettuce, greens (spinach, kale, chard), tomatoes, corn, bread, pasta, cottage cheese. Bad foods are spicy, rotten, sour, processed foods, raw potato peels, cabbage (makes eggs stinky). Hens also need constant access to water, and grit to help digest their food (e.g. crushed eggshells, crushed oyster shells, limestone).
If you are going to make your own feed, the book Backyard Poultry Naturally, by Alana Moore gives some recipe ideas for making your own chicken feed. For example:
Recipe a)
65 % mixed grain, 7% alfalfa meal, 8% soya meal, 6% ground oyster shells, 3 % bone meal, 1 % trace minerals
Recipe b)
2 parts wheat grain, 1 part wheat bran, 1/2 part oats or oat bran, 1/4 parts corn meal, 1 1/2 parts greens (alfalfa, comfrey)
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Waterloo Chicken Coop Tour, Sat June 19th
Did you know that there are people raising chickens inside the City of Waterloo? It’s true!
This invitation comes from the Waterloo Hen Association:
Want to see how we do it? The Waterloo Hen Association is hosting a Chicken Coop Tour to raise awareness about the reality of backyard chickens. This is your chance to visit with actual urban chicken keepers and learn about coops, chicken varieties, and the joys of garden fresh eggs. This is a free, self-guided, mapped tour through Waterloo neighbourhoods that will take you to several different styles of coop: from a simple “Chicken Tractor” to elaborate Multi-room designs. You can visit one coop, or you can visit them all.
This invitation comes from the Waterloo Hen Association:
Want to see how we do it? The Waterloo Hen Association is hosting a Chicken Coop Tour to raise awareness about the reality of backyard chickens. This is your chance to visit with actual urban chicken keepers and learn about coops, chicken varieties, and the joys of garden fresh eggs. This is a free, self-guided, mapped tour through Waterloo neighbourhoods that will take you to several different styles of coop: from a simple “Chicken Tractor” to elaborate Multi-room designs. You can visit one coop, or you can visit them all.
The tour runs on Saturday, June 19th from 10am to 2pm. On the day of the tour, pick up your map at the Waterloo Public Square, at the corner of King St. and Willis Way. Details are available at http://www.waterloocooptour.com
Monday, March 22, 2010
Quick post replies - regarding laundry and chickens
Thanks to everyone who has been posting comments - while I read them all, I am sorry that I am not always able to take time to comment personally. Here are a few replies to answer some recent questions (hope this is helpful):
Q/ when you "freeze dry" your laundry on the line outside in winter, how do you soften the diapers that are stiff and cold when they come indoors?
A/ Yes, we don't have a clothes dryer and hang dry our laundry all year round. We do freeze dry our sheets and towels outdoors in winter, but have a large wooden drying rack that we use indoors to dry our cloth baby diapers. As we have a wood stove going in the next room, we find the diapers dry quickly within a few hours. This indoor rack actually also helps to humidify our house which can get quite dry in winter because of the wood stove. To brighten them up we do hang them out for a few hours, but this is not necessary.
Q/ I am moving to the kw area in the near future and am wondering about the chicken bylaws?
A/ There are a wide range of bylaws on this topic in our area. Kitchener and Waterloo are two separate cities, and as such have different sets of bylaws. The City of Waterloo recently started a pilot project regarding urban chicken keeping. A Waterloo Hen Association was formed, and people had 60 days to register their hens and be part of this study. The discussion will be reopened by city council in 2011. The City of Kitchener bylaws are a little ambiguous on this topic - one part of the bylaw seems to say no (the class of birds chickens belong to are not allowed), while another part seems to be affirmative (they are allowed for "animal husbandry" purposes). City of Cambridge, also part of the kw area, has a grandfathered clause for some of the older properties that had chickens in earlier years. City of Guelph, nearby, does allow hens. As with all bylaws, it's best to be respectful of your neighbours because if they don't approve then bylaw or not, they can still complain and end your hopes of having hens. We suggest checking in with your neighbours before getting hens, keeping the pen clean and tidy, not keeping too many (and no roosters), and giving away some eggs to help build positive hen relations.
Q/ when you "freeze dry" your laundry on the line outside in winter, how do you soften the diapers that are stiff and cold when they come indoors?
A/ Yes, we don't have a clothes dryer and hang dry our laundry all year round. We do freeze dry our sheets and towels outdoors in winter, but have a large wooden drying rack that we use indoors to dry our cloth baby diapers. As we have a wood stove going in the next room, we find the diapers dry quickly within a few hours. This indoor rack actually also helps to humidify our house which can get quite dry in winter because of the wood stove. To brighten them up we do hang them out for a few hours, but this is not necessary.
Q/ I am moving to the kw area in the near future and am wondering about the chicken bylaws?
A/ There are a wide range of bylaws on this topic in our area. Kitchener and Waterloo are two separate cities, and as such have different sets of bylaws. The City of Waterloo recently started a pilot project regarding urban chicken keeping. A Waterloo Hen Association was formed, and people had 60 days to register their hens and be part of this study. The discussion will be reopened by city council in 2011. The City of Kitchener bylaws are a little ambiguous on this topic - one part of the bylaw seems to say no (the class of birds chickens belong to are not allowed), while another part seems to be affirmative (they are allowed for "animal husbandry" purposes). City of Cambridge, also part of the kw area, has a grandfathered clause for some of the older properties that had chickens in earlier years. City of Guelph, nearby, does allow hens. As with all bylaws, it's best to be respectful of your neighbours because if they don't approve then bylaw or not, they can still complain and end your hopes of having hens. We suggest checking in with your neighbours before getting hens, keeping the pen clean and tidy, not keeping too many (and no roosters), and giving away some eggs to help build positive hen relations.
Friday, May 01, 2009
Raising Chickens in the City - from Ode Magazine
Raising Chickens in the City - from Ode Magazine
www.OdeMagazine.com
Urban gardeners are flocking to chickens to keep bugs away and provide eggs and compost. Keeping backyard birds is easier than you might think.
It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon, and Beatrice, Gertrude and Zelda, three butterscotch-brown Buff Orpington hens, are having a field day in Jennifer Carlson’s Seattle back yard. A landscape designer and organic gardening expert, Carlson has placed a floorless chicken coop––or “chicken tractor”––on her lawn, where the hens methodically search for bugs and worms, taking an occasional break for a dust bath. Once the birds have excavated one area, she moves the tractor to a new piece of turf.
The remains of the chickens’ excavations—a rich mixture of dirt, chicken manure and grass that’s sprinkled with oak leaves to help decompose the droppings—gets a second life as compost for Carlson’s organic vegetable garden, which features basil, raspberries, eggplant and heirloom tomatoes. “The vegetables we grow then provide scraps for the birds, who produce delicious eggs and great compost for the vegetables,” explains Carlson, who has raised chickens in the city since the 1980s. “It’s a really cool cycle.” Carlson, who spent her early childhood among Wyoming and Colorado ranchers, now lives in a cheery red house on a corner lot in Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood. “Chickens make ideal pets,” she says. “They like being around people, and they’re very curious, comical and ungainly. Yet they’re contained, so they’re not chasing the mailman.” With a cup of coffee in hand, she makes a daily round of the garden every morning. “It’s relaxing seeing the chickens and garden thrive.”
Recycling Bins That Cluck
The municipality of Diest in Flanders, Belgium, gave 2,000 households an unusual gift: three chickens each. Why? The birds are supposed to recycle biodegradable garbage.
Chickens are omnivores who love leftovers, according to Kippenmail, the digital newsletter of the Dutch animal-rights campaign Adopteer een kip (“Adopt a Chicken”). In one month, a chicken can consume approximately nine pounds of kitchen garbage. In return, it will lay eggs. And what’s more, its droppings can be used to fertilize the garden.
Officials in Diest see the chickens as an economical solution to the costly problem of recycling biodegradable trash, which costs the town about $600,000 annually.
“I make the mistake every now and then of ordering an egg dish at a restaurant, and I regret it...
A homegrown egg tastes just like butter. It’s fantastic.”
Backyard birds
From Seattle to St. Louis, hens are the latest trend in natural gardening. The Murray McMurray Hatchery in Webster City, Iowa, the country’s largest supplier of two-day old chicks, sends about 1,000 chicks a week to people in urban and suburban areas. (Five years ago, the number of urban buyers was so small the hatchery didn’t even keep track.) Reversing decades-old laws against urban chickens, advocates across the country are lobbying city officials to permit backyard hens, while community gardening organizations are hosting overflow crowds for chicken-coop tours and chicken-raising classes.
“People have lost touch with what used to be considered common knowledge about animals,” says Pam Karstens, who teaches Backyard Chickens 101 through the Madison, Wisconsin, nonprofit Mad City Chickens. Most attendees are well-educated urban professionals in their 30s and 40s. “Many are parents trying to teach their children where food comes from,” she says.
As the number of city chicken owners increases, chicken-coop entrepreneurs have sprung up to meet the need. Many cater to the custom-built sensibilities of urban professionals, including Egganic Industries in Ringgold, Virginia, which sells the $1,300 (plus shipping) luxury Henspa, complete with an automatic egg-retrieval system. A British company, Omlet, sells the Eglu, which resembles an iMac computer and is made from recyclable polymers.
For most people, however, hosting a couple of backyard chickens is neither high tech nor high cost. Carlson’s henhouse, a regular stop on Seattle’s annual chicken-coop tour, is a 3-by-18-foot modular coop painted bright orange and yellow. The wooden structure, which Carlson designed and built herself, sits on six inches of gravel, topped by concrete pavers. “The pavers protect the wood from rotting and discourage burrowing by predators—and you will have predators,” Carlson says, noting that raccoons and possums pose the biggest threats to urban fowl.
A storage unit under the nesting box contains feeding and cleaning supplies. Carlson points out other useful coop features: plenty of horizontal space for birds to move, good air circulation, sunlight in the afternoon and a spot for shade. The chicken tractor, a portable cagelike structure without a bottom that is meant to be rotated and moved on a regular basis, gives birds daily escape from the coop and access to new scratching space, while restricting yard destruction to a designated area.
“It’s kitty TV,” Carlson laughs, noting that the family cat spends hours watching the hens peck in the tractor. Zelda, Gertrude and Beatrice are unruffled by the feline attention, she says. “That’s what I love about this breed; they’re so mellow.”
Urban chickens
Ordinances governing city chickens vary from city to city. Bill Finch, a Mobile, Alabama, newspaper editor who has written several articles on the subject, says laws prohibiting backyard hens often can be traced to the suburban development boom in the 1950s and 1960s. “As bedroom communities incorporated, they overturned codes allowing animals so they wouldn’t appear to be podunk towns,” he says. “But in older cities and towns, the codes were never updated.”
Mobile, for example, allows a liberal 25 chickens per household. Finch himself keeps seven backyard Ancona hens—a good breed for hot weather—that make the rounds of his oversize vegetable garden in a chicken tractor. “It’s the only nitrogen fertilizer I need,” he says.
As the “buy local” food movement gathers steam nationwide, activists are working to loosen more restrictive chicken codes. In Madison, Karstens says interest in backyard birds was so high that a fairly active “chicken underground” was developing until last year, when she and several others persuaded local officials to pass an ordinance permitting backyard coops and a maximum of four hens. The group prevailed with support from affiliates of the University of Wisconsin Poultry Science Department, who helped convince city officials that reasonable regulations could deter potential problems. “With a flock of 40 chickens, manure is a concern,” Karstens says. “With four, it isn’t.”
In Providence, Rhode Island, the Southside Community Land Trust raises urban chickens to educate the public about safe treatment and how to use chicken manure as compost. The organization also is working to combat the myth that you need roosters, the chicken world’s noisemakers, for egg production. You don’t. Although females need to mate with a male to produce a fertile egg, hens lay edible eggs as part of their ovulation cycle.
Every once in a while a male can sneak into a backyard, unannounced. A few weeks after Cranston, Rhode Island, resident Joanne Rich got her first hen—a Polish Golden Lace she dubbed Mrs. T because of a crown resembling a mohawk—she awoke to an unexpected surprise: a 5 a.m. wake-up call in the form of rooster crows emanating from the coop she had fashioned from her daughter’s swing set.
Mrs. T., as it turned out, was actually Mr. T—a gender mix-up that got the hapless male whisked out of Rich’s yard to an urban farm operated by the Southside Community Land Trust. “I didn’t want a run-in with my neighbors,” says Rich, an avid organic gardener who tends a vegetable patch and grows five kinds of berries. “And I wanted eggs.”
For Carlson, eating eggs straight from the source is like nothing else. Between March and October, Beatrice, Zelda and Gertrude each lay about one egg per day. The rest of the year, Carlson gets an average of one or two eggs per day from the trio. “I make the mistake every now and then of ordering an egg dish at a restaurant, and I regret it,” she says. “It’s like eating cardboard. A homegrown egg tastes just like butter. It’s fantastic.”
Aren’t Chickens Unhealthy?
Talk of chickens inevitably brings up two big health concerns: salmonella and Asian bird flu.
Emilio DeBess, public health veterinarian for the Oregon Department of Human Services, says his department occasionally sees outbreaks of salmonella associated with chickens in Portland, where hen-free neighborhoods are becoming the exception, not the rule. These outbreaks usually occur around Easter, when families get baby chicks and keep them inside, DeBess says. “Keep chickens outside, wash your hands and don’t allow kids under 5 to handle them,” he says. “If you follow these guidelines, you’ll reduce salmonella exposure by 100 percent.”
First-time chicken owners often raise questions about Asian bird flu. Like mad cow disease, avian flu is largely a product of limited resources, overcrowded conditions and cross-contamination between species—and thus has little to do with managing one or two chickens in a yard. The fear among world health officials is that the disease will spread to migratory birds; if and when that happens, urban chickens will be a bit player in a catastrophic global epidemic, not the cause. Echoing DeBess, organic gardening expert Jennifer Carlson says: “It’s a matter of being mindful and keeping clean.
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Tuesday, June 10, 2008
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