Article about backyard chicken owners
LoHud.com has an article about the pleasure of keeping chickens in your back yard. I agree with the people interviewed in the piece -- I bought my chickens (above, click for big) for eggs and fertilizer, but it turns out their primary benefit is amusing me and my family. I love spending time with them.
Chicken owners liken it to having their very own widescreen TV in the backyard, with an always-looping Chicken Channel. Chickens are curious and very involved in their surroundings, following humans and dogs and cats around the yard and seeking attention, even a backrub.Backyard chickens find new popularity in suburbiaFiona Mitchell says the four hens she got in July for her Bedford Hills yard fit right in with her two dogs and two cats. "Everybody seems to find their own space," she says. "We're one big happy family now."
Demetra and Sal Restuccia couldn't be happier with the five Rhode Island Reds they got last year. "Oh, I love my chickens," Demetra says. "They have such personalities. They're funny - they talk all the time. They'll tell you everything that's been going on for the day. They're hysterical."
the latest
latest episodes
dude, weak, that was my suggested link
My neighbor's chickens occasionally wander as far as in the patch of woods between our houses. He always apologizes, but I thank him for clearing the ticks out of the woods.
I want to watch the Chicken Channel!
sorry to rain on the happy chicken parade, but i want to warn others that owning suburban chickens is much more difficult than people make it sound.
hens can be very, very loud... and your neighbors can get very, very pissed. trust me. and you'd better not think about getting home after dark unless you invest in a $400 automatic coop door closer, or your chickens will be an instant raccoon snack (they go catatonic after sundown).
i miss my chickens. they were really awesome, and i gained such an appreciation for chickens that i only buy free-ranged eggs and meat now. but there is no way in hell i am ever getting city chickens again, and i seriously encourage others to know what they are getting into before committing to them.
Have you posted the final installments of your chicken coop building series? I really enjoyed reading those posts.
I like the way Gawd made them out of chicken.
I used to have a little suburban flock of six hens, and it was a great experience. I would compost the chicken poop with leaves and end up with awesome fertilizer after a few months. Hens are mostly quiet and very sociable. And you can't beat fresh, free range eggs.
Like the commenter above, I only buy free range eggs now, and I rarely eat chicken at all. We were lucky not to have problems with critters. Our three dogs looked after the hens, believe it or not, and one of our dogs would actually herd them into the coop at the end of the day. We once found a baby possum in the coop, but that was the worst predator we had to deal with.
my parents are from Southern Italy and we've raised chickens since I brought home little chicks in kindergarten (I'm a ripe old 29). In addition to the rabbits we raise, the combination of both rabbit and chicken fertilizer is the best combo out there. Princeton, NJ didn't know what hit when we came to town. With each new generation my mom and brother name each one. Enjoy your chickens!
i used to have hens in my backyard when i was little in MarVista by Venice beach and it was the most entertaining thing from my childhood. I would lay in the grass and watch the chickens scratch for bugs and what not and this would make me laugh and laugh. We would have fresh eggs everyday and we never had any predators eat any of the hens. They live for many years. We used the poop to fertilize all of our fruit trees. I miss them so and look forward to the day i can have some apt hens :P
Yeah, I'm happy for you and all, and I'm sure you're a conscientious chicken-owner, but I've had neighbours with chickens. The damn things were noisy and they stank when the wind was blowing in the wrong direction. And then every so often a dog would help itself to one and spread it all up and down the street. I was never a fan. Sorry to rain on the parade, I'm sure if the neighbours in question had been bothered to work a little harder at chicken-husbandry, it may have been a different story.
I own a small backyard flock of 4 chickens. They provide about 3-4 eggs a day in the summer and stop laying in the winter. They are easy to care for. They stay inside a spacious enclosed run on weekdays and get access to the full yard on weekends. I leave the coop and run open on weekends because they return to the coop when the sun goes down. There is no wrangling involved. If one doesn't cooperate, a little corn coaxes them back into their coop.
They're much easier to care for than I thought. They are very self sufficient. I just keept heir water supply clean and their feeder stocked up. They are protected at night in an enclosed coop. The only real threat to them is if they are in the yard and a hawk went after them.
We have chickens. My kids love them. I am 50-50 about it. They ARE really neat, sweet little hens, however there is a responsibility that comes with owning them that a 50-hour a week job makes difficult to keep up with...
We have one little hen, a yellow Japanese Buff named Nausicaa (yes, she is named after the movie) that is probably the sweetest pet we have ever owned.
I live in a neighborhood zoned for chickens, goats, pigs, etc. When people move in, they know what they're getting into. Lots of people around here have roosters, too. If you don't like them, don't live here.
OK, Mark, that's great. I didn't.
I love chickens. I used to keep them when I lived out west. I was in an area zoned for agriculture. The only farm animals we couldn't keep were pigs.
At times, my flock was as large as 60. I had as many as a half dozen roosters at a time, usually one big rooster and a half a dozen banties. You never want to have just one rooster, they decide you are competition for the hens' affections and come after you. When there are a half a dozen, or even two or three, they are too busy watching each other. They don't fight each other, it's all about bluff and face offs.
I could tell each of my roosters by his distinct crow. Being from the northeast, and not used to such things, I was sure my neighbors would freak out about the noise. But when I went around to talk to them, they all said, no we like the sound, that's why we live out here.
Dogs bark. Lawn mowers and leaf blowers make horrific noises. Chickens, even with a half dozen roosters, hardly make any noise by comparison. I think it is a cultural thing, a stupidity thing, this objection to chicken noise. It is the same mindset that finds clothes lines unsightly and offensive and would rather people generated all that pollution by wasting energy on using indoor electric clothes dryers. Poo!
I could write for hours about how marvelous the chickens were. They are wonderful animals. I meant to raise some for meat. I was a practicing omnivore at the time and didn't want to be a hypocrite. This is why I recognized the bleeding cones. But I didn't do it. I clutched, you should forgive the expression.
They were plenty productive enough with the eggs and the entertainment and the eating of potentially bothersome arthropods. We had an infestation of black widows one summer, the whole town did. We had them bad in the front of the house, I killed a dozen on the front porch one Saturday afternoon. But we never had a single one in the backyard, where the chickens roamed free over a fenced full acre.
I'm back east and I miss my chickens. I just saw the picture of those birds up there. Dominiques, if I'm not mistaken, the oldest American breed. Dual purpose birds, for meat or eggs. But what dual purpose really means is they are not overbred for just one thing, eggs or meat. (Meat birds are freaky and sad.) And dual purpose birds are sensible animals who don't fuss much and look after themselves.
Given enough room to forage and stretch their legs, there are few pets as delightful as chickens. They have complex social lives and the flock interactions are a source of endless fascination.
I haven't even clicked the link yet... but oh..
I
love
chickens.
I do have one reservation: bird flu. Anyone qualified to comment on the wisdom of potential avian flu reservoirs scattered through the city? Is it a concern? Or could it be a benefit in societies where people cooperate with government health research and monitoring?
Okay, I've read the article now.
Everybody gets Rhody's n' Rocks. Step out. Treat yourself to the delight that is a wyandotte. Get some ameracaunas for the fun of the multicolored eggs. And if space is small get banties, miniature chickens. Chickens are social birds, so better to have smaller birds in a larger number if you have limited space.
Yes, they love kitchen scraps, all things except olives, as far as I could tell. They hated olives. Don't feed them garlic or onions because it makes the eggs taste funny.
I had well-fed hens. There was always plenty of feed in the feeders and they cruised the yard for goodies and I would go out every morning to check their water and give them breakfast. Got in the habit of giving them oatmeal because when they are babies their vents get clogged and it's icky to have to clean them up, so it is easier to feed them a bit of oatmeal to keep them regular. So I would give them a little oatmeal every morning and the tablescraps and vegetable peelings from the night before and they loved it.
I would go out into the back yard and the whole flock would come running towards me looking, for all the world, like velociraptors in fuzzy bloomers.
The hell with lolcats.
ME
Tak,
I think if bird flu comes in, people have to slaughter their birds. Yeah, I guess you would have some hold outs, but I think it wouldn't be a significant number compared to the numbers of pigeons and sparrows and starlings that already live in urban areas.
Your neighbors would know you have birds. It would be hard to hide them.
But that's just my gut reaction. I haven't a lick of data to back it up.
I've been keeping chickens for 5 years now. They are easier to care for than my dog, and way quieter, too. Plus, they give us eggs! It is so satisfying to gather warm eggs from under my birds every evening. You can't get more local food than this!
Takuan, it's a good question that you raise about avian flu and the potential for disease in general, and the answer is this: it is factory farming that creates the danger in the food supply. A land with a million small separate backyard flocks of 3-5 chickens is actually in a much safer situation than our current industrialized poultry megafarms create.
Here in Toronto we are forbidden from owning barnyard animals... even those Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs are off the list. It's a shame, too, but I can see the issue with noise, smells, etc. In suburban situations it makes more sense but downtown... not so much.
Gone are the days when you could head down to the market and buy a live chicken! A friend of mine used to buy them to feed to his boa constrictor. In would go the chicken, the snake would remain motionless. A couple of days later, the chicken would be gone and the snake would have a lump midway down its body.
I've heard that stated before, but where is the logic? Mega-farm monoculture is susceptible to wipe-out by one organism, but I thought the avian flu threat lay in sudden mutation in close human/poultry contact - like small holders.
I thought the avian flu threat lay in sudden mutation in close human/poultry contact
I think that refers to rural East Asia where people, swine and poultry are all living in wet conditions without sanitation.
We've kept chickens and rabbits for almost 30 years with very little problem. The rooster (current one named stuart) crows every morning. Although I no longer live in NJ I do think it helps that there are always people at home to let the chickens out to to walk around the back yard and garden to get fresh air. Sure, they walk in to the neighbors yards, sometimes down the street to my uncles restaurant, but our family over many years has become such a fixture in the community it doesn't bother people any more. I did feel strange growing up in a town where no one else had chickens, it's nice to know there are more chicken owners out there in the burbs.
For new owners of chickens I would imagine neighbors may not enjoy the crowing...ours got used to it, plus the one neighbor that protested no longer lives there. I think backyardchickens.com would thoroughly enjoy paying my parents a visit.
I can't see complaining about a cock crowing when the lawnmowers and leaf blowers start at sunrise every morning. They're a lot louder than a few roosters.
I like acuna hens, they are very gentle, have big fluffy feathery tufts on their feet, and lay green shelled eggs with a mild flavor. Nothing like green eggs for breakfast...
As far as avian flu, you are likely thinking about birds as human crossover vectors. That happens where people and birds live in close proximity. Close, like in the same room with 10 chickens and 6 people, a la Southeast Asia and China.
Keeping hens in small yard sized flocks is probably the safest way to raise them if you want to avoid disease. The biggest risk in places like the US, Canada, and Western Europe from avian flus are to loss of laying and food stocks due to overcrowding (and the rapid spread of disease therefrom), and not necessarily dangers to people being infected.
I thought ALL birds were potential vectors. The disease, as I understand it, is coming in with wild birds who can move about at will. They infect the captive flocks, the captive flocks that are rubbing elbows with humans, and the humans get the disease. Keep chickens and you can see how easily it could happen. For one thing, wild birds are always hanging out trying to mooch food when the can get away with it (They have to contend with those chicken police.) and for another thing, people tend to hold and pet their chickens. (If you get chicks from a hatchery and raise them yourself, they become really tame. If a hen raises the chicks, they are not quite so trusting. The article mentions Murray McMurray that is the big hatchery everyone knows. But if you are living in the west, might I suggest Privett Hatchery in New Mexico. They have exceptional quality birds.)
The virus needs two things to be a threat, it needs a reservoir, and it needs a vector. So which are backyard flocks? I'm not arguing, I'm just wondering.
I'm assuming the disease is coming in from outside a given city. Are human populations considered pretty safe if there are no poultry populations to expose them? In that case I guess urban chicken bans make sense.
In certain counties in Southern California and Southern Arizona, there have been problems with (Oh I hope I'm remembering right) Marberg virus. The story as I heard it (yeah, yeah, citation needed, but this is a comment thread on a blog, albeit a great blog, not an academic publication) was that the disease was coming in on fighting cocks being smuggled in from Mexico. But then in that part of the country you'll find folks who want to blame everything on what (and who) is coming in from Mexico.
Backyard flocks are problematic in areas like that. And there people have to destroy their pets. I think you'd have to take the same approach in a city to protect the public health. But I think there would be some warning. Seems a shame to ban the birds because someday there might be a problem.
And chickens are only dirty if you don't clean up after them, just like dogs or cats, or babies!
I don't think that Marburg virus is bird borne. Marburg is comparable to Ebola.
Bother. It was something that began with an M.
Newcastle!
M, N, whatever.
Like the nut-brown ale.
quick googling shows a hundred diseases of poultry, I'm only concerned by the zootic/human infections.
I found a 2007 UN study that states domestic, not wild, birds are the primary reservoir. My instinct is not to worry since in North America for example, there is instant communication and reasonable governmental public health mechanisms. If there were a bird flu scare, people wouldn't be hiding their tiny flocks from slaughter because they represented half their wealth. I just brought it up since no one else had. I still plan to get into chickens. And bees.
Ah, bees! I don't keep bees but our next door neighbor does, and you can see the hives from my daughter's bedroom window. I work 75 hours per week, take 6 credits of classes per semester, and single-mom two kids, a dog, and the chickens. I draw the line at bees. I have to say, when I am feeling ill, raw honey from the neighbors bees does wonders. Placebo, maybe.
BTW don't forget the community-building aspect of backyard chicken rearing! Any neighbor that survived the (first) great depression loves to chat about backyard chickens, and the rest are won over by the occasional gift of eggs. Anything that gets neighbors talking can't be all bad!
In NYC, people raise chickens on patios, so don't think it can't be done in close quarters.
I think February is the time to order bees by mail, right?
mail order? I was just going to drive into the country. I've found a two weekend beekeeping course.
"I would go out into the back yard and the whole flock would come running towards me looking, for all the world, like velociraptors in fuzzy bloomers."
That's worth the hilarious price of admission right there!
I live in Phoenix, not sure if chickens could handle the heat, the coyotes and the HOA's.
Very good idea especially if you live in the countryside away from people who might find the crowing disturbing. I remember the BBC website reported a chicken farmer actually got fined up to £175 by the local court for his pet chicken's crowing.
Another use for guinea hens as pets is that they eats ticks. LOTS AND LOTS of ticks. Although their tick habit is not enough to sustain them (you still have to feed them), if you live in a tick infested area, they will clear out their roaming space given enough time.
Lucifer @11: If you hook up a light out in the henhouse, you may be able to extend their laying season a bit. One CFL isn't too expensive to run on a timer, and we were able to get a month or two more laying time.
I second Pipenta @17 in recommending banties, Araucanas, and Wyandottes. We raised bantie Araucanas and silver-laced Wyandottes, and they were lovely breeds. (Not that I didn't enjoy our barred rocks and Rhodies. The only chickens I didn't enjoy were the Cornish-X breed designed for meat -- they were built to be all-breast, and looked miserable. I felt guilty every time I looked at them.)
I find Murray McMurray Hatchery a useful breed resource. They've got excellent pictures and a wide selection -- basically, they're the seed catalog of backyard poultry. We ordered from them a few times, chicks and ducklings, and they were great. (Easier than ordering from the local Agway, and IMO a better quality of chick.) And what can beat having your local Post Office call you in the morning to tell you you've got a package that peeps?
There was a fight in our town last year about a girl who had a flock of backyard chickens - here in farming country, we apparently have zoning laws that require something crazy like 30 acres of land (IE, enough to be a "farm") before you can own fowl.
At least we don't have the rules against laundry lines.
Hamish Grant (#20) might want to check out http://www.torontochickens.com, the website of someone clandestinely raising chickens in suburban Toronto. Lots of backyard poultry info and links.
And Ontario recently overturned municipal clothesline bans province-wide, so there is hope.
Chickens are not all fun-and-games. . .
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60259311@N00/2695393655/
. . . unless you only use them for eggs.
My parents have neighbors with a bunch of hens. Cool, but looks like too much work, especially since they use them for the eggs
When I lived outside of town my neighbors kept chickens for a while-and a rooster. The birds would migrate over to our yard and get into our apple tree, where the rooster would start crowing at about 5:30 each morning.
Finally, a fox got the rooster and all was quiet and strewn with feathers.
Tak,
The reason I'd mail order the birds is to get the choice of breeds. The chicks are easy and fun to raise. Cute, cute, cute. Most newly hatched birds look disturbingly fetal, but chickens are born adorable and can pretty much look after themselves. They just need to be kept warm and safe. Other than that you just feed them, keep their water fresh and their bedding clean and try not to swoon over how freakin' adorable they are. Chicks are the unicorn chasers to end all unicorn chasers.
the tick eating aspect could used to encourage poultry keeping in Lyme Disease afflicted areas. Know your doggies and kids and you are guarded by the Chicken Police.
the tick eating aspect could used to encourage poultry keeping in Lyme Disease afflicted areas
oooh, I just KNOW a dirty joke is coming....
Does it have to do with St. Steven, a cock, and gravy?
I like the idea of Chicken TV. Web cam?
It sounds like a similar reason a couple of my stoner mates have Aquariums.
Chickens (like most birds) are horrifying creatures.
good layers though
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/images/061025-terror-birds_big.jpg
I was speaking with a friend, a chicken-keeper, and asked how often she culled her flock. "Oh, I never do that! My chickens are like flowers! I just enjoy them, and give them a decent burial when they go,"
I love that..."my chickens are like flowers".
In | Ur mag carried a multi page article a while back. May be interesting for prospective cluckers here...
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1688/4121/1600/trilobitechick.png
Here's a video of my chickens - maybe some of you will remember the music from the late 60's...Popcorn by Hot Butter. Check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIWiJxygIKI
cute! I remember the tune too. How about this one?
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=FFIk9f1b7Is&feature=related
Hi everyone... I've been reading through the site off and on for a while and have a comment on the avian flu that I hope is helpful... I just finished research on the topic and the avian flu along with other natural disasters is a fact that will happen given the cycles of history and how we mutate the natural order of things (ie factory chickens and pushing the limits of what we call food). The key from all my readings is the human/animal SANITATION. As more people are crowded into places and the strain of feeding people pushes the production practices, there is opportunity for mutation of the gene that crosses to humans. My opinion is that keeping a well-cared for backyard flock and garden is one of the best safeguards that you and your family are eating very healthy food. A book self-published by Dr. Tenpenny called "Fowl" delves into the political aspect of large scale culling and pharmaceutical company influence, Tyson Chicken bad practices in setting up small farmers in basically slave labor situations in other countries, etc... I found it informative and weighed it with local health department info to try to best understand the situation. Massive culling (slaughter) out there hasn't always meant that the mutant avian flu gene is present. Dr. Tenpenny gives more info. on the practice in her book.
So, the take home point is....take good care of your flock and they'll take good care of you!
There must be a sermon in there somewhere.
Merry Christmas everyone!