It's time to introduce the seven chickens living on our urban farm! They arrived June 3rd, 2009 at only 2 days old. After spending the first month in a brooder setup in the basement, they moved to into the chicken coop in the backyard. Here is what they of looked like a few days after arriving:
We choose five different breeds to make up our urban flock. They were selected for egg laying color, cold hardiness, appearance, and friendliness. So without further ado, appearing in alphabetical order...
DAISY
Daisy is a White Crested Black Polish chicken who lays white eggs. She is the most friendly and will hop up on your shoulder like a parrot on a pirate if you let her!
FANNIE MAE
Fannie Mae is an Easter Egger cross who lays blue/green tinted eggs. Her exotic eggs really stand out and often shock people who have only seen white and brown store-bought eggs.
MABEL
Mabel is a Silver Laced Wyandotte who lays medium brown colored eggs. She is the queen of the roost and gets along extremely well with our dog Emma.
OLIVE
Olive is an Australorp who lays brown colored eggs. She is crazy about tomatoes and fresh fruit. It's awfully dangerous to eat either of them outside if she is running around the yard.
ROSE
Rose is a Buff Laced Polish who lays white eggs. She is the diva of the group and the low bird on the totem pole. Her crazy plumage gives her limited visibility and the others like to sneak up and scare her, but they do it in good fun. She is also the most vocal of the group asking for treats or screaming when the others wander off and she does not see where they went. She sometimes prefers to sleep outside the coop which has lead to several flashlight hunts for her on cold winter nights!
RUBY
Ruby is a Cukoo Marans who lays deep chocolate brown colored eggs. She is the most kind hearted sweet mamma chicken of the group. If you pet her like a cat she sometimes purrs.
VERA
Vera, is an Easter Egger cross who lays light pink colored eggs. For the first few months she was very timid and did not come near us but now she is the first at the door to greet us in the morning.
They have been an absolute joy, and our neighbors really seem to like them too, often stopping over to checkup on them. They eat most all of our food scraps, including any meat that our dog does not claim. It's really nice to turn our food scraps into fresh eggs!
Everyone was laying eggs by thanksgiving except Rose who waited until just after New Years. Since Rose started laying eggs we have been getting between 3 and 7 eggs a day, averaging around 32 a week. We eat about 2/3 of them and reserve the other 1/3 for friends and family. Their eggs are the primary source of food produced on our urban farm in the winter. We can thank them for the 23 pounds towards the urban ton so far this year!
4 comments:
I've never raised chickens before, so maybe this is a n00b question, but I've noticed in some pictures that they're roaming free in your yard. How do you prevent them from wandering into the neighbors' yards, into the street, etc.?
Also, I love this blog, and always look forward to new entries! Thanks for sharing this process.
Hey Kevboy,
We're glad you are enjoying the blog, it always make us happy to hear that others like it.
With regard to the chickens, our yard is fenced in. The left side has a 6 ft cedar fence and the right side a 4 ft chain link fence.
We've also clipped a couple feathers on one wing of each chicken. This throws their balance off and makes it so they can't fly (they don't fly well in the first place). The process is completely painless only snipping a couple feathers (at about the half way point). Each year when they molt and re-grow feathers we'll do it again.
The hard part is keeping them out of the garden beds! For a while we struggled with this. The solution we found that works best is fishing line. We've put small stakes around the areas where we don't want the chickens and run fishing line between the stakes. The stakes are only about 10 inches high, but this works as in incredible barrier. When we first put it in place they walked into it and it freaked them out each time (I don't think they see the fishing line well). Now they just stay clear of it. The fishing line is hard to see too so it does not take away from the ascetics in the yard.
Between the fishing line and the fence we are able to let the girls run around the yard without worrying about them getting out or tearing up our gardens. Now if they could only eat enough grass so that we would not have to mow!
-Kate & Daniel
Ah, didn't even consider clipped wings. That makes sense. The fishing line barrier is a good tip, too.
I need to look into whether my local ordinances would even allow chickens. I believe there is a limitation on proximity to residences, but I'm not sure if that would impact me or not. I noticed you said you had to ask your neighbors for permission - was that related to a similar ordinance?
And as far as mowing the grass, you might want to look into goats! ;-)
Well we're not actually clipping their wings. Thats a different and extremely painful procedure for the chicken where part of the wing (bone included) is cut. We only clip a few feathers. Clipping feathers is akin to a haircut where clipping the wing would be akin to amputation!
With regard to ordinances here in Saint Paul you need permission from 75% of the neighbors within 150 feet of where the chickens will have access. Since we let our chickens in the yard that means anyone within 150 feet of our property line. For us that was 12 neighbors (our property actually boarders 5 other properties with how the platting was done 100 years ago). Most everyone was really receptive to it and nobody said "no". We try and bring a half dozen eggs to each of the neighbors every couple months too. We found getting chickens to be a good way to meet all our neighbors and now many of them check in on the chickens regularly.
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