Until about 50 years ago, it was common to keep a few chickens on one’s property, however modest the parcel. Cities had not yet spilled over onto adjacent farmlands and rural residences. Folks grew a good portion of their own food. Chickens were an integral part of the family food chain. Small flocks of chickens coexisted with “kitchen gardens,” compact plots of earth growing enough greens and vegetables for a family. Three, four, perhaps a dozen hens provided the household with eggs and meat. Fresh food was available right outside the back door.
In those days, chickens were part of everyday life. With the rooster’s crow at dawn, hens in the henhouse would stir from sleep, as would the humans in the peoplehouse. During the morning, somebody would let the hens out into the yard and collect any “early bird” eggs. The chickens roamed around all day, scratching for bugs and grit and laying eggs in secretive nooks of the yard. In the late afternoon, someone would toss a few handfuls of grain into the coop to lure back the free-ranging chickens, and the kids were sent out to search for the eggs.
Two to four hens will provide plenty of eggs and amusement for a small household.
The color of a hen’s ear lobe roughly corresponds to the color of her eggs.
Once your urban flock is established, daily chicken care is minimal.
Life got busier over the next several decades. Personal time and space, and especially backyard size for single-family homes, decreased. Progress became the defining buzzword and underlying foundation of a “good and successful” life. To pursue Progress, whether by choice or at the whim of destiny, people moved away from their spacious rural homes and into compact and convenient urban and suburban communities. With their migration, one of life’s most prized possessions — personal self-sufficiency — was lost. As a consequence of shrinking yard space, garden flocks or family flocks of chickens disappeared from household yards and were culturally banished to the margins of farm life. At the same time that chickens flew the household coop, chicken ranching was growing into an agribusiness. In place of family hens roosting on a picket fences or scratching beneath the kitchen window, gigantic chicken farms and egg-production “factories” sprawled across the landscape. With Progress nipping at the heels of the mid-twentieth century, chickens became more than family food — chickens were big money for big new chicken businesses. Times had changed for chickens and for Americans. In France, chickens have historically been a symbol of good fortune and prosperity. In the United States, chickens have become a nostalgic icon of a way of life now gone by.
The past two or three generations of Americans — the Baby Boomers — never considered keeping a small flock of chickens as pets or private egg suppliers. Chickens were considered dirty, noisy, stupid, and needing more care than busy city folks in pursuit of Progress could offer. Progress, together with then-adolescent Convenience, convinced us that easy-to-obtain, commercially produced eggs were just as good as home-grown fresh eggs.
When I was growing up in the early 1960s, my parents and grandparents spoke fondly about the chickens they had while they were growing up. Mom always smiled when she recalled her chicken chores: feeding the hens and finding the eggs. The way Mom told it, having chickens sounded like a fun pastime, not a burden. After all, what kid doesn’t like animals? Especially animals that created an egg treasure hunt every day. But Mom, Dad, and Grandma all grew up so long ago and so far away on small farms or in homes with oversized yards. I was a kid living in a crowded bedroom suburb of Los Angeles, plotted for maximum occupancy and minimum greenery and animal life. Nobody had to grow anything. Fluorescent-flickering supermarkets lined the wide, asphalt boulevards. Prepackaged produce, eggs, and meat were readily available, sometimes 24 hours a day. Nobody I knew had chickens. Chickens were synonymous with “country life,” which was out there, somewhere, far away from where I lived in the infinite suburbs.
Poultry Tribune, circa 1940.
Consequently, our Progress-driven cul-ture evolved to a chicken-deprived culture. Generations of Americans became com-pletely removed from chickens and common chicken facts. Today most people don’t even know that hens lay eggs with or without a rooster on the premises, and that brooding is not just something you do when you lose your cell phone. Folks have forgotten, or no longer believed, that chickens could be kept in a modest yard to provide one’s family with fresh eggs. What was once a simple part of life had taken on a complicated reputation. After all, don’t chickens need a lot of space and care? Don’t they make a really big mess? Don’t they make a lot of noise?
The answer to all of the above is no. Chickens and the typical city or suburban garden complement each other if set up and maintained the right way. A few chickens are easy to care for and provide enthusiastic pest control and loads of free fertilizer. They also are guaranteed to provide you and your family with hours of relatively free entertainment. Depending, that is, on how you define “entertainment” — my family is easily amused.
Fifty years ago, it was common practice to keep a few chickens on residential property as part of the family food supply.
Purebred chickens are classified according to the American Standard of Perfection, published by the American Poultry Association.
Chickens don’t need a lot of space for their home and hangout. Three standard laying hens need a henhouse the size of a large doghouse. They also need an enclosed outdoor coop (pen), at least four times the square footage of the henhouse, in which to stretch their legs. As for the time spent actually caring for chickens, it takes about 10 minutes each day to feed and water the hens and collect their eggs. Once you realize how little time is needed from your busy, overscheduled, Progress-driven day to keep chickens, you’ll make the necessary time. Caring for your hens will subtly evolve into a pleasurable routine and brief respite from a hectic day.
That is exactly what is happening in towns, suburbs, and cities across America. For example, where I live in Portland, hens and henhouses are hatching all over in the modest yards of city homes. These urban chickens and their coops are most noticeable in my neighborhood, a cosmopolitan community with a hip, eclectic blend of businesses — cafés, beauty and bath shops, bead stores, bird suppliers, chiropractors, and art galleries, just for starters.
In the middle of this dense, busy neighborhood, there’s a whole lot of clucking going on. Quiet streets tapering away from the main arteries carry the sound of a hen’s happy cackles after laying an egg. A quiet flock of bantams (miniature breeds of chickens) scours a grassy parking strip for beetles and worms. Behind flowering pink dogwoods, a compact coop built on stilts has plump hens with vivid black and red plumage scratching underneath.
Portland residents and all other city, town, and country animal lovers with farm fresh tastes are bringing small flocks of chickens back into the garden. And for good reason, too. No other farm animal is as adaptable to small-space living as is the chicken. Miniature pigs are small in name only and in reality are quite heavy on the hoof. Cows are too large, goats are too destructive, and horses need special and spacious accommodations and recreation. But chickens can join a household with no more difficulty than a cockatiel, rabbit, or reptile. Chickens don’t get too big, don’t need specialized care, and don’t need to be taken out for a walk. How about that? Chickens are easy, chickens are fun, chickens are in.
Lately, no matter where I go, everyone is talking chicken. On the bus, riders discuss the different shades of egg colors laid by their hens. In the grocery store, a little girl runs up to her mother with a head of lettuce, pleading, “Can we get this for the chickens, Mom?” Local newspapers carry feature articles about chickens, their coops, their owners. Slowly, surely, chickens are migrating in small flocks back into hearts and gardens all across North America.
Surprisingly, most large cities in all 50 states of the United States permit residents to keep two, three, or more hens. (For a partial list of many big cities that allow residents to keep chickens, see the appendix.) Most municipal codes permit chickens in residential areas, subject to one or more codified stipulations (aka “the Law”). For example, the chicken house may be required to be a minimum distance from neighbors’ residences. Nuisance codes prohibit the indefinite clucking of happy hens, and health regulations specify coop sanitation standards, such as cleaning the coop once or twice a week, and more often in summer. Most city codes aren’t that restrictive. In fact, city codes that pertain to keeping chickens are quite reasonable. If you don’t keep too many chickens, you can raise chickens in the city.
Beyond the realm of keeping of a few chickens for pets or eggs exists the world of fancy poultry. No, we’re not talking about chickens in tuxedos and slinky gowns attending a black-tie charity event. Think chicken show — a grand, competitive get-together for folks who have elevated their chicken ownership from mere amusement and incidental practicality to a deep and abiding appreciation for breeding diverse, interesting, and beautiful chickens. These “professional” chicken lovers are known as chicken fanciers or poultry fanciers. They raise their purebred birds according to the American Poultry Association’s American Standard of Perfection, the undisputed blueprint for the standard characteristics of each officially recognized breed. Each year, several hundred poultry shows are held in the United States and abroad where chickens and their owners strut their stuff.
After raising two or three chicks to adult hens, smiling at their antics, and collecting their eggs, you might become really excited about chickens. You may even want to raise poultry for show or for meat. My advice: Don’t do it! Raising chickens to show or to butcher for the meat is an entirely different experience from keeping a few hens to provide enough laughs and eggs year-round for you and your family. Raising chickens for meat or show involves a significantly greater amount of time, expense, and space than keeping a small flock of pet chickens. There’s also the rooster problem. The most economical way of raising chickens is to keep a rooster for fertilizing your hens’ eggs. Because nearly all cities and towns have laws prohibiting keeping roosters within their limits, you most likely cannot have a rooster, and therefore no baby chicks. But that’s okay — you will have plenty of fresh eggs to enjoy and share with family, friends, and neighbors.
However, if you are absolutely sure that you need more chickens, gratify your need, but not at your neighbors’ expense. A few hens are charming; more than a dozen can get quite noisy, even without a rooster crowing all day. To keep you, your neighbors, and your chickens happy, keep larger flocks of chickens on oversized lots or on acreage as far away from neighbors’ windows as you can. Never keep more chickens in your residential yard than is permitted by law. Folks who flout the law and the common sense restrictions about keeping large numbers of fowl on too small a parcel of property create a headache for neighbors and city employees and give city chickens a bad name.
One final note. While referring to chickens throughout this book, what I actually mean is hens, because roosters usually aren’t allowed within city and town limits and outlying areas. So, when I mean rooster, I’ll say rooster; otherwise, I mean hen.
The number one misconception about keeping chickens is that chickens are difficult and time consuming to care for. I’ve had parakeets. I have chickens. The chickens are easier. They’re also more practical (ever bake with parakeet eggs?) and physically heartier (chickens don’t drop dead in slight drafts).
Like dogs, cats, and other household pets, chickens have basic needs: shelter, food, proper sanitation, and some exercise. But once a small flock of chickens is established in your yard, for the most part all you’ll have to do is watch them and eat their eggs. The biggest investment of time for your chickens comes at the front end of the flock — designing and building chicken facilities.
A chicken’s home is composed of the coop (a fenced outdoor area for chickens) and the henhouse (a small shelter located inside the coop). The size and style of the coop and henhouse depend on your creativity, your available yard space, the setback requirements of city code, and the number of hens you expect to keep. Chapter 5 offers advice and instructions for building a coop and henhouse.
The henhouse and coop should have clean, dry bedding material to absorb moisture and odor. I recommend spreading a layer of cedar chips and topping it off with a layer of chopped straw. The combination of cedar and straw absorbs moisture, cancels out some of that “fresh barnyard smell,” and is easy to muck out. Depending on the weather, and no less than once a week, the coop and henhouse will need to be cleaned out. Cleaning the coop takes no more time than cleaning out a hamster cage or bathing your dog. See chapter 7 for details.
Chicken chores boil down to keeping the coop and henhouse clean, providing plenty of fresh food and water, and collecting eggs.
You’ll have to check every day to make sure the chickens have plenty of food and water. The best way to ensure your hungry hens never want for food is to fill a large stainless-steel feeder several times a week with chicken feed. Of course, it’s also fun to hang out with your chickens and hand-feed them table scraps (plain breads, pastas, vegetables, and certain fruits). Your hens’ ravenous appreciation won’t go unnoticed.
Although not known for being great athletes, chickens do like their daily exercise. For this reason, a roomy coop is important. Chickens should have plenty of space to dig, dust themselves, and flap their wings. But even if you have a spacious coop, you should let your chickens out into a fenced-in section of your yard a couple of times a week, even if only for a couple of hours before sundown. They will run, flap, hunt for bugs, and otherwise entertain you. Who needs television?
One of the reasons for keeping a small flock of chickens is the delicious eggs you will get. Fresh eggs are rich. Fresh eggs are fabulous. Fresh eggs rule! Once you’ve tasted one of your hens’ eggs fresh from your own garden, store-bought eggs will forever after taste bland and light. Some people — especially those raised on a lifetime of commercial eggs — think this yolky decadence is too rich to eat. If you are one of these people, then you can give away the eggs and simply enjoy the chickens. But if you’re like me, you’ll become a fresh egg snob that gazes upon commercial eggs with patronizing tolerance at best, and with outright mockery on days when you are feeling a wee bit cranky.
Why am I wild about fresh eggs? Just crack one open and take a look. You’ll notice first, in trying to break open the egg, that the shell is resilient and tough to crack. You can use a bit of strength when cracking a fresh egg; it won’t collapse in your hand like those thin-skinned commercial eggs.
Crack the fresh egg into a heated pan bubbling with butter. Your eye will go right to the yolk. Oh, the yolk! If you’re a yolk person, like me, you’ll be amazed by the bulging round mound of yolk that stands tall in your fresh egg. You’ll be entranced by the much darker and bolder color of the yolk — it’s more orange than yellow. Then the egg white gets your attention. Rather than thinning out and waning away from that robust yolk, the egg white holds its own in the frying pan. It’s more viscous than its commercial counterpart and spreads more slowly. As it cooks, it becomes the whitest egg white you’ve ever seen. Fork it in, and you’ll see that it tastes as buttery as it looks.
The freshness of homegrown eggs fills out the flavor of your cooking. Cakes and omelets come out with more flavor and a denser, richer texture. Pancakes taste sweeter, and custards are silkier.
Poultry Tribune, circa 1940.
Chicken eggs are as chickens eat. Feed your chickens organic pellets and scratch, and you will have organic eggs. Nonorganic chicken-laying feed is also available — at $5 less per 50-pound (23 kg) bag, your hens will get all the nutrition they need, and your eggs will be fresh, though not technically organic. Toss in some kitchen scraps like leftover greens, vegetables, fruits, and a little day-old bread and pasta. Your chickens will be so happy that they will make their eggs taste even better for you!
A note about the term organic: There are relative degrees of organic, as specified by recent federal regulation. Basically, organic means something grown without the use of pesticides or other synthetic chemical agents. You may consider your eggs to be organic because you are “growing” them in your backyard, even if you are feeding your hens the less expensive nonorganic feed. Organic purists would argue that organic eggs are truly so only if the hens are fed only certified organic feed, are fed no nonorganic scraps, eat no grass or weeds from a nonorganic lawn, and receive no antibiotic treatments. You, in turn, might want to pull out your hair. In truth, at this time in our history, the definition of organic is not only relative but also personal. The bottom line is that if you feed your chickens a healthy, balanced diet, the eggs they lay for you will always be sweet and tasty.
Hens lay an egg about every 25 hours. Sometimes they skip a day of egg laying. (They skip several days or weeks of egg laying when they molt in the fall.) It’s usually nothing to worry about, unless accompanied by visible symptoms of discomfort or unusual behavior. Sometimes Lucy will skip two days of laying, then lay two eggs the following day. The other two hens will skip a day here and there. Altogether, the Girls provide me with up to 20 eggs per week. Counting the cost of their feed, that works out to about 50¢ per dozen of fresh brown eggs.
For truly organic eggs at just about 50¢ per dozen, feed your hens organic laying feed and organic greens.
Most hens lay brownish eggs, sometimes with a pink, red, orange, or lavender hue. You can tell what color egg a hen will lay by the color of her ears (yes, chickens have ears). They are located behind and slightly below a chicken’ eyes and can be partially feathered over. If you gently push the feathers aside, you will see the skinlike texture of the ear opening. This color roughly corresponds to the color of the eggs the hen lays. Hens with reddish or pink ears will lay brown eggs; pale-eared chickens lay white eggs.
Zsa Zsa, my Barred Plymouth Rock hen, lays slim, dark pink eggs with a brownish tinge and a flat finish. The eggs of other Rocks I’ve seen ranged in color from light to very dark pink; some had a shiny, not flat, finish. My Rhode Island hen, Lucy, lays reddish brown eggs with tiny brown speckles. Whoopee, the Australorp, lays glossy eggs that are brown with dark red and orange hues. After collecting several days’ worth of eggs, I put the bounty in a white ceramic bowl on my dining room table, where the mound of fresh eggs glows like a multifaceted brown-hued jewel.
Check the henhouse daily for eggs and, if you can, collect them promptly after they are laid. They need to be brought in and refrigerated within the day to prolong their freshness. See chapter 7 for more information on egg handling.
Having fresh eggs is a joy and a privilege. A joy because nothing else tastes like a fresh egg, and a privilege because not everyone enjoys the company of hens like my friends and I do. As more folks discover how easy and rewarding it is to keep chickens and it again becomes common to keep a garden flock, I hope for more egg joy and less egg privilege for everyone.
In deference to folks who may not like eggs or who are allergic to them, forgive the egg-centric tenor of the preceding paragraphs. For you folks, bird beauty, not egg production rates, is reason enough to have an urban flock. You can appreciate your chickens as pets and mobile lawn décor and also give the gift of eggs to family and friends.
Hens lay an egg about every 25 hours.
Collect eggs every day, and store them in the refrigerator to prolong their freshness.
Chickens love bug hunting. More to the point, they live for bug hunting — it’s a hen’s Holy Grail. Something about digging up a plump worm or juicy beetle drives the Girls crazy. Which is fine by me, as I am not particularly fond of worms, beetles, or any other wriggly or creepy life-forms that could potentially crawl up my pant legs or into my ears.
Since I started keeping chickens, the pest population in my garden has noticeably decreased. Creepy crawlies cower in fear before the Girls. Earwigs, centipedes, and beetles shake on all their legs as my hens thunder up to the rock or dirt hill concealing the unfortunate insects. A flip of the beak, and bugs be gone. More protein for the Girls, fewer bugs for me to squash. A perfect match, and I can’t think of a more natural approach to pest control.
However, when the Girls are out controlling pests in the garden, I have to control the Girls. In the excitement of the hunt, my bell-bottomed ladies can trample a garden plot of lettuce in three minutes flat. You wouldn’t think that a bird or two could be so hard on a garden, but the Girls are no canaries! When you let your chickens range free in your yard, you may want to fence off — permanently or temporarily — anything you don’t want crushed, dug up, or eaten. Or you can plant a garden resilient to chickens, such as a hardy, drought-resistant lawn bordered by evergreen arborvitaes, spiny conifers, and some rocks. (I’m exaggerating, but you get the idea.)
About pesticides — I no longer use them. I don’t need to, because the Girls get the bugs. And because the Girls eat the bugs, I don’t use pesticides; the chemicals might harm them. Chickens pick at and taste everything. So if you use pesticides or lawn or flower fertilizer in the garden, keep your hens in the coop for a few days afterward until the chemical additives have been absorbed or thoroughly washed away.
Whoever thought I’d be singing the praises of chicken poop? I am, and I’m not the only one. Chickens are walking nitrogen-rich manure bins. The Girls’ manure is the envy of my gardening friends. When I fluff up the Girls’ coop, I take the generous deposits of chicken guano and straw from beneath their sleeping perch and put it right in the compost bin. I store my leftover guano straw in extra trash cans that my friends line up for and haul away for their own compost bins. Nitrogen is an essential ingredient in great compost, and chickens are just full of it!
In the winter, I throw the guano-laced straw right on top of the fallow vegetable gardens. Then I let the Girls out into the yard, and they beeline right for the vegetable patches, where they spend glorious hours searching for bugs in the soft soil and digging the compost materials deep into the dirt.
Some chicken keepers put their flock in a small mobile pen to create a movable compost bin. They move the pen in the yard every few weeks, bringing it to areas where the soil needs to be worked and amended. The chickens till their own nitrogen-rich guano into the soil of the pen, fertilizing the land directly under their living quarters. These types of pens are best suited to larger yards that can accommodate a roving 3' x 4' x 2' (91 x 122 x 61 cm) structure.
Chickens are natural partners in a complete home recycling program. Since I’ve had chickens, no leftover fruits, vegetables, or breads go to waste. Instead, the Girls get it all, which delights them from the tops of their rough combs to the tips of their sharp toes. Besides, all those lovely, fibrous scraps just make them poop more, which gives me more guano to go in the compost bin. Feeding kitchen scraps and leftovers to a flock of city chickens is a win-win event.
Your chickens will gladly take over pest patrol in your garden.
Chicken manure is a potent fertilizer.
Chickens are beautiful. Chickens are fun. Chickens are also a bit rambunctious. Left to run unattended in your garden, gentle hens take on the demeanor of roadhouse thugs. They break blossoms. They crush tender shoots. They pull up baby lettuce and lay siege to unsuspecting squash seedlings. They don’t mean to; they’re just a band of happy, clumsy hens.
When I first started keeping chickens, I’d let them out of their coop and into my garden. I’d watch them a bit, then go back into the house. Two hours later, I’d go back outside and wonder where my garden went. Left behind was a landscape of freshly dug and scattered soil, several shallow holes, and rootballs and rhizomes laid bare, vulnerable and drying up on the sunny topsoil. While I appreciated how thoroughly the chickens had aerated my garden, I was disappointed not to have any plant life remaining that could have benefited from their efforts.
I quickly realized that my hens became hoodlums when left unpenned and unattended. Still, I wanted to enjoy watching them browse through my garden on occasion without sacrificing years of nurtured foliage. I wanted them to keep eating all those delicious bugs, too, so I came up with a couple of ideas.
The first part of the plan was to limit the time the Girls had to themselves in the garden. Instead of letting them out for hours at a time, I let them romp freely for about a half hour before dusk. With a limited amount of time, the Girls can crush only so much in the garden. I don’t take any chances with delicate plants like bleeding heart and maidenhair ferns and delicious greens like baby lettuce. I have a large yellow push broom and a wide orange rake that, happily for me, seem to strike fear in the hearts of the Girls, even when the tools are simply propped against a fence. I place the broom and rake across beds that are off limits. The hens, certain that these tools are instruments of chicken torture, tend to steer clear.
Make sure delicate garden plants are protected from free-ranging chickens.
To minimize their trampling, let hens out into your yard for only an hour before dark.
As a second part of the plan, I let the Girls out only at dusk. Part of the reason they dig holes so frenetically is to cool themselves; the earth below the sun-warmed topsoil is cool and soothing. At sundown, they aren’t as likely to dig holes for their cooling comfort, because the warmest part of the day is already gone.
I allow the Girls long, leisurely hours in the yard when I’m gardening. This way, if I catch them digging near ferns or flowers unguarded by Bad Broom and Rake of Death, I can promptly shoo them away. Anyway, hanging out in the garden with my chickens is fun for me and for them. The Girls like to think they are helping me if they are directly underfoot. If I’m turning soil in spring, they crowd around like kids at an ice cream counter, waiting for me to turn up fresh, juicy worms. When I prune or trim plants and shrubs, the Girls like to stand by the pile and taste the tossed clippings. They’ll sneak up behind me, grab a twig from the debris, and run off with it as if hoarding valuable treasure.
More recently, my spouse came up with a great idea for allowing the Girls out in the yard without close supervision: a temporary fence. Think “baby gate” for chickens. It is made of heavy-duty netting that is 3 feet (90 cm) high and spooled like a bolt of fabric. One end is secured to a post near the fence in my yard, and the other end is stapled to a sturdy wood dowel that extends about 8 inches (20 cm) below the bottom of the net. I’ve sunk a PVC pipe in the ground at a point across the yard from the fence post. Before letting the Girls out of their coop, I roll the net across the yard and drop the end of the dowel into the open mouth of the PVC pipe. This divides my garden into two sections — mine and the hens’. The system is somewhat primitive, but it effectively seals off half of the yard from my cheerfully marauding chickens. You could also construct fencing with wooden dowels at either end and sink PVC pipes in several strategic locations so that you could fence off different portions of the yard.
The Girls maintain total rule on the narrower front portion of the temporarily fenced area just outside their coop. The rest of the yard belongs to me. In the front section, I coincidentally had plants that were resilient to heavy hen feet: established rhododendron, azalea, arborvitae, camellia, raspberry, mint, and other evergreen, woody shrubs (miniature conifers look adorable with chickens mingled among them). None of these plants has ever sustained much wear and tear during the chickens’ pleasant pillaging. The larger back section behind the net fencing has all my delicate plants, including the ferns, peonies, and vegetables.
Poultry Tribune, circa 1940.
Yet another benefit of having a garden flock of chickens is being able to enjoy their beauty. That’s right, their beauty. Considering the great variety of plumage colors, patterns, and styles, I think chickens are the most beautiful birds in the fowl world.
This temporary, lightweight, portable chicken fence can be made for a minimal cost with items purchased at a local hardware store.
Unfortunately, the beauty of chickens has been eclipsed by their unglamorous and historically utilitarian role as meat and egg suppliers. A chicken’s many colors and pleasing symmetry are generally overlooked by a chicken-deprived public. Keeping small flocks of colorful hens in the garden is like celebrating a live art form, with egg dividends daily.
Over the years, I’ve seen and read about many different breeds of chickens. While I really do love getting fresh eggs, I didn’t pick the Girls solely for their egg-laying reputations. I picked them for their looks. I like them big. The bigger, the better. Being of petite stature, I seem naturally drawn to big things: big cars, big dinners, big rooms, big coffee mugs, and, of course, big chickens. Not that I don’t appreciate the smaller bantam breeds. There’s nothing quite as elegant as a snow white Silkie or a regal, fancy-tailed Japanese, two of the few true bantam breeds. But for me, the sight of an 8-pound Australorp hen heaving her broad breasts toward me during her rendition of “running” is both impressive and amusing. See chapter 6 for more detailed information on selecting the right breed of chicken for your urban coop.
I also love the Girls’ beautiful plumage: a dark red-orange Rhode Island Red; a jet-black Australorp whose feathers shimmer with green hues in the sunlight; and a black-and-white, herringbone-patterned Barred Plymouth Rock. Their bright colors are vivid against my thick, rarely mowed lawn and contrast nicely with the paint on their henhouse — a bright yellow and blue, with royal purple trim. When the Girls are walking slowly, as they usually do, their pleasantly plump bodies float across the lawn like big, colorful koi in a pond.
As for stress reduction and relaxation, backyard koi ponds and bubbling fountains have nothing on a flock of urban chickens. After a stressful day at the office, nothing makes me feel better than heading out into the backyard, sitting down in a lawn chair on the patio, and watching the Girls stretch their scaly gams. Gazing blankly at my pets peacefully clucking around on the lawn takes my stress down several notches and always gets me laughing.
The Girls love when I talk to them; during their babyhood, I spoke to them often so they’d become comfortable around me. The tiny Girls would fall asleep in my cupped hands while I spoke quietly to them. Listening to hours of my chick-happy monologues while growing up accustomed the Girls to my voice. As full-grown hens, they still enjoy my voice — sometimes too much. One evening I let the Girls out behind their coop, an area beneath my dining room window. I opened the window and started talking to them, and they happily cooed and scratched below. Except for Zsa Zsa. She suddenly jumped up at the window. She hovered briefly near the sill, flapping madly, before clumsily fluttering back down to the ground, grounded again. Perhaps she missed me and wanted to catch a glimpse. Or (more likely) she thought I was holding a fresh cob of corn and wanted to beat the other Girls to it.
Fresh egg yolks are dark yellow or bright orange because backyard chickens (unlike their commercial cousins) eat lots of greens and vegetables that contain beta-carotene.
While chickens are not wired for affection and loyalty in the same manner as a cat or dog, they are friendly and loving in their own way. They don’t cuddle with me on the sofa in front of the television, but the Girls do show me chicken-style love. If nothing else, I am their favorite walking food dispenser. When the Girls hear my approach — chickens have great hearing and sight, but not great senses of taste and smell — they all run to the coop door. Their clucking picks up pace as they jostle each other out of the way for a better view of me. Well, I like to think it’s me; they probably just have their eyes set on the lawn or any food goodies in my hand. When I open the coop door, they spill out like ecstatic concertgoers, each barreling her way to the front of the line on their rush to the lawn. If I’m in the coop and bending down to tend to chicken stuff, Zsa Zsa will jump up onto my shoulder and pull at my hair. Or she’ll peck at my jeans or untie my shoelaces when I stand still for a bit. Lucy and Whoopee aren’t as cuddly, but they do like to hang out close to me, even when they have the entire yard available to them. Again, I won’t flatter myself — they probably just don’t want to miss any potential edible handouts — but I enjoy their company just the same.
My friends, my spouse, and I have learned that watching chickens in the yard will bring a smile to anyone’s face. What’s so darn funny about them? Here are a few brief tales of the Girls’ escapades. However, I recommend that you watch and laugh at your own chickens. Chicken humor, like most comedy, is a highly subjective experience.
The Girls come tumbling out of their coop and onto the lawn. Zsa Zsa suddenly turns around, then dashes forward. She stops on a dime and, without any encouragement from the other Girls, shoots a couple of feet straight up into the air. Now Lucy and Whoopee get revved up, probably as a result of Zsa Zsa’s floor show. Soon three crazy chickens are running around and jumping up into the air for no apparent reason. Suddenly, perhaps embarrassed by their awkward and poorly choreographed modern dance outburst, the Girls try to trick me into thinking I’ve just hallucinated a flock of bouncing chickens. They freeze in their chicken tracks, glance nonchalantly from side to side, and then bend down to nibble on blades of grass, as if nothing happened. I watch them for some time, but the Girls continue to cluck and munch quietly without any further jumping for apparent chicken joy.
The Girls gather under a butterfly bush and quietly, contentedly peruse for insects in the soil. All is quiet. Then a shrill, panicked scream pierces the air. I look up to see Zsa Zsa running off with a beetle kicking several pairs of legs wildly in her beak. The other Girls are in hot pursuit and are also screaming. Chicken screams sound like an elongated, screeching “cheeeeeeP, cheeeeeeP” done over and over again until it resembles a single, continuous ear-piercing shriek. Suddenly, Zsa Zsa’s concentration falters in the cacophony, and Lucy deftly moves in. With a single, undercutting motion Lucy snags the beetle from Zsa Zsa’s beak with her own. Lucy is now running across the lawn, screaming. Whoopee jumps out of the bushes into Lucy’s meandering path, the beetle drops, and Zsa Zsa comes out of the backfield, picks it up, and runs off into the direct path of Whoopee. This went on for a while until the beetle escaped (not likely) or was eaten (snap, crackle, crunch!).
Several friends and I are seated around a picnic table on the lawn. The Girls are pecking the grass near our feet. Zsa Zsa jumps up onto the picnic bench next to one of my friends. Lucy jumps up next to me. Then Zsa Zsa jumps up onto the table. Lucy follows. The two Girls are strutting atop the table like animated centerpieces. They cajole for crackers. They beg for cheese puffs. They whine for beer. They are shameless, as chickens have no idea what shame is. My friends comply with my request never to feed chickens at the table. Zsa Zsa gets impatient and jumps up on my shoulder. Lucy mimics Zsa Zsa and jumps up onto my other shoulder. Everyone is laughing. Everyone but me. I’m held motionless under 15 pounds of shoulder-mounted urban chickens.
The Girls get more than their share of visitors. Company loves the Girls, and the Girls love all the company. Since chickens joined our family, friends and neighbors have been regularly inviting themselves over to visit. They say they are coming to see me, but I know better. After a few perfunctory greetings and hospitable words, the conversation always turns to the hens. “So . . . how are the Girls?” Pretty soon, everybody is marching outside to the coop to visit them.
Our community coop culture became evident even as the first pine studs went up to frame the coop. Friends and family took an immediate interest in the project. My neighbors’ children came over, asked questions about chickens, and even participated in building the coop. Everybody was always asking, “Is the coop done?” and “Have you got the chickens yet?” It was chicken talk, all the time. My Mom and Dad, themselves former farm folks, gave me loads of advice and then surprised me with pop quizzes on my chicken IQ. These sweet, simple-minded birds were the hot topic in all conversations with everyone we knew. My pet flock had inadvertently become a family and community project.
You may have a Ping-Pong table, a satellite television, or an RV. No matter how many extracurricular amusements you have, once you add a pet flock of chickens to your household, you’ll never have another boring day at home.
Henry David Thoreau, one of the nineteenth century’s great American writers, original thinkers, and vanguard nature buffs, believed in self-reliance and simplicity. Throughout Walden, one of his most famous works, Thoreau links the striving to simplify life with actively participating in the act of feeding oneself. By simplifying the means and ends of sustenance and, therefore, self-reliance, Thoreau believed, we would be closer to nature, to Earth, and eventually to ourselves.
Quality of life meant everything to Thoreau. According to him, such quality could be achieved by trimming away the extraneous, complex, and distracting elements of daily life. He emphasized simplicity and respect for the natural world and its animal inhabitants. In his literature, he seemed in awe of animals, even a common sparrow: “I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment . . . and I felt I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.”
Poultry Tribune, circa 1940.
If Thoreau was so moved by a sparrow, imagine how he would have felt about chickens! Of course, chickens don’t “alight” upon anything, especially on one’s shoulder, but they are one of the natural world’s greatest little creatures. What domesticated animal can feed large amounts of people while not encroaching on large tracts of land in the process? What so-called food animal has such varied beauty throughout its breeds? What animal can participate in and enhance our daily routine while requiring so little in return? The chicken.
I understood Walden intellectually, but it wasn’t until I started keeping chickens that I really understood what Thoreau was writing about. What happens when I run out of eggs? Do I get dressed, grab my purse and car keys, gun the cold car engine with a gush of fossil fuel, and rush down residential streets to the Super Mart for a box of uniform, fragile white eggs laid who knows how long ago? I don’t think so! Still in my pajamas, I open the back door, walk the short distance to my backyard henhouse, and gather the fresh eggs that are waiting for me, thanks to my small flock of hens. This is a lot simpler than what I used to do, and much more enjoyable.
The reemergence of chickens in America’s backyards is a testament to the longevity of Thoreau’s values. In an age when we’re more and more estranged from nature and simplicity, I’m confident Thoreau would approve of chickens in the city.
I had initially approached my egg-laying garden chickens as a hobby — a fun and practical hobby. Now, I can’t imagine life without the Girls clucking and scratching around in the yard. In a simple and affirming way, my chickens are daily reminders of the good things in my life.