backyard city chickens

(if someone's already started a thread like this, please add my post to it)
i was walking through my neighborhood a few minutes ago and saw a guy feeding the 3 chickens he keeps in a gorgeous coop in his backyard. he was kind enough to let me visit with them, and sent me home with a warm, freshly laid, egg. now i'm wondering if any LTH'ers are raising city chickens.

I don't personaly but I've been interested in the idea for some time.
I reccently I ran across this article in the Tribune and if I ever get my act together I'd like to give it a go.

My neighbors on the other hand may not be so excited about it.

zoid wrote:I don't personaly but I've been interested in the idea for some time.
I reccently I ran across this article in the Tribune and if I ever get my act together I'd like to give it a go.

My neighbors on the other hand may not be so excited about it.

i'm not sure why your neighbors would care. only a crowing rooster should be annoying to neighbors, and no rooster is required to just have egg laying hens.....

We have feral chickens in our neighborhood. They surface every once in a while, but mostly stay out of sight in the woods.

HI,

There has been a discussion on 'The Chicken Ban'.

Publicist Ellen Malloy has laying chickens as well as hoop houses on her urban farm aka as a city lot.

Regards,

Ha, a two-fer to plug things I like to plug!

The Local Beet covered backyard chicken raising a few years ago http://www.thelocalbeet.com/2010/03/13/the-chicken-lady

And those interested in backyard chicken raising, one of the sessions at Saturday's Good Food Festival is on the topic
http://goodfoodfestivals.com/chicago/make-your-own

stevez wrote:We have feral chickens in our neighborhood. They surface every once in a while, but mostly stay out of sight in the woods.

Oomph, that is sooooo amazing.

One of Steve's neighborhood feral chicken:

Cathy2 wrote:One of Steve's neighborhood feral chicken:

That looks like Gladys!

justjoan wrote:

zoid wrote:I don't personaly but I've been interested in the idea for some time.
I reccently I ran across this article in the Tribune and if I ever get my act together I'd like to give it a go.

My neighbors on the other hand may not be so excited about it.

i'm not sure why your neighbors would care. only a crowing rooster should be annoying to neighbors, and no rooster is required to just have egg laying hens.....

If not properly cleaned and maintained, chickens can really stink! My town approved chickens but has real specific guidelines about distances from neighbors structures. I helped with a chicken operation a long time ago and it's still a scar on my memory!

Cathy2 wrote:HI,

There has been a discussion on 'The Chicken Ban'.

Publicist Ellen Malloy has laying chickens as well as hoop houses on her urban farm aka as a city lot.

Regards,

It's her home. Her girls are lovely and laid while I was there. I took a few eggs home. So, cool to hold a warm, darn near hot, egg in my hand. Oh, and you already know they were delicious.

Seriously, still loving SteveZ's feral chickens. I found this piece about feral chickens in NOLA http://www.nola.com/pets/index.ssf/2011 ... ferat.html

pairs4life wrote:
Seriously, still loving SteveZ's feral chickens.

When you go to the LTH Picnic, take a look around the woods. You might just run into 'em, although I see them on the west side of Cicero more often.

LikestoEatout wrote:

justjoan wrote:

zoid wrote:I don't personaly but I've been interested in the idea for some time.
I reccently I ran across this article in the Tribune and if I ever get my act together I'd like to give it a go.

My neighbors on the other hand may not be so excited about it.

i'm not sure why your neighbors would care. only a crowing rooster should be annoying to neighbors, and no rooster is required to just have egg laying hens.....

If not properly cleaned and maintained, chickens can really stink! My town approved chickens but has real specific guidelines about distances from neighbors structures. I helped with a chicken operation a long time ago and it's still a scar on my memory!

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm referring to. I'm not afraid of cleaning, I'm just afraid that if I get called out of town for work I'll return to find I'm persona non grata.

If not properly cleaned and maintained, chickens can really stink! My town approved chickens but has real specific guidelines about distances from neighbors structures. I helped with a chicken operation a long time ago and it's still a scar on my memory!

oops, i forgot about the maintenance/smelly issue. my neighbor's backyard was certainly pristine.

Has anyone read Birdology? I loved the first chapter in particular, which was the story of "the Ladies" (aka her chickens). I had no idea they had such personalities.

stevez wrote:

pairs4life wrote:
Seriously, still loving SteveZ's feral chickens.

When you go to the LTH Picnic, take a look around the woods. You might just run into 'em, although I see them on the west side of Cicero more often.

That would totally stop me from enjoying your company, I got worked up over 3 inch orchids in a Wisco bog a couple of years ago, the elusive feral chicken in the city would blow me away.

My town of Brookfield recently changed the village ordnance to allow for backyard chickens. The process involved a lot of or back in forth in the local paper as well as voluntary open coop tours by locals raising chickens.

http://rblandmark.com/print.asp?ArticleID=7857&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1
http://brookfieldchickens.blogspot.com/

Having spent a lot of time in other countries there are many towns where it is at least as common as not to have chickens as well as larger animals like turkeys, goats, or even pigs. My wife's grandma buys three pigs every spring and keeps half a dozen chickens and her lot is smaller than the quarter acre most people have here.

I do not believe there is any reason that keeping the poultry would necessary impact neighbors at all. Like the previous posts have said chickens can have a lot of personality and be very social.

Beside, weather or not the chickens are a good idea the fresh eggs in my refrigerator right now certainly have a lot of merit.

After 10 years of chickens in the city, I'm done. Yep, the eggs are great, they're fun pets, and they're relatively easy to look after. "Relatively" being the operative word. They poop a lot. Everywhere. They attract pests, such as pigeons and rats, who also poop a lot, and spread the plague and whatnot. Chickens also seem to attract raccoons. Lock picking, super strength, giant greasy raccoons that decapitate your chickens but don't bother to eat them. Trapping is illegal in Chicago unless done by licensed professionals, who then charge $100 a pop, minimum. Since losing 5/6ths of our flock ten years ago, we've set traps every July, and we've caught at least one every year. But this past so-called winter has seen an explosion of wandering coons, looking for love in all the wrong places, namely my yard. Caught 2 coons in January, and returned from vacation in February to find that the house sitter neglected to lock the old biddies in one night, and now there are none.

That's the other problem; the hens go into menopause after a couple years and stop laying. Then you find out what kind of stuff you're made of. Personally, I'm made of stuff that doesn't want to eat stringy, tough bird named Mabel. So you just keep feeding them and their friends, the pigeon clan and sparrow gang. And shoveling shit.

If you're not fortunate enough to lose them to the violent means of wild animals, and stupid enough to get more; you get to learn about all the wonderful diseases that they're prone to, and all the ones they can catch from wild birds. And if you're truly an idiot like myself, you can spend thousands of dollars getting them diagnosed. Sometimes, they just eat stupid stuff like an old screw they've dug up, and sometimes they're just egg bound and you get to learn how to pry eggs out of their ass, I mean, vent. Other times, you learn that all the old adages are true; such as birds of a feather flock together, and if you're not a matching bird the others will peck you to death. One interesting tidbit; chickens bred to grow fast for slaughter at 8 weeks of age will gorge themselves to death if allowed. (maybe she had an eating disorder, I have no idea) And that's yet another thing, any time someone finds a chicken crossing the road...they will bring it to you.

So if you're still interested, I've got a summer coop and 30# of scratch available to the first person that wants it. (I'm converting the winter coop into storage for the snowblower and shovels and raccoon traps, and other no longer necessary things)

dk, your post should appear at the beginning of every "Raising Chickens in the City" guide, as a way to chase off the folks who have romantic notions of enjoying freshly-laid eggs and being able to justify the purchase of a pair of overalls, but have no idea what they're really getting into. At the end it can say "If you're still here, let's continue on with the guide"

Khaopaat wrote:dk, your post should appear at the beginning of every "Raising Chickens in the City" guide, as a way to chase off the folks who have romantic notions of enjoying freshly-laid eggs and being able to justify the purchase of a pair of overalls, but have no idea what they're really getting into. At the end it can say "If you're still here, let's continue on with the guide"

My SO just informed me, after reading what I wrote, that I'm not the least bit funny.
Sooo, serving as a warning to others will have to suffice.

dk wrote: My SO just informed me, after reading what I wrote, that I'm not the least bit funny.
Sooo, serving as a warning to others will have to suffice.

Tell your SO I just laughed out loud. I got funny looks from my coworkers.

Hi,

My sister has a farm with a chicken coop. She will not raise chickens, because it attracts pests like coyotes, raccoons and such.

Another farm friend ran into another issue: teens who dabbled in satanic cult who decided to do a ritual slaughter with her laying hens. She would probably welcome the 'coon who only bit off the head, because the alternative she had was far more messy.

If you live out in rural areas, you may dispose of your retired laying hens by taking them to the weekly auction.

Regards,

dk wrote:

Khaopaat wrote:dk, your post should appear at the beginning of every "Raising Chickens in the City" guide, as a way to chase off the folks who have romantic notions of enjoying freshly-laid eggs and being able to justify the purchase of a pair of overalls, but have no idea what they're really getting into. At the end it can say "If you're still here, let's continue on with the guide"

My SO just informed me, after reading what I wrote, that I'm not the least bit funny.
Sooo, serving as a warning to others will have to suffice.

Your SO clearly doesn't know funny. Your post actually made me "LOL", as the kids are saying these days

dk: great post, i will never raise chickens in the city. and next time i see my neighbor, i'll ask if they want your summer coop, and 30# of scratch. if someone else wants it, will you post that they've been taken? thanks

Khaopaat wrote:

dk wrote:

Khaopaat wrote:dk, your post should appear at the beginning of every "Raising Chickens in the City" guide, as a way to chase off the folks who have romantic notions of enjoying freshly-laid eggs and being able to justify the purchase of a pair of overalls, but have no idea what they're really getting into. At the end it can say "If you're still here, let's continue on with the guide"

My SO just informed me, after reading what I wrote, that I'm not the least bit funny.
Sooo, serving as a warning to others will have to suffice.

Your SO clearly doesn't know funny. Your post actually made me "LOL", as the kids are saying these days

Yeah, brilliant post. Made me LOL, too.

=R=

stevez wrote:

Cathy2 wrote:One of Steve's neighborhood feral chicken:

That looks like Gladys!

Love her. The bag of fritos in the background, not so.much.

Count me in the laugh-out-loud group, too.

In a similarly funny vein, did anyone read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle where she talked about having heirloom turkeys that needed, ahem, so help in the procreation department? Just dug up this funny quote from another blog:

"Turkey sex is a much more widely written about topic than you might imagine. If you are looking for the very best example in publication of writing about turkey sex, I direct you to Barbara Kingsolver’s pivotal work Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Her description of turkey coitus cannot be beat. She manages to capture the teenage-boy-on-prom-night awkwardness of turkey sex while still not losing sight of the fact that we live in an age where turkey sex is a legitimate miracle. Turkeys have to be trained and encouraged to do something that virtually every other animal is born knowing how to do."

My brother keeps chickens in Ann Arbor. This is his second or third batch of 3 to 4 since they do seem to get wiped out by cats and/or raccoons a couple times a year.

dk wrote:After 10 years of chickens in the city, I'm done. Yep, the eggs are great, they're fun pets, and they're relatively easy to look after. "Relatively" being the operative word. They poop a lot........

This is one of the best things I've ever read about raising chickens. Almost everyone I know who has raised chickens pretty much ends up with the same attitude you so eloquently expressed.

Years ago I had a friend who was raising chickens at his house in NH. One night we were drinking on his porch and he went on a 30 minute rant about how much he hated the chickens, and covered many of the same points you brought up. He finished with "F^@% it. Let's eat 'em". So we did

pairs4life wrote:

stevez wrote:

Cathy2 wrote:One of Steve's neighborhood feral chicken:

That looks like Gladys!

Love her. The bag of fritos in the background, not so.much.

I don't know, I bet a Fritos fed chicken could be pretty good!

dk, you made me laugh out loud too (while eating leftover chicken at work).
Backyard chickens have been big news in Naperville too:

http://dailyherald.com/article/20111018/news/710189733/
http://napervillesun.suntimes.com/news/ ... ckens.html