July 25, 2007
Cluck Cluck
[edited to add that I wrote this right before I made the hosting change - the girls have started laying now! Posts to follow.]
So a few months ago my husband and I decided to research an idea I’d been nursing for several years - chickens in the backyard.
I got the idea a few years ago when I saw an ad for the “Eglu” in a British gardening magazine but set the dream aside as I was bouncing from apartment to apartment and besides, surely it was just too weird! Then last March I saw an article about chickens in the city. Apparently it’s becoming quite the trend in Seattle, WA and Madison, WI and even a few blocks from my office there is a large community coop I knew nothing about. The dream was reawakened!
We live in an inner-ring suburb of Minneapolis, just about 50 feet from the city line. It’s a pretty typical 50s style ‘burb with close homes and smallish yards. I looked up the city rules and was shocked to find out that we could have two chickens without so much as a single piece of paperwork. Doesn’t everything involve paperwork these days?? More than two and you need a permit but we’ll worry about that if the day comes.
We chatted with local chicken keepers who assured us that chickens were less work than cats. We read books. We chatted with both our neighbors, those closest to the planned coop site thought it a great idea, those on the other side just looked at us quizzically and shrugged. Over and over we assured everyone that it would just be two hens, roosters aren’t allowed. We built the coop, researched breeds for docility and egg production, and didn’t tell our friends or family for fear of being laughed at.
In May we went to a local farm and garden store and picked out our two chickens, a silver-laced wyandotte and a gold-laced wyandotte. Since my husband is English and we already have a golden retriever named Saffron, the hens were promptly named Eddy and Patsy after Ab Fab. We opted to get three-month-old pullets as despite the cuteness of the chicks, we wanted eggs sooner and didn’t want to deal with brooding pens and whatnot.
Eddy and Patsy have demonstrated far more personality than I expect from chickens. Eddy is friendly and inquisitive, the first to jump up on my chair and say hello. Patsy is a bit more skittish and will stand back and squawk for a few moments before joining Eddy. They spend most of their time in their two-story coop. Upstairs are the sleeping quarters with roost, pine shavings, and now a nest box. Downstairs is scratching heaven with lots of dirt and bugs (the grass was gone within two weeks). Every evening we try to get them out for a bit of free-ranging in the yard, hopefully eating away at ticks and spiders so I don’t have to face them in the garden.
I’m amazed at how the introduction of chickens into our life has made our little suburban homestead just a bit more sustainable. Almost any fruits and veggies we have left after a meal go to the chickens, their dirty bedding goes into the compost bin where the stinky poo becomes gardening gold, the compost goes to the garden to help the veggies grow, and round and round again. Sure, it’s a pretty small scale but it’s better than nothing.
When I finally told my parents about our new livestock my mom merely gave me that patented Mother look and said “Oh, Kate” with a sigh of disbelief. But she’ll change her mind once she tastes one of our ladies fabulous eggs. Any concern about what the neighbors think is easily written off when we point out that their three-year-old daughter keeps a chair right next the fence looking into the chicken coop. She has even been spotted trying to talk to the chickens.
Eddy and Patsy haven’t started laying yet but it could happen any day now. I may not be a morning person but you can bet that I always leave enough time before work to pop out to the coop, say good morning to the girls, and check for an egg in the nest box. And when I finally do find one, it’s likely to be me doing the crowing.
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