Urban Chickens

[retroeva]

My husband approached me that he wanted to keep a couple of chickens in our back yard. We live in a duplex in a pretty suburban area of TN. Ive already checked out the city chicken's webpage and we are getting really excited. I was wondering if anyone else has chickens as pets in an urban to surburban area and if so what kinds of coops do you reccomend? Id like it to be a focal point in our backyard and not something that we would want to hide under an overgrown tree. I dont think we could go as ornate as the coveted chicken chapel, but we arent looking at a dog pen with a tarp over it either. We havent decided on a breed yet so I dont know how big it would be, so if you have a breed reccomendation that would be cool too.
Does anyone compost their "fertilizer" for their garden? And is there any thing crafty to do with their molted feathers?

We are only going to get hens, no rooster and we are looking forward to using the eggs. We will NOT be growing chickens to butcher as I am a vegetarian and my DH rarely eats meat anymore.

Thanks a million!

[bubbanizzlemomma]

I replied to this and my lovely computer literate almost 2 yo son closed the window LOL.

We have a single chicken.  She's a Rhode Island Red hen named Nice.  We live in a suburban area in the Florida panhandle, so Nice has the run of the yard....free range chickie 
Our weather here stays fairly nice (no pun intended) so we've never built her a coop.  She prefers to nest under an azalea bush.  She lays the most fabulous brown eggs.  They are twice the size of the so-called jumbos you can get at any store.

There's a Yahoo group you may be interested in, that has all sorts of different poultry breeds, and they don't look down their noses at backyard flocks. 
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Homestead_Poultry/


We got our Nice at a feed store for about $1.  She was a little rusty yellow puffball with huge feet.  She's a great watchdog.  If there's anything or anyone in the yard who shouldn't be, she squawks until we either go outside or it flees for it's life.  We feed her mixed grains, oystershell and a bit of cat food for protein.  As a result, we have milo plants growing in the yard....she produces her own food LOL.  Occasionally we'll give her egg shells for calcium, but after getting them, she has the tendency to peck her own eggs.

I do use her poo around the yard, mixing it with topsoil to keep the fly population down.  My azaleas and hydrangeas have gotten so much bigger and prettier since we got Nice.  I also used it in my garden last year.  Unfortunately my back yard garden was attacked by the chickie....if you plan to have your chickens loose in the yard and want to garden, make sure they can't get to your plot as they will devour any tender green shoot they can get.

We have my hubby's 10yo stepdaughter living with us full time, and whenever she has a school project, she goes out and gathers feathers.  We've dyed the downy fluff feathers with food coloring and the color sticks fairly well.  I, myself, have used wing feathers in projects.  I painted some wooden plaques, and used the wing feathers to drag metallic paint...turned out pretty neat.  I get the wing feathers when we trim her wings, and keep them in a coffee can.

We do want to move out into the country and have more chickens, so I've been scouring the web looking for chicken shed plans.  I absolutely adore the Chicken Chapel, but that is out of both price and creative range for me LOL.  The best free plan I've found so far is at this link:
http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/poultry/factsheets/designs.html
The 8*8 layer house looks really nice, and could be decorated to make a nice focal point.

One more thing to be aware of.....chickens don't have a defense system...they run, hide and squawk.  During our first summer with Nice, we had a golden eagle hunting her from one of the back yard trees.  He was huge and gorgeous, but looking for a free meal.  I wish I would have had the camera because he was only about 10 feet up in the tree.  Scared the crap right outta me.

Good luck with your chickens! 

Carol

[girlndocs]

I have two urban guerrilla hens. Originally we had 3; one died of unknown causes last fall.

They are both a lot of fun and a gigantic pain in the ass. They're more personable and entertaining than I ever imagined chickens could be. They're also a lot louder and more destructive! They cackle vigorously every morning; not at sunrise, really, between 8 and 9 am, but we have a neighbor who works night shifts mostof the week and wants to sleep in Saturday, and she is not very happy about the noise.

I did the free-range thing. Over one winter, they scratched up ALL the grass in our not-tiny yard. They also ripped my beloved spring bulbs to tatters as they emerged. Planting any seedlings in my flower beds? Forget it. After unsuccessfully trying to fence them out of the flowerbeds with ornamental wire fencing, we built them a pen. In the spring and summer when the days are longer and we're outside more frequently, I let them loose in the yard for an hour before sunset each day. They get to eat grass (greenery makes for much better tasting eggs) and roam that way, and don't have long to really destroy anything before the sunset sends them running home to their hutch. (They do rip up the occasional small annual though, and they kick mulch around like crazy).

They live in a converted rabbit hutch that I scored off of Craigslist for $20. It's about 2.5'x4'. and the ceiling is about 2.5' high, and it stands on 3' legs. I nailed plywood down to make the floor solid, shingled the roof, and added a thick branch about 6" off the floor for a roost. The hutch also had an external nest box, the roof of which I added hinges and a barrel bolt to so I can get to the eggs without  reaching through the inside of the hutch. Having to flutter up to the raised floor of the hutch before climbing onto their roost satisfies their instinctual urge to get up, off ground level, at sunset.

When they were free range, I opened the hutch door for them every morning and locked it each evening. Now that they have the pen, I just leae it open. Sometimes I feel that this is walking a fine line as far as predators goes, because I know we have raccoons in our neighborhood, but so far there's never been the slightest indication of trouble. (A baby possum spent the night all cozy in the nest box once, though!)

The hutch isn't exactly something for the cover of House Beautiful,
but I can see how painting it white (say) would make it pretty attractive. It's neat and tidy, at least. I've considered whitewashing it for a while.

[bcgrote]

Check out Countryside magazine, they always have info on chickens.  They are online,  as well.

They talk about a chicken tractor, which is actually a sort of mobile housing unit.  Fertilize the lawn, contain the chix, gather the eggs, all from a single cool structure!

I worked at a kennel that also had chix, they would give the leftover dog food to the chix, and then put the eggs in the dogs' food!  They were sweet chix, one would actually sit on your lap and let you stroke her.

I dunno about using the feathers, chix can be very dirty birds, so any feathers would REALLY have to be washed!

As far as breeds, reading is always good, or contact your local 4-H or pet store that sells them.

[westbrook]

a little late but I just got here!  here are some ideas...
http://www.backyardchickens.com/coopdesigns.html

I raise chickens, currently have 100 but honestly, don't count them. I have clutches of chicks almost year round. I also raise turkeys, goats and rabbits.

Here is a great link to the various breeds and information on them
http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html#a%201

chicken fertilizer must be aged (composted) before using as it is very strong and will burn your plants.

the biggest problem with raising chickens is predator problems. this is neighborhood dogs that run free to cats that run free. You may also have possums that eat eggs. I use Livestock Guradian Dogs to protect my livestock.. specifically Anatolian Shepherd Dogs.

I love my chickens and if I had to get rid of all my livestock, I would keep chickens.

w.

[sweets4ever]

Did you get your chickens yet, ma'am?

[retroeva]

Not yet, weve had too much going on

[sweets4ever]

Boo!

[Puppy_girl]

oh man...this is making me want chickens.  too bad there are a bunch of cats that are allowed to run loose in my area, i'd worry they might think our chickens are dinner.  oh yeah, plus the whole, my parents would probably never let us have chickens ever thing.   

[bubbanizzlemomma]

LOL.  I shudder to think of what would happen to a cat if he decided to try to nosh old Nice.....
My littlest guy, Nizzle, just turned 2 a couple of weeks ago.  His favorite hobby is to annoy Nice through the sliding glass door.  I have to watch him like a hawk when I let him go out to play because Nice will come at him from behind and peck the crap out of his back.  It's soooo hard not to laugh or be mad at the chicken.

I love my zoo