I spent a good portion of yesterday researching chickens. I’m fascinated by the idea of keeping chickens in the backyard for eggs! I don’t know if it’s right for us, but I had a lot of fun looking at chicken coops and imagining having one out back.
Design*Sponge recently wrote about keeping chickens, and Apartment Therapy wrote about the subject a couple of years ago. As people are becoming more aware of their food sources and sustainable living (both things I’m working on), it seems chicken keeping is making a big comeback. I haven’t met anyone keeping them in an urban (or suburban) setting, though it seems they’re out there! Do you or any of your neighbors have chickens?
when i was in high school and college my parents had one. we live in a suburb (still a city of over 100k) in the san francisco bay area.
I have checked into it, but my town *technically* doesn’t allow it, but I too enjoy reading about others who keep chickens in their urban setting.
p.s. I love the first coop best! :)
I live in Berwyn and I swear that one of our neighbors has a chicken or two. Once in a while I’ll hear something that closely resembles a roster or chicken.
Before you get any further in your research, check with the city (village?) of Oak Park. If you have a garage, I bet you can house your chickens there for the winter months.
Have you looked into keeping BEES? My father does & it’s quite easy…
we do! get them, you won’t regret it! they’re so fun and sweet and our kids (even the 1yo) love them and are good to them. get the book “hobby farms chickens” by sue weaver and get three chicks. everyone we know gets all the same breed, but we don’t have two of the same! for us, they’re pets and egg sources, so we had fun picking out different kinds. they will be meat some day, and our kids have been well-reminded, but we haven’t slaughtered any yet.
anyway, they’re just delightful and such a fun addition to our family and life!
I want to have chickens sometime in the future, too. A couple of my mom’s friends have chickens, and we regularly get eggs from them. They’re pretty big, and you can totally tell if something was made with the “happy” eggs cause it’s a much brighter yellow. Happy eggs taste better, too.
Oh, and how cool is the Eglu Cube!?
I have chickens! I think it’s so funny how they are becoming hip all of a sudden. We got ours about two months ago and I absolutely love having them. They are great little pets. They will follow me around the yard and jump on my lap when I sit down. I highly recommend getting some!
Chickens can be a whole lot of fun. We had 2 for a while and then added more (and built a larger coop). 2 chickens = enjoyable novelty pets that provide some pretty tasty 2-egg omelets a few times a week. 10 chickens = a whole lot of work, a whole lot of eggs, and a whole lot of poop. We are now chickenless and are overrun with adorable, fat, healthy baby foxes. Circle of life…
If you choose a good, hardy breed (Buff Orpingtons were our favorites) and have a place where you can keep the coop over winter with access to electricity for a heat lamp, I say go for it. We never lost any to weather, even in northern Colorado during back-to-back blizzards.
I have chicks as well. I ordered them last October as one day old chicks from mypetchicken.com. I live in south Minneapolis and had to get signed approval from nearly a 3 block radius, get that notarized, let the city know how many chicks I planned on keeping and send in a $34 check. We built our own coop and had the city inspect it. Once it passed they sent the chicken permit that has to be renewed once a year. If I ever want to add more chickens I have to go through the whole process again.
I ordered full grown silver laced wyandottes. The minimum order was 3 but they sent 4 incase one dies in transit. They all lived and grew for a few months in a little pen in my basement until it was warm enough and they had enough feathers to transfer outside. They made it through a very cold MN winter in our coop (which has natural gaps to release air – very important in the summer) with two heat lamps and a heated water bowl. Note that the heated water bowl and lamps doubled my electricity bill for the winter months. I’m looking into solar now.
My petchicken guaranteed that I would not receive a rooster but as they grew we discovered that our favorite, Eleanor, was in fact a rooster when she started to crow and we were woken by the neighbors. Roosters are not allowed for obvious reasons. She made a quick trip to my parent’s farm where she happily lives.
My chicks, Prudence, Martha and Penny are 6 months old and 2 of them have begun to lay eggs. I have two eggs a day. They are pretty small right now but should get bigger – they are delicious! I have a home made chicken feed recipe for the winter that will hopefully help continue to lay eggs through the colder months.
I found most of the info i needed to know on mypetchicken.com. Everything else was supplemented with questions to my mom, reading backyard homestead and googling.
I had someone give me an estimate on chicken coop building which was very expensive and i dreamed of many beautiful coops as well but eventually just built our own which was really fun and affordable.
The chicken poop is great for the garden once its composted for a few months!
Dottie Angel talks about her chickens on her blog today and shows some fun pictures of them.
What a great coop roundup!
My style is a little more vintage, so I thought I would share this amazing coop built here in Portland OR of reclaimed wood. Its definitely on my wish list for when we get chickens!
http://moderncoops.weebly.com/index.html#
My husband’s family in rural PA, has always kept chickens and his parents still have a coop with about a dozen or so hens. So we get a couple dozen eggs every time we visit them. We’ve checked into our local (Philadelphia) laws, and unfortunately, keeping ANY farm animal is prohibited. We’ve signed a petition in support of keeping chickens, and we’ll see if that results in any changes…
I’m trying to convince my husband that we should get chickens. Been trying for almost a year since we moved out to the country. We have a great greenhouse that isn’t being used that would work well for a chicken coop. I only want two or three. Just enough to enjoy some good eggs. Plus, it would be so much fun with our daughter!
My sister-in-law is looking into this, but she (along with my husband’s family, obviously) grew up on a 700 acre cattle ranch…so she has experience with them. I don’t…but I recently read this article and it scared me, ha!
http://www.kitchenandresidentialdesign.com/2010/04/urban-chickens-for-love-of-god-no.html
Just a thought about the possible downsides, but I would love to have my own fresh eggs! Good luck!
All I can say about that article is that there are of course, many different breeds of chicken and some are far more aggressive/high maintenance than others. We have three New Hampshire Red hens and they require far less maintenance and care than our dog. They are calm, docile, endlessly entertaining pets that come when called and meet our kids at the school bus. We love our chickens!
Thanks for linking to my somewhat tongue-in-cheek article about urban chickenry. While I’m sure that a lot of people have perfectly lovely experiences with their back yard chicken coops, we had them when I was a kid and it was anything but lovely. There’s a side to all of this that never makes it into the glowing articles about raising your own chickens. That side being that it’s a commitment that has to be undertaken seriously. Chickens are a mess, they make lousy housepets and a lot of breeds can be aggressive. It’s easy to see the magazine spreads and be carried away with the idea that you’re going to have a half-acre paradise and save the earth while you’re at it. But that’s a mistake. Taking on a flock of chickens requires a lot of thought and planning. If you want to take a crack at it, go for it. Just not in my neighborhood please!
You may now flame me.
OK, the photo of the chicken feet is scaring me a little. I’m a teensy bit afraid of birds… BECAUSE of their hideous dinosaur feet.
I “chicken sit” for my neighbors. Be forewarned that they poop everywhere, in all directions, and it’s like diarrhea. Therefore, it’s best to have a moveable, floor-less coop, like the ones you pictured. Otherwise you’ll be scrubbing poop from the flooring on a regular basis. But think ahead to winter, when you’ll likely need to put them in a more permanent location (with heat lamp). You WILL be scraping poop — can you handle it?
Also, if you let them free in your yard (which you really should do daily), you’ll need fencing to keep them out of your flowerbeds and other planting areas. They are born to scratch, and they are very destructive and non-selective with their scratching! They can obliterate a large flowerbed in less than an hour.
Get at least 2 but no more than 3 for an urban garden. One chicken would be lonely — they need companionship or they’ll be too depressed to lay!
My advice is for you to find someone who has chickens and see firsthand what is involved. Blogs, articles, and tv spots make it look so wholesome and easy, but there is work with chickens. Those eggs aren’t free!
I have a baby, a dog, and three cats… We have our fair share of poop clean up in this house. I think we can handle a little more. ;)
If you put 4-8 inches of wood pellets in the bottom of the coop, and have only 2-3 chickens, you should only need to clean it out twice a year. Then you can put the wood shavings in your compost pile. It’s way easy. We also have a detachable chicken run, so we can move the chickens around in the yard without them getting selective about tearing up a certain spot. Here’s a great site:
http://www.freechickencoopplans.com/
I live in a suburb of Salt Lake City and my sister keeps chickens here and so do several of my neighbors. I’ve only heard good things about keeping chickens, especially how fun it is for children! I agree with Robin, you probably wouldn’t want to start with more than 2-3. My kids have been begging for chickens lately. My girls are in love with the Saltbox coop. How fun!
In theory, I like the idea of keeping chickens.. in practice, it annoys your neighbors. I know because my neighbor keeps them and they make noise all day – they’re not even directly beside my home, they’re 1 door down – and I can hear their chickens all day. When I try and sit in my backyard for a quiet moment, I can’t–chicken noise! Sorry to be a downer, but I’m just trying to offer another perspective. I really wish my town had an ordinance against keeping chickens in a suburban area.
Agnes, I’m in the city, and there are constant noises outside. If it’s not a dog barking, its a lawn mower or come other power tool. It’s not like we can go outlawing everything that makes a noise, can we?
I’m not a city dweller though — I live in the suburbs. People move here to get away from the noise. If I wanted to hear a rooster crowing at dawn, I’d move to the country.
You wanna know what’s really annoying? Having no central air and having to open your windows on a hot summer night.. and then being woken up at 4 am. If my dogs were out at 4 am barking endlessly I would get in trouble.. so why should there be a chicken exemption?
My parents used to raise chicken in their backyard. Be prepared to have stinky things in your yard. If you plan on keeping them in the garage during the winter, be prepared to have stinkier things in your garage! Also, be prepared to make some enemies in your neighborhood… some are loud and for some reason they cry at odd hours of the day. Aside from that, I remember having amazing eggs growing up!!! You can even eat them raw.. (not that you would… but it makes phenomenal pasta carbonara!!)
My parents live in the country sorta (40 acres) and have had chickens my entire life. We LOVE them! I live in town (Council Bluffs population is around 75,000) and one of my neighbors has chickens, I am planning on getting a permit as well and having 3-4 in my backyard near my garden. Such a fun thing to do. I think you would love it!
We had chickens when I was a kid and they can be really mean sometimes! I have a scar on my knee from one of the roosters attacking me! Other then that they were pretty cool. The eggs were great. I do kind of hate birds flying near me now though..
They really can be quite mean! I grew up on a farm and we had lots and lots of chickens and, like you Michelle, I suffered an attack from a mean old rooster. The hens weren’t much better, but the eggs were delicious!
if you have a mean rooster, it goes in the pot.
I’ve done a ton of research on chickens too because we’ve thought about getting some. They do live a long time, up to 15 years I understand, so it’s like committing to any pet. They always need fresh water and you’ve got to rake the coop at least once a week. And they don’t smell pretty. But think of the fertilizer you’ll have ! Our town allows them in suburban areas, but we’ve got a lot of poultry around here.
Just thought I’d share this link with you, the ultimate chicken coop. It rocks my socks.
http://heatherbullard.typepad.com/heather_bullard_collectio/2010/03/our-chicken-coop.html
Gotta say though, there is NOTHING like fresh farm eggs ! They taste amazing !
That is beautiful!
My friend Tiffany in Seattle is a bird rescuer. She has ducks and chickens in her back yard. She is a wealth of information and here is a link to her blog:
http://mrflapper.com/blog/
mr. flapper is also on facebook and has a webcam on Ustream as well to watch her sancutary.
Double check the city you live in if there is an ordiance in place that will allow you to have chickens. I know where I live they just now allowed people to have two hens and no roosters.
Oak Park also allows two hens and no roosters.
I too have been looking into it casually this past year. I was hooked for a while reading “the Chicken Chronicles” at gardenRant, but when things started getting complex in week 8 or so I decided maybe bees would be better :)
I know this is popular right now but none of those look like they’d provide a humane amount of space for chickens to roam.
I have chickens. I built their coop this year: http://oregonkaisers.blogspot.com/2010/03/finished-coop.html
I priced everything out, and it was far easier and cheaper to build my own. Many of the ones for sale out there give the birds very little space, but then again, it depends upon how many you have. We’re allowed 2 hens per household in my town (no roosters allowed in city limits), but my backyard is big enough to qualify us to have an “unlimited” number. We have 13. My coworkers bring vegetables and bread in for me to give to them, and I supplement that with sprouted local grain. Feel free to email me any questions!
i would LOVE to keep chickens, but my boyfriend is vegan and i just don’t think i could go through the eggs fast enough by myself.
a friend of mine lives in berwyn and looked into it, but discovered it wasn’t allowed there. i know it’s allowed in chicago limits, though.
those coops are so cute – do they make chicken coop heaters to keep them warm?
It ok if you cant eat all of them. You just sell them to your friends that dont have chickens.
I have chickens. Three to be exact. And our coop is actually the “portable chicken coop” from your list. (We love it.) We live in a suburban town on about 2 acres. They are pretty low maintenance and supply us with three eggs most everyday. And those three eggs add up FAST. We usually give our extras away to friends and family. But, we could most certainly sell them if we wanted.
Every afternoon we let them out of their coop to get some exercise and peck around. (Side note: somebody already mentioned this. A fence is a must. They gobble up all things pretty in search for food.) At sunset they make their way back into their roost, so all we have to do is pull up the ladder to keep them safe.
Another plus is that chicken feed is cheap. I just bought a 50 lb. bag for $11 yesterday. As for noise, the only time I ever really hear them is when they get fidgety in the morning before I let their ladder down. Oh, and the poop. Yes, they poop everywhere, but that poop is solid gold in the fertilization world. So, I suppose there is a possible up side to everything.
I highly recommend them. They are great fun. And nothing makes you feel like a legit farm gal more than bringing fresh eggs in every morning. (Overalls and galoshes are optional. Although recommended.)
I grew up in the ‘country’ and and most of my friends had chickens in ‘coops, horses, goats etc…
I’ve never seen a chicken coop so cool! Chickens are so messy though.
As stated before, they will wreck your garden, smell and be noisy. If you are prepared to put up with that they are lovely pets, they have real character and do produce wonderful eggs. The only real way to stop them ruining your garden is to keep them cooped up and as mymsie said, they really don’t have enough room in those coops. Saying that the Omlet is really easy to clean!
we had chickens for a while when i was growing up, but then found out the city didn’t approve and gave them to friends with more land in a rural city.
I live in Boulder, CO and I know about 20 people that have chickens. My plan was to let my friend do it and then see how it went. She is thrilled with her chickens, but after we were at their house, the bottoms of all our shoes (and my son’s feet since he took his shoes off) were covered in chicken poop and it was very sticky and yucky. (I really had to scrub it get it off my son’s feet.) She also said she had to put vaseline on their beak’s or their waddles or something, and I realized I just don’t have it in me to take care of chickens.
But to the person that said the rooster noise was annoying – our city doesn’t allow roosters, only chickens. I think roosters are the problem when it comes to noise, but I could be wrong.
I totally have been thinking the same thing… A book that deals with the topic of eating locally in a really interesting way is ‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver (& her husband & daughter). It follows her family’s year of eating locally (mainly from their own roost of chickens, turkeys, and garden) and is a fascinating look at how it can truly be done… really made me think about where our food comes from and was a really interesting & inspiring read that I think you’d enjoy!
You can keep up to two chickens in Oak Park. One of the Longfellow Elementary teachers has two in her OP backyard.
I grew up on a farm with chickens (both in a permanent coop and roaming for fertilization and sanitation of fields) and I think they’re very romanticized. I know some people rave about them, and perhaps 2-3 as pets would be manageable, but in a commercial setting I found them to be a lot of work, smelly, messy, noisy, stupid, and mean.
I suppose I’d be angry too if someone was stealing my babies (a.k.a. eggs) every day, but they were vicious and used to peck the crap out of my legs, hands, and anything else they could reach.
I generally love animals and get along well with them, but I’d personally think long and hard before deciding to raise chickens again.
we get ours as hatchlings and handle them alot. once they go out to the coop they stay very friendly and will follow us around the yard and come to us when we call.
I love in the city of Atlanta & several of my neighbors have chickens. They live in the Reynolds Town & Cabbage Town areas. It is funny to be walking my dog & see some chickens cross your path in the middle of the street.
I live in south philly and there’s chickens running loose all over the backyards on some blocks. my last place all the yards had been taken over by 20+ loose chickens. you hear the roosters all day. I don’t think I know any one that keeps them for food or anything…a few people have them as a pet in their house though.
We kept chickens for awhile in a (fairly large) suburb. We ended up giving them up to someone with a proper barn come one winter though, it was just too hard to try and keep them warm enough.
We just got our chickens this weekend! My husband build a chicken trailer similar to #1 and we now have 4 chickens living in it and producing eggs. We also attached wheels to the bottom of our trailer so it is easily wheeled around the yard. We keep them for the summer for eggs and enjoy the meat in the winter. My daughter (2 yrs.) LOVES them! This is the second year we have had a few chickens.
Our neighbors have chickens, and we live in a suburb of St. Paul, MN. We moved in after they got them, so I’m not sure if they had to have the neighbors agree or not. But, they do have them outside in the winter and they survive! Pretty impressive as I wine just walking out to get the mail on a cold day!
Hearty little things!
Our tiny coup is made from recycled PVC fence. You can see it here http://yvonne4real.blogspot.com/search/label/Chickens
I only wish it was more mobile and a bit off the ground. Our hens are very happy and so much fun.
This is great! I would LOVE to have chickens, but the city I live in doesn’t allow it :( Hopefully someday my husband & I will move further into the country and then I’ll have to remember this post!
Wow – so much chicken talk. Thumbs up for everyone that has enough energy for this; it all sounds overwhelming. We just buy our eggs at the farmers market each week, which is close enough to fresh for us. Plus we like to travel and finding a dog sitter is hard enough – imagine trying to convince someone to watch your chickens? :P
Very cute & fun modern chicken coops! My metro area (Nashville) doesn’t allow us to keep any livestock including chickens. I’m not sure if I’d be up to the work anyway – a vegetable garden is as close to urban farming as we’ll probably ever get. We have been researching bee keeping, though!
we went to tractor supply co. on saturday just to oogle the chicks and ducklings. it was so, so hard to not bring one home! i’ve wanted chickens for a couple of years, but my hubby grew up with them, so that, along with the fact that we buy AMAZING eggs from our csa farm, makes him less-than-thrilled with the idea.
i didn’t think so many people had them as I don’t know anyone who does, but the chickens seem to be so popular!!! such a great post!♥
i’m not sure if you read her blog or not, but dottie angel just posted about her chickens today! http://dottieangel.blogspot.com/2010/04/its-chicken-thing.html
I’m in Seattle and at least 1/3 of my neighbors have them. Chickens are everywhere here! They love them not only for the eggs but also for the gardening benefits – they naturally “fertilize” and take care of bug problems!
Chickens aren’t going to fly in Oak Park…
You don’t think so? There are so many kids on our block… I think they would love to come over and see chickens! Oak Park is such a crunchy/granola/liberal kinda town (and I mean that in the best way possible), I think there are already a lot of people keeping chickens here.
It’s illegal in my city to keep “farm animals” within city limits. I think there are pros and cons. Personally, I’d rather buy my eggs from a local farm and support their business.
My best friend in highschool had chickens in her back yard. Smack dab in the middle of a big campus and it was never a problem. I just joined a Facebook group trying to legalize backyard chicken coops in OKC city limits and know of a couple people with them in their yards. It’s definitely making a comeback.
I LOVE all the coops you found. I can’t wait to show my husband.
This is so cool!