When Bethy asked me to do a guest blog on chickens, I had this whole plan of going into the history and origins of the species, but in the interest of brevity I'm going to scale that back considerably.
So just a few short notes about......
Gallus Gallus Domesticus
The common chicken is a sub-species of the Red Jungle Fowl from Asia.
There are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird.
And that should be all of the boring scientific mumbo jumbo for the rest of this post.
As a kid my grandfather kept chickens. My sister and I used to go and collect eggs daily. I would feed them, water them, and toss some scratch into the run. One day our rooster scared the bejeezus out of my sister, and now she hates all birds, especially chickens.
I on the other hand still have an affinity for them. So when we learned that our county had no zoning restrictions on chickens I was overjoyed and immediately went about convincing the rest of the household that we needed some fine feathered friends! It didn't take long before everyone was excited at the prospect of fresh eggs daily.
Which is the reason we have chickens. Eggs, eggs and more eggs. I'm not really into slaughtering animals if I don't have to. Eventually the girls will stop laying and I suppose when that time comes we will have a nice chicken dinner, but until then it's all about the juevos!
I came up with the design for the coop on my own. I looked over a bunch of plans on the internet and didn't really see anything that caught my eye, so we just started building. Free form. We tried to use as much lumber and scrap as we had on hand. The slatted side wall is made from re-purposed IKEA bed slats. The ladder was part of an old garden fence I found behind our shed, and some of the lumber, and the shingles I scrounged from inside the shed itself.
I'm not the best carpenter, In fact this was my first venture into carpentry, so my measurements weren't quite accurate, but I think it sort of adds a quirky homemade charm.
In total we spent about $150 on materials for the coop and original run.
Just yesterday though we doubled the size of our run and added a full sized gate.
When we were picking out our breeds the qualities that we were looking for were egg size, frequency of laying and docileness. The later being the most important. I really wanted friendly chickens so that
Winona didn't end up having the same experience as my sister.
We settled on a mixed flock that consists of a Blue Orppington (Belle) and two Black Copper Marans (Ariel and Jasmine(though we are beginning to think that Jasmine may be a rooster)).
Belle is already laying beautiful large pinkish hued eggs. By fall the other two(?) should be laying eggs that are considered a delicacy in France. They will be large and deep dark chocolate colored and I cannot wait to taste them!
We love our chickens. I love watching Winona with them. We have recently started letting them free range in the yard in the evenings and Winnie gets a kick out of chasing them around.
They are a joy to have around and everyone enjoys the fruits of Belle's labors. Honestly there is nothing like an egg that has just been laid. They are so creamy and so much better than anything from the store.
There is a huge urban chicken movement going on, so if you are interested in chicken keeping there are a number of websites that offer information on doing so as well as state and local ordinance.
Check out
backyardchickens.com,
urbanchickens.org, and
mypetchicken.com for some great advice.
