The Right To Bare Poultry

(and how eggs don't grow on trees)

I have long believed that more important than a person's right to bare arms, is his/her right to raise poultry. All over the world people, even if they don't have the space for goats, pigs, or cows, raise hens in order to eat the eggs and occasionally butcher themselves a little roast chicken for dinner. Chickens are small compared to other farm animals and require less care and space to live healthily, as well as less expense to feed.

I think it is a serious sign of our great disconnect from our food sources, and from sustainable living that so many towns and cities have outlawed poultry raising. The truth is that chickens are no louder than dogs. I'm not kidding. Dogs are universally allowed in all cities and all towns and no one would ever question our general right to keep dogs, yet hens (not roosters) are generally quieter than dogs except for when they are laying their eggs at which point they can sound like a posse of excited old ladies clucking and cawing and making a ruckus. Which doesn't last for more than twenty minutes a day. Compared to the constant howling and barking of neighborhood dogs, I consider them less of a noise nuisance than canines.

People also seem to think that chickens are dirty and cause for sanitation concerns. While they can get the Avian flu, this is not so common as people fear and can be somewhat prevented by keeping your poultry from any contact with wild birds (which are the carriers for the disease). Chicken poop is not nearly as unsanitary as dog poop and the volume of poop produced by each hen is pretty minimal compared to the amount of poop made by your average dog. With the added bonus that, unlike your dog's poop, the chicken poop is garden gold and if aged and spread over your garden will add to it's overall fertility.

Another thing that's great about keeping hens is the eggs. It's the most obvious reason to keep them. Eggs are a great source of protein and for those of us who don't eat flesh, they are also a great way to get plenty of vitamin B12, without which, we all go crazy and then die. (Did you know that?). Hens all have differing egg laying habits. Some breeds are known to be great layers and others, not so much. It pays to research this. Our current flock have all been exceptional layers until the winter really settled in (which is natural, they slow down or stop laying when daylight hours decrease). We have two Rhode Island Reds, one Barred Rock, one Golden Sex-Link, and one Black Sex-Link. Reading about breeds can give you an idea of what kind of hens are best for you, but a hen can be a real individual and not match the general profile of her breed so don't be shocked if you end up with a rebel Brahma.

To be honest, I keep chickens as much for their own sakes as I do the benefits to the garden and to my kitchen. My parents kept chickens for a few years when I was a kid and I spent quite a bit of time with them. Chickens are curious birds with a very engaging habit of being interested in what their people are up to. Left to wander a garden, in situations where this is both safe and possible, they will follow their people around like puppies. They aren't cuddly pets, though if handled quite a lot as tiny chicks, they are often not averse to being toted around for a little one on one close up time. Though one should always be careful when holding hens close, they see eyeballs as giant shiny objects in need of closer investigation- and you should know that hens investigate everything with their beaks.

I find the company of hens therapeutic. They aren't as stupid as you might think, by the way. You can't measure their intelligence against what we like to think of as our own intelligence. They are birds. They look like little dinosaurs. They have been around for a long time, a lot longer than us. When they look at me, I can see that they think I am one weird creature and their fascination is very funny. Chickens used to be jungle birds that lived in the trees. They could fly, they foraged for insects and fruit, and they have a complex social life that we like to call the "pecking order". I'm not saying these birds could ever be taught to play backgammon, I'm just saying that their cunning is alien to us, but that doesn't mean they're stupid.

Deep in the heart of winter is when many of us plan on the projects we'll begin in the springtime. I know a lot of people who are thinking about keeping hens. Now is the time to read up on them and find out if hens are really a good match for you. I'm going to list for you the basics you need to know in order to decide if you really want to keep chickens:

Check your city ordinance code to find out if keeping hens in your town or city is legal. It is actually surprising how many big cities allow hen keeping compared to how many medium sized towns don't. Always check the code and don't just ask someone in the ordinance office, see the code yourself. Lots of people make assumptions about the legality of hen keeping but don't really know. This information is almost always available online in your city's informational website (most cities have them now).

Make sure you know if there are any laws in the ordinance stating specific distances your chickens must be from kitchens or fence lines. Some cities allow hens but only if they are kept twenty feet from any fence line or kitchen.

Hens need more hens. Don't plan on getting just one hen. They are social birds and need to belong in a flock. The more the merrier, but know that at least three hens is optimum.

For every hen you have you need to allow at least 2 square feet of space in the hen house, and at least 4 square feet of space in the run. What happens if you don't provide each hen with these minimum requirements? They will feel cramped, will most likely get stressed and this will cause them to either pick at themselves or at the weaker hens in the flock. It will also make them more susceptible to disease.

Everything wants to eat your chickens. Dogs and raccoons are a hen's worst enemies. You will need to fortify their run accordingly, even if you have never seen a raccoon in your neighborhood. Raccoons live in many cities and only come out in the daytime if they have rabies. So the first you will know they've visited your yard is when they decimate your flock if you have not locked them in for the night. Even the best behaved dogs go ape-shit when presented with the opportunity for a fresh bite of chicken.

Vacationing is difficult if you have chickens. If you have a lifestyle which includes frequent travel, keeping chickens is not for you. Unless you have someone who lives near by who will enjoy caring for your chickens while you are away. Eggs must be collected every single day or they may start eating their own eggs or stop laying them.

If you let them roam your garden all day long without supervision they will destroy it. Many people have dreams of having hens foraging in their garden because they hear about how great chickens are at getting rid of snails and other pesky bugs. Our first flock was allowed to do this and we quickly learned not to let them out unless we were going to be there to shoo them away from our vegetable seedlings and keep them from digging huge holes where we didn't want them. Chickens are not gentle on gardens.

Think about all those points as you consider starting your own flock. Chickens are, in my opinion, very rewarding animals to keep. They have a lot to offer the urban homestead. I wouldn't choose to live anywhere now that didn't allow hen keeping. When we were looking for places to live here in Oregon the first thing I did for any town we were considering was to look up the city ordinance concerning farm animals in the residential zones. If they didn't allow hen keeping, that town was instantly vetoed as a good place to live.

Interesting fact: New York city allows poultry keeping but does require permits, Portland OR allows people to keep up to three hens without a permit and more with a permit if you can meet the requirements, San Francisco allows up to 4 hens without a permit, Chicago has no prohibitions on the number of chickens you keep in the city but you are not allowed to kill them.

So if anyone ever tells you that chickens don't belong in metropolitan areas, you can ask them to explain how come the majority of our great American sophisticated cities still provide for their citizens to keep hens? Keeping hens is as fundamental an activity as keeping a garden to feed your family. I would argue that few things can be more American in spirit than providing food for your family from your own property.

A great book to read about keeping chickens is "Keep Chickens!" by Barbara Kilarski. It won't be an adequate resource for anyone planning to keep large numbers of poultry in a farm setting, but for anyone in a suburb or city, it's very good.

One of the best sites on the Internet for reading about chicken breeds is FeatherSite