We've got 30 chickens and a few turkeys. I've had chickens for nearly 8 years and I'll never be chickenless again, I adore them. I have tried different breeds, but my favorites for laying and personality remain Aracauna, Rhode Island Red, Barred Rock, Buff Orpington, Black Astralorps, and all the sexlinks. I also love Bantam chickens, especially silkies and Japanese.

We sell our extra eggs to friends for $2 a dozen, which doesn't do much more than help out with feed costs. Ours have a pretty big hen house with an attached 10x40 enclosed yard. They also usually run around outside their yard into the pasture during the afternoon, then they march into their house when it gets dark.

We also do Cornish Rock broilers for meat chickens. Very tasty!

Hooray for the chicken friends Staceyneil, furletcity, reshal, texasjg:

Looks like a few of you have the Barred Rock which is my biggest breed. My Buff Orpington is my scrawniest, but I can tell she's bottom of the pecking order.

I too love seeing them running around. We have a vicious hawk that ate one of our pullets so we are fairly careful right now because we don't live there and our dog isn't on the watch--she likes the chickens and scares the hawks--good dog!

I would love a better system for getting the compost/scraps out to them and am wondering if any of you have ever seen some "pretty cans" for sitting beside the sink and collecting the scraps. I am tempted to buy a stainless can and engrave on the side "Chicken Scraps" just because what we use right now (a baggie) is so gross...I want it to be fairly presentable and have a top so I don't see it all day. But an engraved can for chickens is totally laughable! :) I may be obsessive about the way things look but I'm not that crazy!

If you have ever heard of anything, would love your comments! Also, who is your best layer??? We have no idea who is our best one, but we have had a definite production slow down this winter with the banging of air guns, hammers, saws and other loud noises!

Unfortunately, I don't remember the details but there is a cobalt blue ceramic covered bin that someone here mentioned in a post. There must be others out there! The Barred Rock was named Handsome and we actually just lost him two months ago. He had a nice long life though! My favorites are my littlest bantams hens and the bantam rooster, Atlas, I raised in my kitchen for two months.

FirsthouseMp,

I can't believe you can have chickens n Menlo! I may have to come down and steal some eggs!

That is so cool that you guys have fresh eggs! I am so jealous!

We have 5 hens for laying, I think they're Rhode Island Reds. They have an indoor/outdoor coop that my husband built off of his shed. We don't let them roam because of hawks (that's how our ducks got taken). But at least they have an outside coop.

Twice a year we raise meat birds in another larger coop (50+ chickens a year). My husband and his friend do the deed themselves. He also assisted with turkeys this Thanksgiving season, which resulted in us receiving a beautiful 14 pounder.

All of our chickens (and the turkeys) are fed organic chicken feed and also given organic veggies in season.

I'm going to try to post a link to the bins.

Here is a link that might be useful: Compost bins

Chicken keeping has always intrigued me. Here's a city girl question for you...What do you do with your chickens when you go on vacation?

I wouldn't have thought there would be so many people on this forum that have chickens. I don't have garbage service so trash gets separated into burnable (and I'm picky about what I'll burn) compostable and "haul to the dump". The compost pile is back by the coop (which is inside a building that also has the greenhouse and summer kitchen and rabbit pens).

The chickens and cats routinely go through what is on the compost pile to see if anything is edible. I also toss the bedding from the coop and rabbits there. Once a year it all gets hauled to the garden out back.

I keep a container in the fridge for stuff that would get smelly and haul that out every couple of days at chore time. I have two garbage containers in the kitchen, one for paper and one for stuff that won't burn. Been thinking of getting a compactor. Right now we go to the dump a few times a year so it would be nice to keep the garbage as compact as possible. Dump has a 500lb minimum charge so I hate taking a small load. We have three large containers in the shop to hold garbage until we go to the dump.

Cathy

Kristin, chickens are actually very easy to set up for going away on vacation. Their feeders and waterers can be quite large and will keep them going for a week or more depending on how many you set up. In the winter the waterers need to be on electric heating platforms so they don't freeze. HTH!

When we go on vacation we pay young kids in the neighborhood to feed our chickens, cat and sugar glider. They are very responsible, the parents supervise, and they also have chickens (and a cow, and guinnea hens, etc.)

If you get chickens, neighbors would probably love to take care of them while you're vacationing just for the experience and also for the eggs.

I forgot to mention in my post that our compost barrel and compost pile is out by our greenhouse. We bring our compost material out each day or two.

I love this chicken talk...I am fairly enamored with my chickens, as are a number of us suburban dwellers who have them.

SFCity: Yes, here in MP we can have 52 per acre, and since we don't have an acre, the number is pro rated to fit the lot size--in any case our 6 are way below the limit. We cannot have ANY roosters. Right next door in Woodside there are so many people with chickens it's crazy; and I think they are allowed to have roosters. However, no turkeys allowed (we did have 5 wild ones living our backyard in our old house for a few days though!).

If we go away for the weekend, we just feed them as furletcity mentions. Our water doesn't freeze here because it's California and the waterers are fairly large. If we go away for a week, my sisters or a friend come over and swipe the eggs in exchange for feeding/watering them. As Judydel mentioned, we have no lack of people wanting to visit them.

Thanks for the compost bin link. And I also never though about having a compost bin in the fridge! LOL! In the summer, that would prevent the days scraps from being gross and attracting bugs....

Macybaby, you have a whole 'nother dimension to your composting! It reminds me of our place on a small island in the middle of a lake in Maine. When we go there, we have to haul our garbage by boat to the main dump in town! You must be very organized! I sometimes complain about the time I spend on the recycling pile, but you must spend hours!!!

My current favorite book about chickens: City Chicks (see link), which shows how to use your chicks, scraps and composting. It's given me some great ideas!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/garden/10books.html

Being that I just heard it on the radio 3 days ago and I only get to hear it once a year, all I can think about is Alice's Restaurant.

To all that live in incorp. areas check with your local Building Departments. I know in our town---NO LIVESTOCK PERMITTED.

For me,i to enjoy watching them but I would not have the heart to hurt one ....

Furlet City: Just ordered the white compost bin! Love it! Matches just perfectly with the white farmhouse I'm building and my white kitchen...can you tell I like white? :) Thanks for the tip!

I'm so glad it worked out for you!

I take my scraps out every day. But if I step outside at any time, I have a chicken, cat, dog parade! One day crossing the pasture I had all that and two horses, too! What a hoot! Love my chickens and will always have some. They make great pets. I had a Brahama hen who supervised everything. The day the fox took her was the day before I bought a gun. I'm still looking for that fox.

But fox are so beautiful. We just keep our hens locked up in an indoor/outdoor coop, so we don't have to worry about hawks, fox, bob cat, mountain lion (yes, I have seen one very close up in my neighborhood in Connecticut) and the like.

I'm starting to get a bit envious after looking at the photos of those colorful chickens, fresh eggs and, how can I not mention furletcity's red door chicken coop. (how cute!) You'd think someone that lives in the country on a working dairy farm that LOVES to bake would have her own chickens. I entertained that thought back in the 90s but never followed through with it. Maybe the fact that I know n-o-t-h-i-n-g about raising and caring for chickens made me hesitant.

For those that live in areas with cold winters, what do you need to do during the winter season? Someone mentioned that you have to heat the water lines and/or chicken feeders to prevent icing. What about the chickens? Does their coop need heat?

Pinch_me, I know just what you mean about the chicken murderers. We kept losing chickens and since they were locked up in their hen house we couldn't figure out why. We put a trail camera out there and have video of 3 raccoons and 2 skunks having chicken for dinner. They had dug underneath the fencing. To fix it, DH put hardware cloth down underneath and laid concrete blocks over it, then put the dirt back on top of that. No predator probs since.

I want ducks but would settle for chickens. Alas, they are strictly verboten in the city limits. I had some friends out in the country who just got rid of their flock, which was way too big for the two of them, so I am missing my free fresh eggs.

I'm finally getting around to posting photos of our chicken coops. For those that are considering a hen house, make sure you design it and don't let your DH create it without your careful eye like I did. He built our shed (ahem) and then added on the hen house. He is proud of how he used up some old lumber when adding on the coop. I wish I had gotten involved before hand. Now any attempts I make to pretty it up may be taken as an insult if I'm not careful. On the up side, the hen house is very secure (he put the wire into the ground so a digging critter can't get in). It has an outside area that is secure. There is the inside area plus there is a door that they can go through which puts them into a roosting area that actually extends inside of the shed. He has a light that gives them heat in the colder months since we are in New England. He treats them very well, keeps them clean, feeds them organic feed and organic veggies. We get 5 beautiful eggs each day.

His other coop off of the greenhouse is for the meat birds.

Thank goodness our views are beautiful out every window. The fact that you can see these barnyard style structures from some of our windows is not ideal, but anyone that visits appreciates the value of raising our hens, meat birds, and veggies. They don't seem to disapprove. If we ever went to sell our home, I'd probably have them dismantled to make sure buyers weren't turned off.

I wish our shed/hen house looked as beautiful as furletcity's! If I post close ups, anyone want to help me figure out how to make it look pretty??

I love the chicken coops. Awesome. I live in a neighborhood so I don't imagine it would work well here. BUT I want to compost....I saw the cute kitchen crocks....what goes in them...fruit skins, coffee grounds, egg shells? And would I just put a garbage pail out back to dump into? Is there a link to composting 101 or something that someone could post? Thanks.

Love the red door...how adorable! And what pretty chickens you all have!

Trish

I am so jealous of all of your chickens! And fresh eggs! And cute hen coops! Wouldn't trade my house in the city --- EXCEPT for fresh chicken and duck eggs.

What a fun thread to read - thks for letting us city slickers live vicariously :-)

Eliz

I live in Iowa and it does get cold here! Wind chill and temp can easily be 40 below. My coop is not heated but the waterer is. Chicken's body temp is 105 degrees (or something like that) they roost wing to wing so a dozen of them in a small coop keeps everyone warm enough. It's healthier for them to have fresh air than to be locked into a "warm" room. My chickens have a doggy door with a clear vinyl flapper that is always open except when it's bitterly cold. I do close it then and they have to stay in. Their laying cycle goes with the daylight and dark hours so I'm not getting a lot of eggs now. If I kept lights on they would lay but chicken girls are like human girls, there are only so many eggs in their body and when they're gone, they're gone. My girls live here even past production age and I don't care but some people want their chickens to pay the way. The price of feed compared to the price of eggs, it isn't a money making proposition. I let my girls free range - before the Fox. Now they can only be out if I'm home. They have a fenced in area but it isn't the same as roaming all over. I have my garden fenced so they don't demolish the whole thing. It's open now and they can do anything they want it there. I'll close the gate when I plant next spring.

Trish we save our fruit and veggie scraps, coffee grinds and egg shells. They get dumped onto our compost pile, which is just a pile outside by our greenhouse. It is approx. 6' in diameter and about 3' high. My DH adds what is called "brown material" such as leaves, grass clippings, corn husks onto the pile occasionally. It's part of the process of making good compost. He also turns it all over with a shovel once in a while. After it ages, the stuff in the middle of the pile towards the bottom turns into this rich dirt like matter . . . rich compost, which gets spread onto the gardens. In the spring, seeds that have been thrown into the pile from veggie scraps always sprout up. So we always end up with some veggies growing right out of the pile. This past year, for instance, the pile grew beautiful pumpkins! Other years we've had tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, etc.

We also have a compost barrel that I bought him for father's day one year from a gardening magazine. My DH doesn't use the barrel as much because he says he has to keep adding brown matter into it and it is more of a chore than just making compost in a pile. But when he does use the barrel we get gallons of this black gold liquid in addition to the rich dirt! We dilute the liquid (full strength is too strong) and use it to water the veggies. It is very potent, good stuff!!

Different people probably have different routines. There are books and articles written on the subject also. We've been doing it for the past 33 years together! We used to use a square plastic compost bin by William Sonoma for about 15 years. And more recently we bought a white crock. Unfortunately, days after we bought it one of my DSs broke the lid. How could I be mad? He offered to fix it, and he did. He doesn't live home with us anymore . . . so when I use the crock and see the lid I think of him and smile.

I love my chickens, too! I have a barred rock that follows me all over the gardens. If I have a shovel in my hand, she is right next to me looking for worms, bugs, seeds. My neighbors dog just got 3 of mine, so mine are cooped up right now :-(. My girls are old and I am only getting about 6 eggs a week right now due to their age and the daylight. I didn't know anything about chickens either until about 8 years ago. There actually is a chicken forum, lol. I attached the link. I learned alot from there when I started with my chickens. DH always had birds. He used to have emus and rheas. Chickens are soooo easy to take care of. 5 minutes out of your day for fresh eggs is worth it!

Here is a link that might be useful: Backyard chickens forum

Thanks for this thread! I've been thinking of keeping a few chickens for the eggs . . . I grew up with a backyard chicken coop and run and you've prompted a lot of memories! When I was little and had to go gather eggs, I was terrified -- there were always a couple nasty hens who stayed on the nests just to flap and peck at me when I reached under them. We always bought peeps in the spring and raised them for both meat and eggs -- every chicken dinner started with, "Go catch a chicken." Hated that part. Going from coop to table involved some fairly nasty parts.

Furletcity, your coop is a dream -- beautiful! I'm saving the photo. We'd have to bury fencing and enclose the top here -- raccoons, coyotes and hawks abound.

Wish we could edit posts here . . . Re compost: I sometimes keep a plastic ice cream bucket in the freezer for compostable scraps. I don't have a real compost pile, but just bury the frozen or thawed mass in between plants in my hosta beds or flower gardens. I've used this method to create new beds out of lawn, too -- makes great soil!

I love this chicken talk! For those of you who raise chickens, how many of you are on smaller properties, say 1 acre and less? How far is your chicken coop from the house? Does it smell in the summer? I only have 3/4 acre.

We have 2 acres. The hen house for our egg layers is about 75 ft from the house. We only have 5 and they don't smell, certainly not so that you can detect if from the house. My DH rakes the indoor coop once in a while (when it's yuky). And he changes the bedding in their nesting area also when needed.

Wonderful chicken pictures and coops!

We have three back yard hens, we live on a tad less than and acre, in a small town. If you keep your coop clean & dry and use stall dry you won't have a smell at all.

Here they are as babies, my DD's and I had the best time raising them. They are very tame lap chickens, that love to get pet. ;)

Here's our girls grown up:

Olive :

Hazel :

And Clover :

Their first eggs, laid right at the end of summer. They are Easter eggers and lay light green eggs.

Their coop and run, this past summer, I fill their window boxes with kitchen herbs .. every time I pick some for us, they get and handful too ..

And fall :

Judy -- What do you use for chicken bedding? Do you buy them? After a hen lay an egg, does she sing(is this the right term?) loudly? Can you hear it inside the house? I am worried that it may disturb the neighbors.

furletcity -- Thanks for posting the compost bin link, just what I was looking for!

We use wood chips for the main inside pen and straw for their roost. My DH said he changes the chips and straw once every 2-3 weeks. We have an outdoor pen that he doesn't clean. The rain and elements take care of it.

No our hens don't sing. I didn't know some do that! Interesting. Ours don't make much of a ruckus at all. When our dog bothers them they cackle but otherwise they don't make any more noise than other birds in the neighborhood. They are not annoying. I don't think they would disturb your neighbors. Rooster are a different story. If your coop is two feet from your neighbors house that's a different story. Then they may be annoyed. But I doubt that's what you're thinking about. We have a rooster in the neighborhood also and I hear the crowing but it doesn't bother me. If he was two feet from my house, maybe I'd be annoyed at being woken up at dawn. But actually, it would be a cool alarm.

zipdee -- The baby chicks were so cute! That whole big structure is for 3 chickens? It's so pretty and spacious,looks like a shed. What's the dimension?

Judy -- I thought all hens sing after laying eggs,good to know some don't.

I have to find out whether having chicken as pet is allowed in our community. All this talk of fresh eggs makes me drool:-)

Sara .. We already had a fairly large cottage in the back yard, so what we did was take that shed addition and half of that part of the cottage is my potting shed and half is chicken coop. The side screened in porch part is the chicken's run, we added that part on. Their run is 10' x 12' which is larger than 3 chickens need. Their coop part of the shed addition is 8' x 10' ... the rest is my potting shed part. Their coop and run are a little over kill .. but we were working with what we already had.

Here's the actual cottage from the road, you can see part of their screened in run behind the fence. The shed addition opens into our main house's backyard.

{{gwi:1590085}}

Inside their run right after we built it :

The girls half grown, right after they were old enough to move into the coop. Sleeping in the sunshine :

Recycled french door leading from the potting shed into the coop, the run door is open here too :

Looking from the run, into the coop the other way. That Jabba the Babbit .. he's their house bunny. :)

Part of the potting shed portion

zipdee, your chickens are lucky!

Zipdee, that whole setup is to die for!! And both chicken AND rabbit poop for your gardens . . . lucky you!

OMG now I'm really embarrassed at the condition of our chicken coop. Waaa Waaaa Waaaa

Furletcity, Zipdee your chicken heavens are beautiful. No, gorgeous. Firsthouse even your temporary set up is lovely. Waaaaa Waaaaa Waaaaa. I must show my husband!

I love this thread! Your chicken houses are beautiful. I, too, love the red door...
Just how long does a chicken live, and typically how long after they no longer lay eggs can they live?? We have vicious raccoons so I don't know if we could protect the little chickens well enough.

I love this thread! Thank you for the very nice comments! This is off topic, but you'll appreciate it more than anyone else! Here are my small chicken trees from last Christmas. Forgive the bad photo, I chopped the top rooster's head off(figuratively speaking).

{{!gwi}}

Alabamanicole: I have heard that duck eggs make the BEST cakes. Their yolks are very large and have a very high fat content, particularly when the ducks are out and eating bugs.

This is a great thing to do. Everybody having a few chickens that they watch closely and take care of is a good thing. And if you're going to eat meat, knowing exactly how it was raised and being part of the process is responsible.
In my area gardening groups even give classes on how to raise chickens in the city!

I would caution people, if they haven't thought of it already, to watch, and keep a watch, on where runoffs go. Sometimes construction, settling, tree roots etc. can change where the rain goes over time. There are natural bacteria living in healthy chickens that can make people sick, and of course sick chickens can make people sick. And you shouldn't use any manure on food crops, just ornamentals.

Pretty birds too!

We had a beautiful pair of peking ducks until a few years ago. During the first 2 years the female laid a DOUBLE yolk egg each day! Those eggs were so delicious and large. We think a hawk got the female first. After that the male would sit in front of our cellar window and stare at himself. We believe he thought that his reflection was his beloved. A couple of years later he disappeared also without a trace so we think it was hawks. No squawking, no feathers, no blood . . . one minute there and the next minute gone. We don't let our chickens roam because of that experience.

"you shouldn't use any manure on food crops, just ornamentals"

Growlery I'm sure many would disagree with that. We've been using manure on our vegetable gardens for over 30 years. But we don't use fresh manure. When we use it, the manure is years old and looks and smells like rich dirt. We've used cow and horse manure, but we have friends that also use chicken and rabbit.

Run off from big agri farms is certainly a huge problem. It is my understanding that lettuce and spinach crops that have gotten contaminated did so because of cow manure run off at these big operations. Cows stand in their manure in the most disgusting conditions at these agri farms owned by big business with no respect for the animals or people eating their products. They are so covered in fresh manure that when they are slaughtered the manure even gets into our food chain. Buying from small local farms is so much better, but not always feasible. This system is broken and needs to be fixed. It's refreshing to read about others that are taking things into their own hands and growing their own. Raising chickens for eggs is not only healthy for the family, but it is making a statement which is important and timely.

If you look at the orig post, you can see my ginormous egg that came from my big layer who was not the one who got carried off by a hawk (my neighbor witnessed the massacre, so no mystery there). She laid double yolks just about every week, and was so pretty and big--but like Marilyn Monroe, "her candle burnt out too quickly" and we found her just dead one morning.

I am incredibly jealous of Zipdee's beautiful coop and may need to start whining to DH about our "poor chickens" and their sub-par coop and run. And I also may need to get myself a cute chicken tree like furlet! The duck thing is totally compelling and once I finish with this remodel, I might start concentrating on other things like raising ducklings!

CITY FOLKS:
Here is a post of the nest boxes--they have a lid that YOU lift each morning and look for eggs. The hens lay their eggs in these boxes.
{{!gwi}}From Misc photos

When you open the lids, there will be an egg or two or three, depending upon how many hens you have. Our hens during the winter lay about 2 eggs every 3 days. here is a picture from the inside of the coop with one brown egg.
{{!gwi}}From Misc photos

I have been surprised how much I love our chickens and how great they have been for our kids. We live about 30 min from San Francisco in a suburb and wouldn't really consider it the "country". Many people here have chickens, and as a previous poster recommended, you can call and ask your local city govt offices if they allow poultry. If they do and you are interested, look up www.backyardchickens.com. With the dangers of construction all around, the chickens have no free ranging abilities, but in June I hope they can scratch up the ground and eat bugs and weeds to their hearts content!

Anyone have a Polish Fancy with the "hats" and plumed heads? Those make me laugh! Post your chicken pics!

firsthouse_mp: That egg looks so yummy! I showed it my husband already.

furletcity: Those chicken trees are so cute!

Judy: Your duck story is so sad. We have lots of turkey vultures here, don't know what hawks look alike in the sky. We also have cats in the neighborhood, some of them are pretty big. Can cats get chicken? I have been researching some sort of mobile chicken run with mesh-covered top, so chicken can go to different part of yard.

Well, I am getting ahead of myself.

Sara, my friends built a portable run for their five hens. It was just a big frame of maybe 1x2s with corner-to-corner braces, I'd guess about 4' wide by 4' long by 2 or 3' high, all covered with chicken wire. The two of them could easily pick it up and move it to a different location. It wasn't glamorous, but sure did the job. I think I'd put handles -- maybe drawer pulls -- somewhere on the frame so you could hold it easily when moving.

I'm reallly going to have to think about this! I love the idea of fresh eggs, and the hens themselves are so pretty!

Thanks so much for the kind comments on the girl's coop and run. We just gave a face lift to what was already here.

Firsthouse and Judy .. both of your experiences are so sad! We have hawks galore here, so the hens are never really allowed out into the yard. Plus we also have five dogs, my DH brings home rescues .. two of them would really *love* a chance at a chicken dinner, their run is built like fort knox!

Furletcity .. I'm totally enamored with your chicken tree! :) Next year I'd love to do a kitchen tree and I think chickens would be awesome.

Here's my only kitchen chicken at the moment.
Henrietta is busy being the kitchen ambassator and her job is currently inviting guests to partake in Christmas nibbles ..

My husband built a portable pen that has wheels on one end. He has to buy better wheels for it so it will move around easier. It's a cool concept.

My roofers surprised me and thought that our chicken coop roof should match our new home roof, standing seam! Hard to see in the pics becuase of the rain, but both the house and the coop is white with a metal roof and batten/board siding.

Has anyone else done a matching theme? Judydel did you end up painting and fixing the chickenhouse to match your home?

firsthouse no the coop still looks the same, ahem, not so pretty.

BUT, my husband picked up 6 new baby chicks yesterday. They are so darn cute. Our five adult layers will be sent to auction in 6 months and the young spring chickens will take over. The circle of life.

Maybe we'll spruce up the coop this summer.

bump