5 ways to tap the urban chicken support network

One of the biggest challenges of making the leap into raising urban chickens (especially when you think you're the first one in your neighborhood to do so) is having someone to turn to for assistance when the hundred-and-first little doubt creeps in about whether you're really ready to do this.

Thanks to the internets and Google, it's relatively easy to find content online that'll answer some (most?) of your questions. One of the reasons I started this blog was to try and synthesize all the information I was gathering (and producing by trying things myself) so that others could make better informed decisions when they followed a similar path.

But how do you find a local support network? Here are a few things you can do to find others nearby:

1. Join in the BackyardChickens.com forums: In addition to being a treasure trove of all things related to raising small flocks of chickens, there's a wonderful social side to the forums and you can search the user profiles for folks posting from somewhere near you.
2. Join a Pet Chicken Meetup group: If there's not already a meetup group going, you can toss your name on the "I'm interested" list and when there's a critcal mass, start your own!
3. Post a flyer at your local feed store: If you're buying your supplies from a local store, chances are great that you're not the only customer keeping them in business and making it worth their while to stock chicken feed. Ask if you can post a flyer encouraging the other urban chicken farming customers to meet for coffee at the local coffee house to swap stories.
4. Check into local 4-H activities: I'd love to have a link here to the national 4-H website, but I'm disappointed to see you can't really use the 4-H.org site to find local chapters. Thankfully, a lot of the local 4-H groups have created their own sites, so a Google search is rather robust in finding local chapters. Try this one on "4-H poultry" and add your location to refine the results further.
5. Make it easier to be found by others: Comment on chicken-related blogs (see my blog roll on the right as a starting point) or visit and join our Urban Chickens fan page on Facebook (we're about to cross over 1,500 fans!) or even start your own blog or Twitter account or Flickr photo stream and tag your stuff "urban chickens."
   

How have you found other chicken-loving folks to build your own network? Got a chicken blog you want me to add to my blog roll? Share in the comments below!