One of the things I most love about celebrating this Earth Day is recognizing just how pervasive the idea of urban chickens has become over the last four years that I've been paying attention.
Back in 2007, outside of the stellar (yet nascent) community over on BackyardChickens.com, there was very little information online about raising micro-flocks of chickens anywhere off agriculturally-zoned land. This blog was founded as a way to document my own entry into this fascinating world of keeping chickens in your own backyard. How do you pick a chicken? Where do you get a coop? What do they eat? When do the eggs start coming? What to do with all these eggs? Why can't I have chickens? What do I do with a sick hen? So many questions and answers and there's a lot yet to be learned.
The blog then morphed into something bigger as I found new friends who shared my interest in urban chickens and we're almost 5000 friends strong over on the Facebook page. Today, this blog is just one of literally thousands of blogs talking about the joy that is urban chicken keeping. In my work these days, I get a chance to travel to Portland (Oregon) quite frequently and I'm still tickled to spot coops in backyards and hear clucks behind fences as I walk through the various neighborhoods.
I hope you get a chance to celebrate Earth Day with your hens, and if you're in between hens (as I am right now), here's hoping you know someone just down the block who's willing to share their flock.
Happy Earth Day!
5 comments:
Hi.
I've been following your blog for quite a long time, and finally, finally, I'll be acquiring some chooks over the next couple of weeks. A little henhouse is in place, just need to add some fencing for a run and then I'm ready to go!
I live in a village, so strictly speaking they won't be urban chickens.
I'm so looking forward to the First Egg!!
Happy Easter!
I'm a newer blog follower. I enjoy your posts and am enjoying my backyard flock immensely. Now I school others in how easy it is to keep chickens.
It's nice to share with other chicken-keepers. We ordered several new chicks and raised them last year. They were 'guaranteed' to be females. Guess what? One of 2 Wyandottes turned into a rooster. He was gorgeous, but was mean to the hens, so he was given away. Why is it hard to 'sex' a chicken?
Greetings I stumbled on your blog by mistake when i was searching Live search for this concern, I need to tell you your website is quite useful I also seriously like the design, it is great!
Backyard chickens are great. I just found out about a great learning opportunity for people like me that I wanted to share. The University of Maryland is hosting the Mid-Atlantic Small Flock Expo on February 4, 2012. This is a whole day of workshops aimed at people like us. I look forward to attending. All the details about it are posted at http://carroll.umd.edu/ag/poultry.cfm Hope to see you there
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