Make it the People's Choice: The Story of an Egg

UPDATE: While it didn't win the People's Choice Award, The Story of an Egg was the most viewed film of the festival!

The 2013 PBS Online Film Festival is underway, and one of the films up for consideration for the People's Choice Award is The Story of an Egg. Now through March 22 is our chance to recognize it with a People's Choice Award at the festival.

In explaining what it means for chickens to be "pasture-raised," this short film does an excellent job of reminding us why it's so important to treat our hens well. At the same time, the film makes us smarter to be wary of the messaging that marketers employ to make us think industrial hens are being treated better than they actually are.

Longtime blog readers will remember my original post about this film when it first debuted online last Spring. For the benefit of newer readers or those who missed it the first time, the short film is viewable in its entirety below.

Watch 2013 Festival | The Story of an Egg on PBS. See more from PBS Online Film Festival.

Please take a moment to vote for the film today, thank you! (The ballot page lists all films in alphabetical order, so scroll down to "S" to select the film)

GMOs: Knowing what's in your food, and mine

I've just finished watching the film Genetic Roulette, and I'll never look at the food on store shelves the same way again.

I've also voted for the film to receive the AwareGuide Top Transformational Film of 2012. It's that good.

As an urban chickens fan, I hope you'll join me in doing the same, and for your convenience, the film is embedded below:

Now, one of the many benefits of raising urban chickens is our ability to control exactly what our hens eat as they produce the eggs we then eat ourselves.  This kind of food sourcing control gives us the power to decide to take the time and effort to produce organic eggs from free range hens. Whether we go through that effort is ultimately up to us, but at the very least, we're well aware of what our hens are eating. We know where our food is coming from.

Would that this knowing were true of all the food we eat here in the United States. There's significant pressure from the food industry, via Monsanto, et al, to keep us consumers from knowing whether there are GMOs in the food we buy at market. The Europeans are ahead of us in labeling all the GMO food produced over there. We've got to do the same here, especially after the millions of dollars that were spent by the food industry defeating Prop 37 here in California last fall.

Please take a moment now to visit this AwareGuide page and vote for Genetic Roulette to receive the AwareGuide Top Transformational Film, 2012 award.

100 seconds of chickens in a photo shoot

I never realized my girls were strutting in hopes of being discovered for the catwalk.
 

Now I know better!

(see the video over on YouTube) 

What does a cage-free, free range egg look like?

Got urban chickens but still stuck buying eggs from the store? This is an awesome six-minute video from The Lexicon of Sustainability that demystifies the marketing terms of "cage-free" and "free range" for what they really mean (gimmicks at best).

Watch The Story of an Egg on PBS. See more from The Lexicon of Sustainability.

Great to see Alexis Koefoed of Soul Food Farm, among others, show just what the literal term "Pasture Raised" means to both us as consumers and our hens as producers

Urban Chickens in San Diego (video)

And the blog is coming out of hiatus!

Some of you readers may remember I went to school in San Diego, so it should be no surprise I get to share this great video about Urban Chickens in San Diego, produced by Dominic Fulgoni:



I can certainly associate with Shelly Stewart's story as to how she got into urban chickens (fresh eggs, control over food sourcing). It's also great to see that the Department of Animal Services reports they don't have problems with urban chickens as many would expect.

Hope you and your hens are having a great summer!

take a video tour of a large-scale egg farm

If you're keeping a small flock of your own, you know what it's like to collect a handful of eggs from your coop each day.

So, what's it like to collect and process over 1.7 million eggs a day!?

There's a fascinating video posted over on the USA Egg Farming site that gives us a behind-the-scenes look at large-scale egg farming at Willamette Egg Farms in Oregon.

You can see a breakdown of the difference between raising hens caged versus cage-free (they do both), both in terms of hen health and production costs.

I found it quite educational to see and learn about the inside of their modern hen house that holds 188,000 egg-laying hens in a clean, cool environment. It's a far cry from the stinky houses of old that are permanently etched into the brains of anyone who's against the idea of urban chickens.

Yes, this video is clearly part of large-scale agriculture propaganda, but that doesn't take anything away from my fascination of the process by which so many eggs are produced for the population at large (at least until everyone has a chicken in their own backyard!)

Martha Stewart Chicken Show to Air April 2

At last! This Friday, April 2, urban chickens get their moment in the spotlight on the Martha Stewart Show (check local listings).

While it seems the actual raising of chickens is only part of the territory the show covers (in addition to egg decorating and the requisite cooking of eggs), the chickens are the most important part, right?

Here's the official description of the chicken show (taped just yesterday!) from her site:

Discover how easy and rewarding it can be to raise chickens in your own backyard with a guide to getting started from "My Pet Chicken" owner Traci Torres. Then, decorate farm-fresh eggs for Easter with children's book author and chicken owner Jan Brett, and make a mini egg and sourdough bread dish with Tini executive chef Darius Salko.

From the looks of it, our urban chicken interests will be well-represented by Traci of MyPetChicken.com (the sponsor of this blog).

I wanted very much to be at the taping myself, but what with jury duty Monday and helping a client launch their new web site today, I just couldn't make it east to be in the audience. Lucky for me, I've got a DVR so I can watch this show over and over again!

Photo credit goes to Ori on Flickr

The Hen Cam: Raising Urban Chickens Vicariously

If you are one of the unfortunate many who can't keep chickens on your own either because they are illegal or you don't have room or you simply don't have the time, there's still a way for you to get your urban chicken on! 

Enter The Hen Cam, an ingenious little website maintained by writer Terry Golson.

In addition to Golson's well-written HenBlog, the site provides us a view into life with chickens and goats on Little Pond Farm (which is actually just her backyard in a town west of Boston, Massachusetts).

She's got several cameras set up throughout her backyard taking pictures every 5 seconds and streaming them onto the web, allowing viewers to see snapshots from multiple viewpoints within the chicken's coop and run.

And if, like me, you wonder how the whole thing works, there's a detailed page on how the camera setup is configured so you can get your geek on.

If you look long enough (warning: it's mesmerizing), you can see all her birds: the Polish Cresteds, the Wyandotte, the Sussex, the Barred Rock (see her full list of animals here).

What I love about the HenCam is its aquarium-like quality: you get to see chickens being very chicken-like without going outdoors or influencing their behavior by standing outside their run or having to scrape your feet!

If you find yourself spending too much watching the Hen Cam, maybe it's a sign you need to get urban chickens of your own.

Urban Chickens help teach children about food

I'm a huge fan of Jamie Oliver, naked chef and -- more recently -- food activist.

Just a year after I became an urban chicken farmer, I started seeing Oliver's work in England on behalf of chicken welfare. He's been credited with convincing some of the larger grocers in the UK to stop purchasing battery hens -- those chickens raised in horrid cramped conditions for the 39 days it takes to get from chick to plucked carcass in the local meat section.

Now, Oliver is setting his sights on the obesity epidemic caused by the crap food the majority of us eat day in and day out. I'm thrilled to see he received a TED prize this past week. You can watch the video here: Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food. It's about 21 minutes long, but it's worth every moment.

There's a jaw-dropping section at about the 11:00 mark (captured above) where Oliver is in a classroom with kids, holding up vegetables and quizzing the kids what they are. They can't identify them. They simply don't know what fresh vegetables look like. It's insane.

One of the things I love about raising urban chickens is that it teaches kids, in such a remarkably visceral way, where their food comes from.

Yummy eggs come from happy chickens. And happy chickens are loved and cared for daily. And that's why they, the kids, should be taking good care of their chickens. It just makes perfect sense to them when they see it. I'd dare say it'd make perfect sense to anyone when they see it.

Which is why we need to find more ways to get people to know where their food comes from.

Go, watch the video now. As a Valentine's day gift to the ones you love, watch it and learn and then do something to help teach kids about food.

May you be flooded in eggs this year.

Urban Chickens Strengthen a Community (video)

(note: updated the embedded video to point to vimeo version on 3/3/10)

Lisa Schneider's created a nice mini-documentary showing just what happens to her El Cerrito neighborhood with the introduction of backyard chickens.

Are we bowling alone? Think again! Schneider shows how the act of owning urban chickens helps weave connections within and across a neighborhood. She shows that they're not just one person's chickens, they're the community's chickens.

Chickens Create Community on Elm Street from Linda Schneider on Vimeo.

In interview after interview you can see a social community has been created resulting in greater emotional and social support for everyone involved.

I found I could recognize many of the same reactions that Schneider's neighbors had mirrored those of my own neighbors. Have you seen the same thing happen when people discover you own urban chickens?

Urban Chickens on the Martha Stewart Show? Be There!

Got an email this morning from Anne who works in the audience department at the Martha Stewart Show in NYC.  They're taping a show on urban farming in March 2010 and are looking for urban chicken farmers (among others) to be in the audience.

If you're interested in being there, you have to request tickets and help them understand why you should be in the audience. The details are in Anne's email:

If you or someone you know have recently turned your backyard space into a chicken coop or turkey pen, we have a special show that's just for you! We're filling our studio audience with individuals who raise livestock in urban environments as we celebrate the backyard farming movement. If you're interested in attending this show, please be sure to tell us about yourself and your backyard farm, as well as why you'd like to be part of this special audience. Please feel free to spread the word and request tickets as soon as you can if you're interested! 

The link to request tickets is www.marthastewart.com/get-tickets; scroll down to ‘calling all urban farmers.' 

I hope to see you there next month (if they approve my request to attend, that is... fingers crossed!)

Food Curated's Brooklyn Chicken Video

Got a nice note from Liza de Guia about a video posted to Food Curated about Brooklyn's Backyard Chicken Keepers. The high quality video and the enthusiasm of Megan and Katrina (the owners) make the video worth the 3 minutes to see the whole thing.


Brooklyn's Backyard Chicken Keepers *food curated* from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.

It's especially great that they got their four day-old chicks from MyPetChicken.com and you can see in the blog post update that Megan and Katrina got their very first eggs over the holidays (after the video had been shot). Reminds me of when my CBC Radio interview happened just prior to our first eggs and then the day after broadcast, the girls decided it was time.

Conan endorses Extraordinary Chickens!

If you watch the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, you know that Conan has proclaimed himself "The New Oprah" what with her deciding to quit and all next year.

And as The New Oprah, Conan's making recommendations on what Americans should buy, hoping to have the same rocket-to-the-top-of-the-charts effect that Oprah's book club has had all these years. His first recommendation, a DVD, got a 126% boost in interest the week after he pimped it (not bad).

His second product recommendation is the Extraordinary Chickens 2010 Wall Calendar and it's zoomed up the purchase charts, too.

Now, I know he's doing this to be funny (evidenced by the audience laughter), and I'm sure he's laughing with us, not at us, right? But damn, those are some good looking chooks (urban or not!)

I think I'm going to have to get me one for my wall.

Enjoy the clip of Conan announcing his recommendation below (you can walk away for 30 seconds so as to avoid the annoying commercial embedded up front):

urban chickens: controlling the feed of your food

This little gem about how keeping your own urban chickens means truly knowing where your food comes from is just one of the great soundbites from the wonderful two-part video interview of the "Toronto Chicken Lady" posted by David Sheen over on the Green Apple Landscaping blog. The video interview is a followup to his earlier post on Backyard Chickens.

Since chickens are still illegal in the Toronto's residential neighbourhoods, the interview subject's identity is obscured, but that doesn't hinder her from sharing tons of urban chicken wisdom from the ins-and-outs of daily urban chicken keeping to all the benefits that come from keeping hens in your backyard.

If you're thinking about keeping chickens in your own backyard (or trying to convince your partner that it's a good idea, really!), you could do a lot worse than spending 15 minutes listening to the Toronto Chicken Lady talking about the benefits of raising your own hens.

I notice that she's got a partial list on her Toronto Chickens site of places where chickens are legal. It's no surprise that there are so many more places where they're legal in the USA than in Canada, but wow, you'd think our neighbors up north would be a bit more progressive on this front.

And you've heard it before, and I'll say it again: I've started to compile a list of the exact ordinances making chickens legal over on the Urban Chickens Network Legal Resource Center where visitors can easily see the technical language employed by cities to legalize chickens. If you live in a place where chickens are legal, please add your city's name to the list so we can capture the municipal code and flesh out the resource center. Thanks!

VIDEO: Urban Chickens Ambassadors in Chicagoland

Found this great Chicago Tonight TV news segment on urban chickens in Evanston (where they're illegal) and all around Chicago (where they're legal). What I love about segments like this is how they re-kindle the excitement and enthusiasm and "ain't-this-cool?" factor of having chickens in the backyard. Take a look yourself:



If you're saving it for later, the quick synopsis of the six minute segment is: A profile of Laurie Zoloth, a bioethicist at Northwestern University, who is keeping chickens in her Evanston backyard in direct violation of the city code against it. The reporter then takes us on a tour all around Chicago to see the hens and the coops and the owners talking about why they have their legal chickens in the city. A bit talking to a local Feed Store owner confirming interest in chickens is really picking up. There's even a quick appearance by Tashai and Robert (our Mad City Chickens producers)!

All around, a nice piece, and it features some good ambassadors of the urban chicken movement. Thanks to Mr Brown Thumb for the original post about the segment over on Chicago Garden.

As a footnote, when I first started writing this blog, it seemed all things urban chicken were talked about in early Spring as folks busied themselves getting ready for the annual plantings. Now, however, the fascination with urban chickens seems to have decoupled from the gardening season and is on its own track and is building momentum. So great to see so many people interested in the wonderful experience of hosting urban chickens in your own backyard!

urban chickens on the Today Show!

I'll be brief and let the video segment do the talking. So great to see this ran in the first hour of the NBC Today Show this morning. I used to work at 30 Rockefeller back in my AOL Time Warner days and I never thought in a million years I'd see chickens clucking and scratching on Rockefeller Plaza.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Almost six-and-a-half minutes of urban chickens on the tele!

Mad City Chickens screens San Francisco

Slow Food San Francisco held a screening of Mad City Chickens at the Delancey Street Theater tonight, and what a treat it was to be able to meet the filmmakers and see their film on the big screen in THX sound!

Longtime readers know I've been a big fan of Tashai and Robert's documentary since I first caught wind of it way back when. I purchased the DVD as soon as it was released and while I couldn't help get a screening here in Redwood City, I was more than happy to drive up to San Francisco to meet them at the Slow Food event.

There looked to be about 80 of us in the auditorium to see the film, and while I'd see the movie several times before, there's something about watching en masse that lends more enjoyment to the subject matter at hand. After all, how often are you surrounded by a group of chicken-lovers (and wanna-bes) seeing the objects of your affection idolized on the screen?

While Robert (the "t" is silent, mind you) and I had exchanged several emails over the last couple years, it was especially thrilling to actually talk chickens with him face-to-face. As you can imagine, he's just as personable as you'd assume given the loving treatment of chickens and chicken owners that he and Tashai ("not touché") infused the film with.

While it would have been nice to pick up another copy of the DVD after the show, it turns out Saturday night's screening in nearby Davis, CA with its 350 attendees(!) cleaned them out of DVD inventory.

There was a short Q&A session after the film, and I appreciate Robert's shout-out to urbanchickens.net during his time on the stage. His pointing me out led to some fun conversations afterwards with fellow attendees about chickens in Oakland, bees and chickens, edible garden design and how the keeping of chickens in Jamaica has changed over the last couple decades.

Robert, if you do wind up screening the film in Jamaica, let me be the first to volunteer to write your travel blog for you! (have a great time on Pt Reyes tomorrow)

Oh, and if you'd like to have your own screening of Mad City Chickens in a gathering space near you (it's HIGHLY entertaining and educational if you're trying to persuade folks to help you change laws to allow chickens in your city), here's how to coordinate one.

just say no to urban roosters

A friend of mine (@lpetrides) posted a video from where she's traveling in Greece.

Go ahead, watch it. I'll be here when you get back.

But note: there's not much to see in the video, as it was shot from her room at 4:24am, while all that's visible in the black of night are the porch lights of the houses surrounding her.

The soundtrack, however, is priceless. You can hear the rooster crowing starting at about 30 seconds into the 2-minute flick. And you can hear the echo of other roosters chiming in in response to the rooster's own crowing starting at about 60 seconds in.

Those who think roosters crow only at sunrise are sorely mistaken. They're as bad as dogs in their disregard for the timing of their noisiness.

Please, for all our sanity, be sure to exclude roosters from any urban chicken ordinance you may be trying to pass.

UPDATED: Thanks, Lisa for pointing out in the comments that the rooster wasn't echoing, just rousing the neighboring roos to get noisy, too. I wonder if a rooster's call does indeed echo? (useless trivia: Mythbusters proved that a duck's quack never echos)

Mad City Chickens Screenings in Seattle

Filmmakers Tashai Lovington and Robert Lughai are touring the country with their fabulous film Mad City Chickens, and they'll be in the Seattle area within the week for two showings.

On Friday, June 12, the Wallingford Neighbors for Peace and Justice will be hosting a screening with Tashai, Robert and Seattle Tilth Garden Educator Carey Thornton, to boot! The screening will be held at 7pm at Keystone Congregational United Church of Christ, 5019 Keystone Place N., Seattle. The event is free (but donations are kindly accepted).

On Monday, June 15, Sustainable West Seattle will have its own screening of the film (note: Tashai and Robert cannot attend the Monday showing). The screening will take place at 7pm at Youngstown Arts Center, 4408 Delridge Way SW. A $3 donation is requested.

If you haven't yet purchased your own copy of the film (or even if you have), these showings will be a great opportunity to meet your fellow chicken lovers, learn a bit more about the fabulous birds in your backyard, or even convert the curious but not yet committed.

(I'm excited because Robert and Tashai will be bringing Mad City Chickens to the Bay Area in early August! If anyone would like to help me try to bring an MCC screening with the filmmakers here to the Peninsula, please let me know and we can work together to make it happen.)

Urban Chickens on CNN

Good to see Andy, the Chicken Whisperer, get some air time on CNN Saturday.

It's a nice video that counters that bogus article on Slate.com Friday.