Urban Chickens picks on Flashlight Worthy Books!

A friend of mine from back when I worked at AOL (many moon ago) has created a new site of book recommendations called Flashlight Worthy. (cute name and great validation to know I'm not the only one that snuck in some extra awake time as a kid with a book and a light under the covers at night)

I was honored when he asked if I'd help him pull one together about chickens, so here's my list of book recommendations for aspiring urban chicken farmers.

I think I picked a good set, but I'd love to hear if anyone has others they think should be there (or, heaven forbid, ones I should take off).

Oh, and if you'd like to create your own list of book recommendations for Flashlight Worthy, here's how.

the chicken doctor is in

Caught a great little article on how chickens are raised written by Dr. Tim Cummings, a poultry veterinarian at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Mississippi State University. He's been a "chicken doctor" for almost 25 years now and it would seem he's heard just about everything.

They biggest myth busted for me while reading his article? The issue of hormones used to make chickens grow fast:

When people find out that I work with poultry, it's amazing how regularly I get asked the same questions. For instance, it's fairly standard to get asked about all the hormones used to "make the chickens grow so fast."

After I inform the curious individual that hormones are not injected or fed to the birds, I often see this funny look come over their face.

It's almost like they don't believe me.

After all, one poultry company even advertised that they don't add hormones to their chickens! That was nice of them, especially since no other poultry company in the world does either.

Well, I'll be!

UPDATE 12/11/08: Per Dr. Cumming's request, I've removed his contact info from this post, so he's not overwhelmed by requests from outside the region. Read the linked article above if you're still interested in contacting him.

Our noisy urban chickens get busted

We live in a typical urban neighborhood: lots of babies, kids and dogs contributing to the soundtrack of families growing up. The traffic is light, and we can hear the sounds of the Caltrain as it pulls into Redwood City station about a mile away. In all, it's a pretty quiet place with the few odd punctuations of nuisance sounds: sirens, loud car mufflers... our chickens.

It seems one of our chickens, Sophia, has fallen in love with the sound of her own voice. And I'm not talking about her soothing little cluck-cluck-cluck sound. I'm talking her alarmed-hen sound as if she's trying to warn others that some threat is near by: a loud "Caaaaaaaw!" And it's never just one Caaaaaw!, there's got to be a whole series of them one after the other after the other.

Depending on how much energy she's got, she could go on belting out a caw every 10 seconds or so for minutes on end before finally getting it out of her system. I've found I can help short-circuit these loud sessions by walking down to the coop let her see I'm near, but I'd rather not have her learn to call me to her coop by doing this.

And unlike prior fears that she was just making a ruckus because she's cooped up instead free-ranging the yard, Sophia's also stopped in the middle of the yard while I'm out there with her and raised her head up to belt out a couple CAAAAWs for no particular reason.

So I've learned to just let her go at it, even though it seems that about three mornings a week, just after dawn, she'll starting belting them out in the crisp morning air. No doubt to the extreme pleasure of our neighbors trying to sleep in. Heck, even I'm bothered by it some mornings.

Over the summer, we've noticed there are a couple dogs in the neighborhood that bark and bark and bark until past midnight. Laying awake in bed one night, after cursing the dogs I told my wife that I was sure our chickens were going to get in trouble with the neighbors well before those dogs were hushed. And wouldn't you know I was right?

Last week, a city zoning inspector showed up unannounced at our door to check on our chickens. Left Coast Mom was the one home at the time to receive this visit, and she let him down into the backyard to show off the girls and even pulled out two eggs from the nest (thank goodness it was a double-egg day!) to underscore the point that we're well within code here in Redwood City (four hens per household, no roosters).

The inspector asked if the chickens fought with each other (no), if they had enough room (yes), regularly tended (yes).

And so we were deemed completely in compliance with code. Thank you. Have a nice day.

It's taken me so long to write this post because there are several issues this brings up and I'm still wrestling with how to deal with them:

1. Why didn't the neighbor come knock on our door to talk to us about it first? Or is this the same passive aggressive person who left a note on our door about our own dog barking too much last summer (we got him an anti-bark collar after that). Wow, they must be going friggin nuts with the way those other dogs are carrying on at night this summer.
   
2. Sure, our chickens are legal, but it seems they're a noise nuisance. I think part of why we got "busted" is the fact that folks aren't used to hearing chickens in their neighborhood (not just ours, but any neighborhood). In running down the list of "sounds you'll hear from your backyard" I don't think "chickens calling" makes the top 40 responses for most folks. It'll take a while to get used to the chickens being acknowledged as part of the 'hood
   
3. What can I do to quiet my chickens? As mentioned above, Sophia's content to sound off whether she's inside the run or out free-ranging the yard. It seems like she's telling off the squirrels that run rampant around her or the jays or crows that fly over, but I can't tell the source of her perturbation. I really just think she likes the sound of her voice.

And finally, why is it that the dogs are getting the free ride where my chooks are not? There seems to be no consequence to their barking and barking and barking at all hours. As the Mrs was walking the city code inspector to the door after we scored our "meets code" rating, she asked if he was the same one who got called in to deal with incessantly barking dogs.

"No," he said, "for them you have to call the police."

Talk about busted!

another use for chicken poop?

From the "I think I've seen everything" department:

My Google Reader alerted me to this fine product this morning: Chicken Poop Lip Balm. Really. Follow the link and you can buy your own tube of it.

Now, my eldest has a challenge with chapped lips, so maybe I can take some of what Sophia and ZsuZsu are excreting daily and put it to better use than simply tumbling it into the compost bin.

Oh wait, there in bright blue at the bottom of the product page it says "THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS NO POOP!!"

All is not lost though, I've at least got a good story to share with my daughter when her own lips are cracked:

The Name....Chicken Poop comes from Jamie’s goofy grandpa replying to her complaint of having dry lips. He’d say, “I know how to fix those dry lips, I’ll rub some chicken poop on ‘em so you won’t be lickin’ ‘em.” Brilliant, don’t you think?

Brilliant indeed.

Opinions on Urban Chickens in Wake Forest?

Can any of you help respond to this post from Emily Cole over on the Urban Chickens fan page over on Facebook? (I've inserted the links in the post)

The Wake Weekly is looking for opinions on Backyard Chickens in Wake Forest. Could you please email the editor your opinion? The Wake Forest Board of Commissioners is discussing the issue August 19th, and I sure could use all the support I can get! The email address is below. If you need more information about this issue, check out my blog at www.wfchickens.blogspot.com. Thanks! Emily Cole

Not sure if there's a geographical limit to the folks they're looking to hear from, but maybe us owners in towns that are more progressive toward urban chickens can share our own experiences?

Send your note to editor@wakeweekly.com

saying goodbye to our kind soul

We arrived home with heavy hearts last night from our 13-day road trip to Canada.

Argus, our beloved Great Dane, passed away at the kennel in his sleep Saturday night.

I never did get that picture of him with our two chickens walking between his legs, so this picture will have to do to show just how friendly he was with our urban chickens (more perplexed by them than anything else).

I'm still trying to come to grips with his being gone, and with his passing while we were gone, away from him.

Argus was only eight years old (yes, that's old for a big dog, but still he came from a long-lived lineage), and he'd shown no signs of distress or discomfort anytime before our going on vacation. Yes, he was slowing down, but his appetite was as good as ever, and we'd just chased each other around the yard a couple days before we left. He loved the kennel he stayed at, and they loved him, too, so it's not as though he wasn't enjoying himself (he was, wasn't he?).

So Argus's passing came as a real shock, and hearing the news early on a Sunday morning in some distant, generic hotel room didn't make it any easier to hear.

Argus was (and always will be) a great dog all around, and I'm thankful for all the lessons he taught me in patience, in love and in compassion. He helped blow away all stereotypes I'd formed about big dogs and taught me the true meaning of a gentle giant. You can also read Left Coast Mom's tribute to Argus.

Today's a day of "dealing with the details" as we go to the kennel to handle the paperwork and then to the Humane Society to say one last goodbye.

I'll climb back on the chicken-blogging wagon a little later this week.

I'll miss you Argus, and I'll carry you in my heart, always.

drawings of a chicken growing up

Greetings from the road to Alberta! Found this little gem thanks to the good folks at boingboing:

A (very talented) science illustrator, Mieke Roth, has posted to her blog drawings of a chick growing up (one each week) from day 20 to day 68 of its life.

A sample of the work (day 31) is shown to the right.

Great to find this little gem on the web. Click on the image to see her whole series.