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Backyard chickens

Michaelshane

One Too Many
Messages
1,928
Location
Land of Enchantment
Anybody have chickens?
6E859346-1448-4EB4-B7D0-A1AF76CD01BD-25011-000028D4738D82F4.jpg
 

BR Gordon

One Too Many
Messages
1,152
Location
New Mexico
Michael, That's got to be the best looking chicken enclosure that I've seen. Your chickens are living in the lap of luxury.
 

Michaelshane

One Too Many
Messages
1,928
Location
Land of Enchantment
I worked on this thing for three weeks.Im not a very good carpenter,I had to backtrack a few times.My wife said if I made it cute we could have chickens.I still need to add cedar shakes to the roof.
 

Atticus Finch

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,718
Location
Coastal North Carolina, USA
I had chickens when I was a kid. Our elderly neighbor had a coop and some of the chickens were his and some were mine. It was my job to feed the darn things every morning and collect the eggs. One of our chickens was the meanest white rooster that ever walked. He would try to spur me every time I went into the coop. He was actually a grown up Easter biddy that my folks bought for me one year. I guess he was so darned mean because he had been dyed pink in his youth.

AF
 

Oldsarge

One Too Many
Messages
1,440
Location
On the banks of the Wilamette
No, it isn't causing a salmonella outbreak, it's a reaction to it. Here in Lakewood we're allowed five hens per household . . . no roosters! Unfortunately we own a terrorier who would traumatize the poor birds. Plus my wife keeps pointing out that chickens and travel don't mix and she'd rather travel. Oh well, I do my agrarian thing with my vegetables and fruit trees. I'd like bees but honey has too high a glycemic index for me and I'm allergic to the stings so forget that. I guess I'm fated to be a hunter/gardener rather than a suburban homesteader.
 

dnjan

One Too Many
Messages
1,690
Location
Seattle
I'm curious what happens with these backyard chickens after a couple of years (when their egg production significantly drops off).
Having grown up on a farm where we would get about 100 "day-old chicks" each Spring, I know what happened to our chickens.
But I can't quite picture that solution being acceptable to many back-yard chicken owners (or even legal in some urban areas).
 

SHOWSOMECLASS

A-List Customer
Messages
440
Location
Des Moines, Iowa
Our neighbor has wild plants that flower therefore they are not weeds according to the city code. Also the chickens are a constant presence which are always here.
 
Messages
10,939
Location
My mother's basement
I'm so tied down to this place that having a few fowl to tend to wouldn't burden me much more than I already am. But I'm reluctant to have chickens (or even a wild bird feeder) because I don't wish to add to the rodent problems that plague this district. I'm careful not to feed mice and rats, but that doesn't mean I never see them (or evidence of them) around here. Rats pay no mind to that fence between my place and the neighbors'.

A niece lives with her husband and kids on a heavily wooded property on the very outskirts of the settled area of the Puget Sound region. They kept chickens, until she saw a cougar skulking away with one in its mouth. Her concern was less for what the cougar(s) might do to her remaining chickens than to her kids, and she came to the perfectly reasonable conclusion that having the chickens only increased the odds of such a tragic event coming to pass. So that was the end of keeping chickens.
 
Last edited:
Messages
10,939
Location
My mother's basement
Our neighbor has wild plants that flower therefore they are not weeds according to the city code. ...

Way off topic, but ...

Local ordinance bans open fires, even in a well-constructed firepit. But cooking over an open fire is legal. So, just keep a hot dog and a stick around, and your illicit open fire is now a perfectly legal barbecue pit.
 
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Barbigirl

Practically Family
Messages
915
Location
Issaquah, WA
I have a friend in Bremerton, WA who is a master gardner and she had chickens for four years up until she decided she really was ready to travel again. The very broodie hen went to a neighbor as she loves love to egg sit and the other older ones had pretty much stopped producing eggs so they met the fate of what we refer to as "the tube". It keeps their wings from flapping too much and off with their heads! They ate'em.
 

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