PICK UP CHICKS IN THE CITY
Your guide to mastering chicken keeping in the suburbs and even the city.
In my grandmother’s youth, a small family flock of chickens in the suburban yard was commonplace. It wasn’t a hobby so much as a way of life. In tandem with a garden, putting food on the table directly from the land was how it was done. After World War II, a massive shift in the way Americans eat began to take place. With the advent of highway systems and the growth of cities, food was more easily transported, and grocers could stock their shelves with exotic foods grown some distance away. Eventually, food was mass-produced on large farms and trucked to local grocery stores rather inexpensively. Acquiring food in this way soon became incredibly convenient for the typical American family. Trade artisans, such as bakers and butchers, began to disappear, as it became easier to stock a kitchen or pantry with everything from under one retailer’s roof.
Almost simultaneously, many suburban and rural communities created regulations against the keeping of domestic chickens. Some cities outlawed the keeping of chickens within their limits altogether (although others, such as New York City, never changed regulations and still allow backyard flocks to this day). With the resurgence of self-sufficient philosophies and the reclassification of chickens as pets rather than livestock, many cities are now overturning their ordinances and allowing backyard chickens once again.
Are Chickens Right for You?
Almost anyone can raise chickens, but is keeping them right for you? Whether your city or town has recently overturned ordinances or never shed its rural roots to begin with, this article covers all of the concerns, costs and considerations you need to think about before embarking on backyard chicken ownership.
City Rules & Regulations
Contact your city’s health and zoning boards to see if chickens are legal within the city’s limits. If you’re lucky, your town may have municipal codes posted online for the public to read. Look under headings labeled “Animals” and “Zoning” — these two sections will likely provide some answers. If your online browser offers a search function, search for words like “fowl,” “poultry,” “livestock” and, of course, “chickens.”
When in doubt, county clerks or code compliance officers are great resources to help you sift through the heady terminology. However, if you speak with someone who assumes chickens aren’t allowed in your city, ask to see the codes that state the rules to be sure.
For some municipalities, there may be no mention of poultry under the “Animals” section, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t allowed. Sometimes, the rules for how many of each animal species is legal per zone may be under “Zoning,” so try searching there before you give up. If your city does allow chickens, bear in mind there may be a limit to the number of birds you may keep, and there may be additional fees for any birds or other pets over that limit. Some cities may also require a permit and charge a small yearly fee.
Finally, if you live in a neighborhood with a homeowner’s association, you’ll also want to check with the association’s board
to learn whether they allow chickens in your neighborhood. If they are against chickens, you may feel passionate enough to take steps toward reversing those restrictions. Educating your fellow homeowners and board members is the first step: Speak to your neighbors, start a petition and present to the board all of the many reasons why chickens are a great addition to any backyard.
Being Neighborly
So your city’s codes check out, and you’re legally allowed to keep chickens in your town.
Before you start ordering chicks and building a coop, though, you may want to run your intentions by your neighbors. Those not familiar with chickens may be wary of even the mention of the barnyard animals.
After all, chickens make noise (just a little) and their housing can smell (if improperly cared for). Your job is to consider your neighbors’ concerns and alleviate any unfounded fears. Assure them you’ll keep a clean coop (and follow through on that promise), because a wellmaintained coop doesn’t smell. Educate them on basic chicken behavior: Many people don’t realize that hens do not need a rooster to lay eggs, so you won’t need one around. (Most cities prohibit roosters, anyway, and roosters are the noisy ones.) Hens cluck and chirp contentedly throughout the day, but rarely do they make noise above a conversational speaking voice. Occasionally, an individual bird may sing her post–egg laying “hen song,” but it only lasts for a few minutes and is still quieter than a barking dog.
Finally, take aesthetics into account. A nicely constructed coop with attractive paint choices and window boxes or some minor landscaping can go a long way toward winning over wary neighbors. Keep it clean and tidy. Remember, your coop represents the modern chicken movement, and you are a representative of chicken keepers everywhere. Show your neighbors and prove to your town that chickens do have a place in every yard.
When all else fails, shamelessly bribe your neighbors with the enticement of homegrown eggs with yolks so dark, they’re nearly orange.
That might just be enough to win them over.
A Lifestyle with Chickens
Like any pet, caring for chickens requires a bit of daily attention. Whether you have a flock of three or 30, daily tasks include egg collecting, visual checks on all of your ladies for illness or injury, and a quick scan of the coop’s perimeter. If you provide your flock with large water fonts and feeders, feeding and watering chores can happen every other day or so, and big cleanings can be reserved for one weekend in the spring.
One of the biggest adjustments to your lifestyle will take place in the evening, when the flock turns in for the night. Chickens instinctively seek shelter at dusk, and they’ll find it in their coop. To keep them safe from predators, they’ll need someone to lock them up in the coop each evening and open the coop door again each morning at daybreak.
This chore isn’t time-consuming in itself; rather, it’s all about timing. Many predators strike right at dusk or shortly after, so it’s important to close up the coop just after the flock retires for the evening. Sunup and sundown times will gradually shift with the seasons, though, changing the time of day you’ll need to close and open the door. For these reasons, it helps to create a system in place. Some chicken keepers install automatic coop door openers that close on a timer. These can be costly but really convenient. Some chicken keepers let their birds free-range only when they’re at home to watch them and are available to shut the door behind them each evening. Others build predator-proof outdoor runs that don’t require the daily opening and closing of the coop door at all (very helpful for those who work late or have unpredictable schedules). For those of you with families, this is a terrific responsibility to give to children and teens.
Another consideration when starting a flock of chickens is establishing their care while you are away. Unlike cats or dogs, a flock of chickens can’t be boarded with a veterinarian or kennel. Whether you travel for work or vacation, you’ll need to employ someone to come to your coop to gather eggs, feed and water the flock, and open and close the coop door. Fortunately, as the chicken-keeping movement gains momentum in cities across the country, more and more knowledgeable chicken sitters are offering their services. For a small fee, they’ll keep an eye on your flock and know what to look out for should a problem occur.
Finally, if any of these responsibilities seem burdensome, consider sharing the weight with others. Starting a flock with neighbors helps to distribute the costs and responsibilities of keeping chickens, and there will always be extra sets of eyes, ears and hands to pick up chores, troubleshoot issues and swap egg recipes.
Expenses
Many assume that if they keep a few chickens, they’ll get “free” eggs. But if you’re doing it right, keeping chickens is not free. While dayold chicks are rather cheap (cheep!) compared to other pets at $3 to $5 per chick, there will be start-up costs in the way of housing, equipment, bedding, feed and supplements. The latter three items will be continuous monthly or yearly costs as well, so budget accordingly. To some degree, spending money is necessary if you want to keep healthy chickens.
By far, the coop is often the largest expense. You can spend thousands of dollars on a deluxe chicken coop with all the bells and whistles, or you can get creative and retrofit an old shed or doghouse with found or recycled materials. As long as the coop keeps your birds safe from predators and the elements, and it’s strong, sturdy, and gives them a place to lay eggs and roost at night, they won’t mind what the coop is made of or how much it costs.
Like any pet, chickens require a continuous supply of feed that will accrue a regular (usually monthly) cost. The thought of chickens foraging in the backyard (for free) is certainly idyllic, but it’s not realistic. Laying hens have specific nutritional needs, and if they aren’t met, their health will suffer. Feed costs vary widely depending on the brand of feed you choose and the number of birds you keep.
The hard lesson that many excited, new chicken keepers learn in the first few years is that you don’t really save money on eggs by keeping chickens. If you’ve been buying pastured, local eggs from the tailgate market or nearby farms, you likely have an idea of what eggs from healthy, humanely raised chickens actually cost. In that case, you may see a small savings. But if you’re transitioning from 99¢ per dozen for factory-farmed eggs bought at the grocery store, it may be several years before you start to see a difference in your food bill. Even so, many keepers, myself included, feel that when the true costs are weighed, the effort is worth the price.
Space Requirements
Chickens need room to roam. How much, exactly, depends on the size of your flock. The jury is still out on precise numbers per bird, but a good rule of thumb that many chicken keepers follow is to
provide 4 square feet of coop space per bird if they are free-range and 10 square feet of space per bird if they are confined to a coop, pen or outdoor run full time. You can’t really give a chicken too much space; in this area, more is better.
The only hard-and-fast requirement is that the space be located outdoors. To be a chicken keeper, a backyard space is a must. A small flock could conceivably live indoors and have their basic needs met, but I wouldn’t recommend this route. Raising chickens indoors would deprive them of their very nature to scratch, dig, peck and dust-bathe.
Time Requirements
We’ve touched a little on the basic time requirements needed to tend to a small flock of chickens. There will be a few easy daily chores but also some moderate weekly maintenance, and once a year or so, there will be a rather messy coop cleaning. For now, be prepared to devote some time to your coop’s maintenance and chicken care.
Chores aside, when you share a life with chickens, there will be some lost time that goes unaccounted for: watching baby chicks in a brooder, spending time in your garden as your flock follows you around and watching young pullets lay eggs. These are the “chores” that make all of the poop scooping worthwhile.
Peeps, Pipsqueaks & Poop
Chickens and kids can — and often do — get along famously. Many of the small chores needed to properly care for chickens are perfect for little hands. Children are often endlessly entertained by chicken antics, and raising chickens for eggs offers valuable insight into where our food comes from.
To make the most of this relationship, though, children will need adult supervision in several areas. The most important factor is hygiene. Chickens aren’t the tidiest pets, and anyone tending to them will become quite accustomed to navigating around their waste. Proper hand washing should follow any contact with chickens. Wearing appropriate chicken attire, such as muck boots, while working or spending time in the coop is also a must. By creating a hygiene routine for children directly involved in chicken care, everyone can rest assured knowing the poop stays outside where it belongs.
Other Pets
If you already share your space with and care for other animals, you’ll need to consider how well they will fare with chickens and how well chickens will fare around them. Indoor birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, amphibians and other similar critters are usually quite compatible with a flock of chickens — mostly because they never cross paths. Other barnyard animals, such as horses, goats, pigs and cows, were practically made to cohabitate — whole books have been written on successful pasture rotation including ruminants and chickens. Other poultry, such as turkey and ducks, on the other hand, can share some nasty parasites with chickens, putting the health of all at risk, so do your research before integrating flocks of poultry.
Generally, cats do not pose a viable threat to most adult chickens. Outdoor cats may cautiously interact with free-range
chickens, but there are rarely major conflicts.
On the other hand, cats do pose a threat to small chicks and even some fully-grown bantams. Even a seemingly timid house cat can cause serious harm or death to either. Chicks brooded indoors around house cats should be properly protected: Predator-proof the brooder so that cats can’t jump into it or reach in and claw at the chicks. If possible, brood chicks in a separate room where you can close the door and keep cats away completely. Introductions between the species can happen with your supervision, but the two should never be left together unattended.
While cats have a fairly predictable set of hunting behaviors, dogs are an entirely different matter. Some dogs are very aggressive toward animals they perceive as prey and wouldn’t hesitate to kill a chicken (or an entire flock). Others may be disinterested or even compelled to protect the flock. Chickens and dogs may not seem to be the most compatible of species, but with an early start, good training and a watchful eye, certain dogs (of any size) can find a very harmonious existence with a flock of backyard chickens. You may find that keeping one of these compatible canines nearby can ward off a number of unpleasant predators all while fulfilling your pup’s need for a job.
Preparing Your backyard
Once chickens are introduced into your outdoor space, they’ll quickly make themselves at home in every nook and cranny: Flower pots, water fountains, veggie beds — it’s all fair game. Through the investigative powers of their beaks, talons and sheer curiosity, no stone will be left unturned.
To immaculately manicured flower beds and perfectly mulched gardens, a flock of chickens can be a frustrating nuisance at best and a devastating force at worst. Chickens scratch at soil, dig craters in the dirt for dust bathing, and eat the foliage and fruit from favorite flora. If they find something particularly tasty in your garden, they’ll eat it down to the roots. They’ll also overturn compost piles searching for bugs and grubs (it is up to you whether that’s a boon or a nuisance), without concern for making a mess. In the process, they’ll deposit droppings in their wake. With free-range chickens, these scenarios are not a matter of if but rather when.
Like any other preparation, chicken proofing a garden is a project best started before any peeps come home. The easiest and only foolproof way to keep chickens out of areas where they’re not welcome is to put a barrier.
Fencing
Fencing used to keep chickens out of gardens need not be fancy or even heavy duty for that matter. It only needs to serve as a barrier to keep marauding chickens out (or in, depending on how you use it). This means most of your options won’t be terribly costly or difficult to install. If your neighborhood is home to loose-roaming dogs, it would be wise to consider dual-purpose fencing that will keep chickens in and predators out. Assuming you simply want to deter your chickens from destroying your gardens, there are several simple fencing options.
Chain-link fencing is very durable and a common fencing option for many homeowners; however, it is quite expensive to use for simply keeping chickens out of unwanted areas. Consider chain-link fencing for perimeter use or for your own use. If you already have chain-link fencing erected on your property, it will work very well at keeping chickens corralled. Fortunately, for those putting up new fencing, there are many other chicken-friendly options.
Though the mesh is too thin for all-purpose predator protection, chicken wire fencing is one of the best options for keeping chickens out of unwanted areas. It’s inexpensive (comparable in cost to plastic), easy to find and