Those you know me well, or any who read this blog intermittently, will know that I love chickens: raising them, talking about them, pampering them. I was so happy to discover this website recently as it is devoted to those who, in an urban or rural environment, raise anywhere from one chicken to an entire barn full. There are some wonderful, inspiring photos here of creative, architecturally-imaginative coops. Also an extremely active forum, which I plan to make use of, and a learning center where you can learn how to even get to Step One in the raising of chickens.
It is typical for those like myself in a rural location to raise chickens, but what I love are the increasing numbers of people in cities and suburbs who are building small coops in their backyards and welcoming a small number of chickens into their lives. Seattle is one city in particular that has a very active chicken community, and some great backyard coops....apparently, there are coop tours!
If all of us can take even a small proportion of our food production into our own hands, like vegetable gardening and egg producing, we can go a long way towards reversing the incursion of factory farms and all the destruction, environmentally and socially, that they cause. Raising chickens is so easy. The eggs are so delicious and ten times more nutritious. And chickens are just a hoot to keep around. I'm always surprised at the number of our guests each summer who are enamored with our chickens, take pictures of them, pet them, feed them. We had some guests this last summer who returned after a few years and were so excited to see the chickens again, even remembering some of their names!
4 comments:
Wow, you are right - I just got off that site and what a fantastic bunch of cute ideas there! And can't wait for my next summer (not winter - haha) trip up there to feed the chickies and gather eggs - that was one of the things I liked the best!! haha - took me back to my old days on the farm and the turkeys. Have you ever thought of trying turkeys just for the summer?
Haven't seriously thought about turkeys. I don't know how many months it takes for them to come to...fruition, so to speak. Until they're plump and tasty. If I could, I would have a barnyard menagerie here: goats, horses, pigs. I adore all of them, but there is always the issue of housing them in the winter. And the issue of finding a caretaker for when we travel. But hmmmm....the turkeys might be a possibility!
Talk to someone that has raised turkeys. I'm serious when I say they can be very aggresive.
The family lore was rich for years because of my Great-grandma's attack turkey.
One day the mail guy drives up to the house to drop a package, and the turkey chased him right back to his truck!
Scared the crap out of him, made for great small town stories for many years to come!
The mail guy took a lot of flak over that one but he was a good sport.
He even continued to bring packages to the house... except he'd beep the horn so Gi-Gi would come out for the box!
:)
Yes, I sure do know about the aggressive personalities of turkeys! We used to raise them when I was very young. I don't remember the specifics of taking care of them, but I certainly remember their tempers, as they used to chase toddler-size me around the yard! And my Uncle Elmer had a turkey who would attack anyone who pulled into his yard: we'd have to drive in, leap out of the car and run into the house as fast as possible!
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