How To Keep Chickens In the City

Guest contributor Joshua shared his impressions of chicken-raising with his three-year-old son G yesterday. Today, he'll explain how easy it can be to keep a few chickens as a city-dweller.

We live in Seattle, one of dozens of large cities that allow you to keep chickens. Sometime during the early development of Seattle, somebody had the bright idea of banning all farm animals. A lot of people around here think there were racist or at least elitist reasons for the ban. Today, on the other hand, small farm animals are more likely to be seen as part of a sustainable city.

For these reasons, Seattle, like many other cities today, is re-examining its bans on certain farm animals. Last month Seattle readmitted pygmy goats into the city. I'm hoping to buy shares of a neighbor's goats. That way, the goat owner could sleep in on the weekends, leaving the milking and feeding to me. These small graces go a long way towards helping me feel at peace with living in an urban environment. And I don't have to feel that G missed out by not growing up on a farm.

Chicken laws vary from city to city. You can find information on chicken-keeping policies in over 75 U.S. cities at The City Chicken. Often there is a limit of three to six hens. Sometimes you can't place the coop right next to the property line. Usually you can't keep roosters. (Hens lay eggs without roosters. They're also quieter than roosters, but they can get pretty excited when they lay an egg at 6:30 in the morning. I have taken to leaving them "breakfast surprises," such as corn cobs from our dinner, when I go to bed at night. This seems to keep them quiet in the morning. Even so, I try to bring eggs to the neighbors once in awhile.)

After they're grown, caring for a few chickens can take as little as five minutes a day. You change the water, check the food, collect the eggs.

Building the coop can take awhile, depending on your carpentry skills. If you want to start small, consider building a "chicken tractor." People often build these in a single weekend. Or you can fork out five hundred dollars and buy an Eglu, shown in one of its five colors at left. Personally I am too much of a cheapskate for that, but they sure do look cool.

Some people clean their coops every day, some much less. My coop is open to the dirt below, which I have meticulously engineered to digest the waste using a system known as the "deep litter" system. I never need to clean my coop, only wipe down the henhouse itself once a year to eliminate mites.

For more information, I recommend reading Barbara Kilarski's Keep Chickens! You can also subscribe to the magazine Backyard Poultry to get you in the mood.