We live in an urban area and my neighbor behind me has chickens. The noise they make at 6am is really annoying. We had a tree cut down and they wanted the wood. I had no need for it so I let them have it. Her way of saying thanks was bringing over a dozen fresh eggs. I don't like eggs.
Her dog broke a panel in our fence once and our dog got into her yard and killed one of her chickens. When I tried to pay her for the chicken she told me not to worry about it because 'its a risk you take having chickens in the city.' She also has a couple of pigs.
I think it's a combo of the freshness of the eggs and the humane treatment of the chickens.
This. I have a huge problem with the 'factory farming' of animals. My chickens are free range and I feel like I am doing my (small) part to end the cruelty of the commercial production of food. I will have meat chickens and cattle soon too.
Although birds are living dinosaurs I feel creeped out by touching them.
The way the chickens move their heads and look at you sideways is startlingly reminiscent of velociraptors...
Fortunately we don't have lever-style door handles.
Dino dork here:
The animals portrayed as velociraptors in Jurassic Park were actually much bigger than what they theorize real velociraptors were. They're actually probably Deinonychus'.
real velociraptors were supposedly around 2 feet tall while deinonychus was around 5 feet or so.
I'd love to have chickens but H would divorce me. Organic free range eggs are $6 a dozen here. Not exactly cheap and we eat lots if them. And I think chickens are cute. I'd just eat them when I'd be done with them. I think.
I should say that when I lived on said guesthouse on a farm, the neighbor had cows. I named them all. When I couldn't see one I would freak out that they ate one.
The bull was Henry the VIII. I named the ladies after his wives. The baby was Elizabeth. It should have been Mary if we are going for accuracy but we all know Elizabeth was better.
Post by shostakovich on Apr 24, 2014 22:00:23 GMT -5
Also, chickens aren't generally a hipster thing. Too much work, and really only the purview of landowners (also not really a hipster thing, generally speaking). They're more of a thing for a hipster sub-genre, the urban homesteaders - those individuals that are building up a self-sustaining agricultural system on their .05 acres of city land, so that they can Pinterest the shit out of all of their raised bed gardening systems and repurposed thrift store tea cups-turned succulent garden, and also sell their goat's milk soaps on Etsy and at farmers' markets. The urban homesteader really has more in common with the nouveau hippies than your average city hipster.
Several of our neighbors have chickens, including our immediate next door neighbors. No one has roosters, thank goodness. They mostly make sort of cooing sounds. One set of chickens is owned by the teenage son, who sells the eggs to earn money. It's all win win for me--super fresh eggs, reduced bugs, no chicken maintenance.
Anyway, I suppose since these are all urban chickens my neighbors are either urban homesteaders or yupsters. I don't even crochet.
Several of our neighbors have chickens, including our immediate next door neighbors. No one has roosters, thank goodness. They mostly make sort of cooing sounds. One set of chickens is owned by the teenage son, who sells the eggs to earn money. It's all win win for me--super fresh eggs, reduced bugs, no chicken maintenance.
Anyway, I suppose since these are all urban chickens my neighbors are either urban homesteaders or yupsters. I don't even crochet.
Crochet is so 2013. Macrame made from upcycled prom dresses is the new thing.
Several of our neighbors have chickens, including our immediate next door neighbors. No one has roosters, thank goodness. They mostly make sort of cooing sounds. One set of chickens is owned by the teenage son, who sells the eggs to earn money. It's all win win for me--super fresh eggs, reduced bugs, no chicken maintenance.
Anyway, I suppose since these are all urban chickens my neighbors are either urban homesteaders or yupsters. I don't even crochet.
Crochet is so 2013. Macrame made from upcycled prom dresses is the new thing.
Forgive me. I had a baby in October so I'm behind the trends. Maybe I'll leapfrog macrame and start on my raku pottery mugs in the hopes that I'm ahead of the curve for 2015.
Crochet is so 2013. Macrame made from upcycled prom dresses is the new thing.
Forgive me. I had a baby in October so I'm behind the trends. Maybe I'll leapfrog macrame and start on my raku pottery mugs in the hopes that I'm ahead of the curve for 2015.
Ah, the old "I had a baby" excuse
You should make some raku mugs with mustaches, owls, and fixies on them.
Post by CheshireGrin on Apr 25, 2014 2:58:05 GMT -5
We live in a farming community, so it was kind of a natural progression for us. It's more unusual here NOT to have some kind of livestock, but I didn't realize that chickens were a fad in more urban areas now. (People keep telling us to get goats or pigs, but we're stopping at chickens. Everything else is too much work.)
We just got ours, but they're really adorable. And honestly, it's cheap to keep chickens and not a lot of work. (Yes, you have to keep the coop clean, but we also scoop kitty litter boxes. Not much different.) I love the idea that they'll eat some of the ticks that terrorize us every year. That in itself is worth it to me, but I also love fresh eggs.
We are not planning to slaughter our chickens at any time. They have names and personalities. I have no problem with eating other people's chickens.
You build a portable coup on wheels. Obviously. Saw this in BC a few years ago.
That's called a chicken tractor...you move it around to different areas of the yard each day
Yup, we put wheels on our coop. Keeps them from destroying the grass in one place, and increases their ability to control pests. We have too many predators around here for us to be comfortable letting them go completely free range, so this is a great compromise for us and keeps them happy.