chickens

It has been a busy Summer. H.Roe Bartle Scout Reservation, new high-pressure job, disappearing chickens, old high-pressure contract obligations, the intentional (but unplanned) keggerator, noisy (failing) car parts, the accidental lager experiment, "you should cut your hair [you dirty hippy]", the lawn too and holes in the roof. So busy I didn't get to solder one piece of my ZigBee project or practice one chord on my guitar, but that could also be because I spent too much time becoming one with the couch while viewing the History Channel.

At Bartle I discovered that plodding, ponderous bureaucracy is not dead and that bureaucrats, no matter their color or creed, are still fond of reciting, "I don't make the rules" with a certain tone of finality. I discovered that our group of boys is a rather good bunch -- even the ones who are, at times, unruly or pugnacious. I also came to the realization that I cannot maintain a part-time work schedule while at scout camp and I'll probably take the 10 days off entirely next year.

I came to the conclusion that I may be a poor chicken farmer or, at least, my infrastructure may be poorly designed for a free range chicken farm. The last two girls just disappeared on me. A few weeks ago on a Friday, sometime between 11AM and dusk -- just gone. And as Spencer pointed out: Even if one isn't emotionally attached to them it is a heartbreaking commentary on one's agri-management skills. Too true. About a week after they disappeared Spencer reported getting his first egg.

I did get a few books read. The one I'll take a moment to comment on is Farmers of Forty Centuries: Organic Farming in China, Korea, and Japan. It was interesting on several levels. First is the author's veiled admonishment of Western agriculture inefficiencies as at every turn he finds the total use (and reuse) of resources in these Eastern cultures. From today's perspective conservation and reuse is becoming the norm but considering the original publication of the text was 1911 Mr. King was far ahead of his time. Second is the description, usually in great detail, of pre-industrial agricultural devices, techniques and production along with current prices. Passages like, " ...they sold them green, shelled, at two cents, Mexican, per [unit]. At this price and yield his return would be $15.48, gold, per acre" drew me into a freewheeling era of global travel where gold was the international currency (and apparently the Chinese accepted Mexican Dollars).

It is still a busy Summer. The lawn still needs to be mowed and there are still holes in the roof. Sirius still follows the sun.

As the summer has come on full force the girls spend most of their time following the shade throughout the day. Their range has extended greatly -- yesterday morning I spotted them patrolling the treeline at the bottom of the yard. I find this particularly exciting because their consumption of feed has reduced by about half and I'm imagining they're making up the difference with fat, tasty bugs.

Their growth rate seems to have slowed -- perhaps because of the heat -- but the interesting item of the week (and quite surprising to me) was when Martha gave me a grownup 'cluck' one morning while I was weeding the garden.

The girls always come to see what's going on when I'm weeding the garden -- I suppose they assume that I eat bugs too and think I've found some when I'm out there pulling up stuff. Usually, there is a lot of 'cheep cheeping' and there was this time too then I heard the grownup cluck and looked up. Martha was looking at me as if she was just as surprised as me.

I didn't hear it again for a few more days but now Martha is clucking like a grownup almost all of the time. Abigail hasn't developed her voice yet but I expect to hear something from her in the next couple of weeks.

It has been a busy week -- for me, not the chickens. The chickens seem to be learning the extent of the yard and its boundaries. I don't have fence up everywhere and they still stray a bit but when they see me coming they know to run back into our yard. This beats seeing me, with sticks in both hands, ambling around behind them like a zombie scarecrow trying to herd them home.

The girls have adult tail feathers in and strut around the yard like they own it. They're about half or three-quarters full size and every morning when I open their coop I'm pretty sure they've grown a little bit overnight.

As a special treat we have a communique from Spencer the owner of the other half of this chicken family:

Tell your ladies (lay-dees?) that their 5 sisters say hello: Fussex (a.k.a. Jackie Brown), Glamour Chicken, Shelly (Glamour Chicken's twin sister), Chickenbutt (whose tail feathers are now grown back in) and Peckerhead (literally peck-her-head). Most of these gals pretty much named themselves. Oh, and they LOVE rose petals and chopped up apples.

It's good to see that the other half of the original flock is well and that someone else is far more creative with chicken names than I am.

Another week has passed and the girls are getting along famously. Neither seems to be on the edge of panic any longer and both have taken to following me around and unpiling my piles of grass clippings shortly after I make them.

Martha seems to be taking on the alpha hen role; one can see where the phrase 'mother hen' originates watching these two.

They've been living exclusively out of the chicken tractor for about two weeks now and have learned all the ins and outs of their new lifestyle. They've learned where food and water is and where to settle in for the night. The chicken tractor isn't complete yet but it lacks mostly external wire -- chickens get really confused when you put up new chicken wire where there was none before.

When it comes to chicken housing one has many design and style decisions to make and aside from some very basic needs -- todays chicken can thrive almost anywhere -- your chicken house can be as whimsical or as functional as you like.

I've looked at hundreds of chicken housing designs on the intarweb and in books but the single greatest source of ideas while designing my own chicken housing has been Chicken Coops: 45 Building Plans for Housing Your Flock. Aimed at the urban chicken owner the book reaches far beyond this arena to bring working designs from the down right temporary to housing for 700 broiler chickens on working farms. I find that this is a great approach because it reinforces the basic requirements of food, water, protection and shade and illustrates the different ways other owners have implemented them.

Plans in the book are by no means complete but each design includes several sketches with measurements, a bit of background on the builders' requirements and sketches of interesting design details. The final section of the book includes color pictures of most of the designs featured in the book. I found the measurements to be helpful to give an idea of scale, I think the single most voiced question by a new chicken owner is, "How big [or how small] does my chicken coop need to be?" A valid and important question. It was my first question and while this book doesn't explore the more technical details* it gives an excellent idea of the possibilities.

Be sure to spend plenty of time designing your structure, I found that my design changed through mock-up and implementation (and I've even found a couple of design changes I'd like to make if I only had a time machine).

*[For a concise discussion of technical space requirements you should check out Building Chicken Coops: Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin A-224]

The flock had a mighty culling Monday evening. Spencer came to pick up his share of chickens and opted to take 8 chicks rather than 4. So now we're down to half our original size. This is a good thing as I was looking at building two chicken tractors to house 11 chickens and now (depending on the figures) I may be able to get away with building only one. Still, I was a bit sad to see them go.

I guess now we can begin naming them (as soon as they start becoming more distinctive).

Baby chickens arrived via the USPS this morning. The delivery was rather early today, I wonder if the endless cheep cheeping coming from the 10 by 10 box was annoying. Perhaps that was why she arrived so early. But she had a smile on her face and in her voice when I answered the door. "You have chickens!", she laughed.

Indeed I did. I was surprised that 15 chicks could fit in the package. More surprising (and a little comical) was that all of the chicks could fit themselves in one corner of the small box when I reached in to grab the first one. I was prepared -- brooding cage, feed and water dispensers designed for chicks, necessary because sometimes chicks will fall asleep while drinking and drown, and a heat lamp that had been endlessly adjusted until the proper temperature was reached.

Grab a chick, dunk its beak carefully in the water -- this is their first drink ever and you need to play mother hen and show them what's what. Grab another, dunk the beak, grab, dunk, grab...the grabbing was easy at first but the last couple of chicks had become experts in evasion by the time it came for their grabbing. Sweep, grab, grab, dunk.

They took to the water it was, literally, the best water they had ever tasted. Within a few minutes they had located the chick feed and deciphered its use and a few moments later most had bedded down under the heat lamp and were asleep. Tiny, tiny chickens.

For starters there is a bit to learn and not all of it is in books. So you want to be an urban chicken farmer? Let's begin with baby-steps:

• The Law
  Know your rights. Most municipal codes are published on the web. Find out what the ordinances for your municipality have to say.
• The Neighbors
  Make sure you don't have assholes for neighbors -- if you do make sure you are well within the letter of the law.
• The Startup
  After you've made a conscious decision that you're going to become a chicken farmer/owner you'll need to plan to provide the following for your chickens:
• Safety: Opossums find chickens very tasty. So do skunks, raccoons and feral cats. You must provide secure shelter for your chickens at night. Keep in mind skunks are excellent tunnelers.
• Shelter: Chickens don't like the cold, or the rain, or the wind, or the sun. One would think they preferred cavorting in the dappled shade of subtropical forests just like their wild forest-chicken ancestors. There are hundreds of pictures and plans for coops and runs on the internet, for all the whimsical variety they have very similar design details. Study them. Build one.
• Health: Chickens can get all sorts of diseases but in small flocks the probability is much lower than in commercial operations. The biggest contributors to your chickens' good health are cleanliness and a varied, high quality diet.

Aside from general guidelines concerning cleanliness and odors and some very specific instructions about when to apply lime to your chicken yard the relevant portions of CODE OF ORDINANCES City of KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI Codified through Ordinance No. 090784, enacted October 15, 2009, Section 14-15 are as follows:

(a) Location of pens; enclosure required. It shall be unlawful for any person to keep or maintain any chicken coop, dove cote, rabbit hutch or other pen, cage or enclosure for the housing of fowl or small animals, except dogs and cats, closer than 100 feet to the nearest portion of any building occupied by or in any way used by human beings, other than the dwelling occupied by the owner or keeper of the animals or fowl, or closer than 25 feet to the property line of the lot on which such fowl or animals are kept for sale within a bona fide produce market, commission house or store for purposes of trade and while so kept are confined in small coops, boxes or cages, or where such animals or fowl are kept for purposes of research in a laboratory. Animals and fowl so kept or maintained shall be enclosed on all sides and shall not be allowed to run or fly at large, except for homing pigeons.

(b) Control of odors. Every coop, dove cote, rabbit hutch or other yard establishment shall be kept so that no offensive, disagreeable or noxious smell or odor shall arise therefrom to the injury, annoyance or inconvenience of any inhabitants of the neighborhood

(f) Number of animals or fowl; keeping of roosters. Except where fowl, rabbits or other small animals are kept for sale within a bona fide produce market, commission house or store for the purpose of trade and while so kept are confined in small coops, boxes or cages, or where such animals or fowl are kept for purposes of research in a laboratory, or in areas zoned for agricultural use, it shall be unlawful for any person to keep or maintain, within 100 feet of the nearest portion of any dwelling or other building occupied by or in any way used by human beings except for a dwelling occupied by the owner or keeper of such animals, more than 15 chickens or other domestic fowl four months or more of age or 50 chicks or other domestic fowl under four months of age, or more than ten rabbits or other small animals over the age of four months, or more than 25 rabbits or other small animals under the age of four months. No rooster which crows shall be kept within 300 feet of any residence or dwelling except that of the owner or keeper.

The distilled version might go something like this: You can have 15 chickens in a coop that is at least 25' away from your property line and at least 100' from your neighbors' houses and the smell mustn't annoy your neighbors.