Backyard Chickens
What a beautiful day! I was just out in the yard checking on my compost bin and was blown away by just how warm and sunny it was. It’s currently 16 C (60.8 F) and should get even warmer this afternoon.
I was very happy to see lots of springtails and red worms active in the bin - temperatures are still quite cool in the lower regions, but I have little doubt the heat of the sun combined with increasing biological activity will lead to rising temperatures in the composting mass.
Anyway, enough about composting - this is supposed to be a post about chickens!!
I guess the beautiful weather, along with my most recent (huge) issue of Mother Earth News has really helped to kickstart my excitement about my plans for this year.
Referred to as “Giant Garden Issue”, this hefty edition definitely seems to live up to it’s promise - but it wasn’t actually the gardening articles that first caught my attention! It was a couple articles related to raising your own chickens. This is something I’ve had ‘back-of-mind’ interest in for quite some time, but I guess have not really given much thought to simply because I’ve always lived in an urban area. Well, as one of the articles suggests, it’s actually quite common for people to keep chickens within the confines of towns and cities.
Of course, I definitely should have known this…
When I was young (10 or so) I spent most of one summer in England. One of the things I can still vividly remember about the house we stayed at was that the owners kept chickens in a small coop beside their driveway. Interestingly enough, the house was located in the middle of a pretty big city. I can still remember being absolutely blown away by the difference in taste between the fresh eggs from these chickens and those from the supermarket back in Canada.
According to the main Mother Earth News article, there can also be some significant health benefits to raising your own as well! While I’m not sure I could ever bring myself to eat the chickens themselves, having lots of fresh eggs available would be great!
This is definitely something I’m going to look into a little more. I even chatted with my wife about it, and the only question she had (something I’ve wondered myself) is how to care of the chickens during the winter?
Anyway, I will definitely write more once I do some more research.
In the meantime, you might want to check out the Mother Earth News Chicken and Egg page for more info.
Technorati Tags: chicken, chickens, chicken eggs, free range chickens, poultry, raising chickens, chicken coop, homesteading, urban agriculture, sustainable living
Written by Bentley on March 27th, 2007 with 2 comments.
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