Chickens! Part 1

We have been talking about our chickens for over a year now. Our future chickens that is. About this time in 2012 we decided what our urban farm needs is chickens. Having fresh eggs every morning is certainly the biggest appeal. But as we learned, there are lots of other positive aspects about home chicken raising including feeding them our food scraps and using their manure as compost. Plus they can be great pets.

So we started our research and are trying to learn as much as we can in preparation for our flock. Besides getting some books at the library that meant visiting friends who have chickens! We went to Alameda and learned how children can be very involved with chicken raising. Some Longfellow neighbors let us come ask a bunch of questions about their coops and chicken runs. We also went to visit a friend who lives in the Oakland Hills and built her coop underneath her porch.

 

We took care of the City Slicker Farms' chickens while they were on holiday. So we got first hand experience feeding, watering and collecting. There are over fifteen chickens at the Center Street farm (way more than we'll ever have in our yard) but it was pretty easy. Even though it was winter and egg production is generally slower, we even got close to a dozen eggs each time we visited.