Enough bricks are down that I can start working on building the actual coop.

The frame is built. Now time for the walls and roof.

It is starting to look like a chicken coop. I realize now that it probably did not need to be so tall but it will be nice and comfortable to walk in the run without bending over so it will be nice

The coop is complete with a sliding door to the run, three nest boxes, a cedar roof and a poop station that will make cleaning the coop very easy. Now we just need a run and the chickens can move in.

The chicken run is in. The coop just needs a door, some trim and finish, paint and detailing and the chickens can move in. They are excited about moving in and cluck about how tired they are of living in their brooder every day.


The chickens are safe and secure living in their new coop with a poop collection bin under their sleeping roost, waterer and feeder systems that only need to be refilled twice each month and a lot of fun things to do inside the run. Now we are just waiting for the egg laying to begin!


We have eggs! We get a steady stream of eggs and even got a minature egg this week. We get about 4 every day and that is the perfect amount of eggs for my family's needs.

The right to own chickens is being threatened

We have little to no control over what is in the food we eat and raising chickens is one way to start getting that control but that right is constantly being stripped away. Below is an example of someone who experienced exactly that. They were arrested for owning chickens in their backyard. This is an egregious attack on good citizens trying to have this basic right.

Link to news coverage

A Mid-Michigan couple was thrown in jail for the crime of keeping chickens on their property.
They're accused of violating city rules, but the couple said they have a right to farm.
"Never been to jail, never been booked. I felt so humiliated," Theresa Hurst said. "We were not granted due process. We needed an explanation about why we couldn't keep chickens."
Hurst and her husband decided to grow chickens because they wanted to know where their food is coming from and what she said is added security of fresh food. The city of Tawas wrote Hurst a letter back in June telling her she had 14 days to remove the chickens from her property.
"I asked the city several times, where are we on the status of this," she said. Hurst admits, she didn't remove the chickens within the 14 days, but said the fact that she and her husband were arrested for it violating a blight ordinance went overboard. "We felt junk charge was them flexing their muscles," she said.
Hurst said she's been reaching out to city officials, but has been stonewalled.
TV5 went to city hall to try and speak with someone there, but no one was available. They also called the attorney handling the matter for the city, but he wasn't available either. "We removed the chickens because we were skeptical about what tricks they'd pull next. We can't afford to post more bail," she said. Hurst said she's generated about 400 signatures from neighbors supporting her cause.
"I don't think they should've been arrested. It could've been something as simple as coming to her directly," Tricia Briggs said. Ultimately Hurst said she just wants justice.
"I'm trying to fight for what's right. I feel like I've been treated unfairly," she said.

That Question

Having chickens in my backyard for the last few years has led to many curious neighbors and random conversations where the same questions get asked. If you have chickens, I'm sure you have heard the very same questions over and over. I love it, when there is a crowd of people around the water cooler or at a party; mention raising chickens for eggs and one question always comes up. "Do you need a Rooster in order to get eggs?" I love answering questions about chickens and this one is especially fun. If you know, it seems obvious but if you don't know, you might feel silly when you hear the answer - it depends how much you paid attention when you were in school. The answer is “No”, you do not need a rooster for chickens to create eggs. They pump out eggs constantly with or without mister Rooster. If you want those eggs to end up on your plate as a tasty beautiful omelet, don't worry about the rooster. If you want that egg to be a beautiful little chicken someday, you need the Rooster. The rooster has his fun with the hen and fertilizes her so that when she lays, the eggs have what they need to turn into chickens. So you can have chickens without annoying the heck out of your neighbors from an All-Day noisy roo. Next time, we'll talk about some of the other common question you get as a chicken owner.

 

 

Production

The second question everyone wants to know is how many eggs you get. "Do they lay an egg every day?" I always want to say "Yes, Of course. My chickens are the best chickens in the world" but it just isn't true. Good layers will give 4-5 eggs every week. Some weeks, that's what they would do; some weeks - not so much. Now my chickens are in their third year of laying and there is much less to brag about. Their production has slowed down and I get a couple eggs a week from each chicken. I'll have to change my name from "Daily Omelet" to "Omelet Every other day or so". I think they were worried about my cholesterol because I was eating three eggs a day for two years straight. Such considerate chickens. How am I going to repay them for taking my health into consideration? Butcher them? This leads to another question. Are you going to "Kill" your chickens and eat them... Loaded question, tough question. I'll talk about that later

To Eat or not to Eat
Would you eat your dog or cat?  Of course not, they are your pet and domesticated.  So it's the same with chickens, right?  Well, not exactly.  I have seen some pretty domesticated looking chickens from friends that dress their chickens in dresses and let them tromp around the inside of their house.  Cleaned feathers and the dress acts as a diaper so what's the issue with that?  I applaud people that can have chickens walk around their house but that is not for me.  Watching chickens interact is one of the funniest and amusing things there is but I'm good with doing it in the backyard.  So you get these chickens when they are 1 day old and raise them, play with them and tend to them and then one day, their laying comes to a slow grind.  What options are their?  Butcher them and throw them in a pot of stew.  Offer them up on Craigslist and hope someone will keep good care of them.  Keep them as a pet that does not produce eggs.  All three options have merit but which one is the right thing to do?  I am a meat eater so I have always felt that if you eat meat, at some point in your life, you should take the life of an animal and eat it so that you get the full understanding of what it took to feed you that meat.  One of the chicks in my first batch was a rooster so I finally had my chance; raise him up to the proper age, slaughter and eat.  He grew up with the other ladies and I kept a detachment from him so it would not be an issue on slaughter day.  The thing was, he had the most personality, hoping around the brooder and pulling things around, squawking and being super cute - earning him nicknames like Hopper, Roo and Sqeek-Squawk.  That did it, never name an animal you want to butcher.  It turns out I am not the manly man I thought I was.  I'm just a softy that loves his little chickens.  When butcher day came, I got on Craigslist and found a nice couple that was looking for a Roo for their flock of ladies.  They came with a homemade beautiful cage and took very good care of him in transferring so I know he had a good home.  It is still on my list to butcher a chicken some day so maybe I will get the strength to do it someday but it will be with a lot of tears and guilt.  So it looks like I will be keeping my chickens into their old ages; maybe 10 years, without eggs.  It's not so bad, my dog never laid me an egg and my chickens never ate my shoes so I think it will be ok.

 

 

The Healthy Egg

Did I say that eggs are high in cholesterol? Not mine! Mother Earth News published a study that showed that Free Range eggs have 1/3 less cholesterol, 1/4 less saturated fat and a lot more vitamins than regular store eggs. Not only that but my chickens are stress free, or at least live in happy conditions. Another study showed that hens stuffed in crowded cages and not allowed the space they need create toxins in their bodies that get into their eggs and meat. It makes me happy to have my own chickens in my own yard so I know exactly what they have been eating and what they have been up to. On the other hand, I let me chickens eat slugs and that grosses me out a bit but you can't have it all. It feels good to know that the chickens are living good lives and providing good food for me and my family.

 

 

What are you? Chicken?

I am your typical urban backyard farmer (or at least I think I am). My house is on a cul-de-sac, I have less than an acre of land and my trash and recycling get picked up every week. I am very proud to have four gals with beaks in my backyard. The funny thing is, in my area there still isn’t a whole lot of us. We are in a large City close to Seattle, which is one of the forefronts for this new type of farmer. Recently, I have joined a moms group and while talking about what our toddlers ate, I mentioned that are son only eats eggs from our chickens. Suddenly, it was like a record player had just stopped; I could feel all the other moms reel their necks to my end of the conversation. One mom quickly asked, are you one of those moms that breast feed until their kids are 6 years old? Another quickly chirped (no pun intended), what are you, one of those hippy people? I never knew this simple sentence would cause such a stir. Somehow I was labeled one of those health crazed moms that let their kids eat dirt and play with slugs. I don’t think it is weird at all and was surprised of the comments I was hearing. To me, one of the greatest gifts I can give my child is the health from fresh foods and the understanding of where this food comes from. I care about the planet and doing my part to protect it. I don’t think of these things as earth shattering, just how I choose to live. Once I started talking about my thoughts on the subject the other moms started sharing their health tips as well and the conversation started moving along. Before long, I was getting all the usual questions by non-chicken people…aka don’t you need a rooster to get eggs? Aren’t they loud? You can have blue eggs, WHAT?? I think that because I am so typical in all the other factors of my life when something doesn’t fit a preconceived image, it really stops people in their tracks. It just goes to show, you can’t tell a person by the cul-de-sac they live on, who knows what is going on in the backyard! Long live the backyard farmer.

 

Pet owner or Farmer

So - You're like a farmer, right? Not even close. I think farmers are great and appreciate the food they provide but that is not for me. Chickens are great pets and great to have but I'm not the "Rise early in the morning and care for my Farm" kind of person. I'm more of the "Water and Feed my chickens once a month" kind of person. That is what originally attracted me to Beaktime. The waterer and feeder I have allow me to water and feed my chickens once every month.
What about the poop? My chickens only hang out in the coop to sleep or lay eggs or sleep, otherwise they are running around their run enjoying the sun and fresh air. They don't poop when they lay eggs so the only poop I saw was under their sleeping perch. Then they were walking around and dragging it all over the coop so cleaning was not fun. This led me to create a lowed pan below the sleeping roost that fell through chicken wire. Now the poop stays out of the coop and easily removed. I have a good smelling coop and only clean it that one time each month when I also give them new food and water. Then I toss the poop in the compost pile and work on my great fertile soil.

Today, I realized that scoping out GMO food is not my only problem that needs attention.  For lunch I took a trip to Whole Foods to be safe.  I grabbed some beans from the bulk bin and when reading the label to see if it was organic, noticed that it said “Current Supplier information available on request” so I asked the produce guy who the supplier was.  He informed me that he could not supply me with that information but added that Whole Foods gets a lot of their organic food from China.  Chinese organic? Isn't that an oxymoron? I’ve seen what the rivers look like in China.  I don’t want that water or the horrible conditions of China going into the food I eat.  I think I am better off eating some non-organic USA food than an “organic” one from CHINA.  He was very nice about it but could not tell me if any of the food in the bulk bins were imported from China or not.  So much for playing it safe by shopping at Whole Foods.

Last year, I just tried to eat healthy by eating more vegetables, now there are more things on my list to get food that is not poison.  It must be organic or GMO-Free, so pretty much only organic food since there is no GMO regulation.  Also, the food should be local, and I don’t mean like at Walmart with the sign saying Fresh Produce with food below it that just shipped 3,000 miles from Guatemala.  That’s another topic but what makes that fresh?  That it has not yet completely decomposed?  So local to me will mean from the USA, preferably from a close state but for now I’ll settle for inside the USA borders.

 

I knew it would be tough but I had no idea how tough it was really going to be.

 

October 2014 UPDATE

I have gone completely organic. My family and I eat absolutely nothing with GMO and as close to 100% organic as is probably possible without owning your own farm. We do not support any brand that produces GMO products and only eat organic food. This means not going out to restaurants unless they serve fully organic food which is only two in a one hour radius so it is a lot of home cooked meals but we have embraced it and enjoy our healthy lifestyle. Our friends have been very understanding and have joined in on adding more organic food to their diets and serving all organic meals when they invite us over for dinner. It has not been easy but it is worth it. Feel free to send me any questions you have about how we eat or any challenges you may be facing in doing the same.