Are you interested in simple sustainability? Rhonda over at Down to Earth has opened her inspiring blog for discussions on various topics around The Biggest Kitchen Table.
The first topic is Chickens in the Backyard.
I am certainly no expert on chickens, however, I would enjoy sharing what I have learned since bringing Our Girls into our suburban backyard. Yes, we live in the heart of suburbia with the town center two minutes away and our home behind the police department.
My interest in owning chickens started after noticing several chickens walking through a neighbor's backyard. I checked our local regulations online and confirmed with a call to City Hall that we are allowed 16 chickens per acre. No roosters in city limits.
Our backyard is about 1/2 an acre allowing us to own 8 chickens.
After reading every book I could get my hands on, visiting online bloggers with suburban backyard chickens, and gleaning from the Backyard Chickens community for additional information we bought 7, one day old chicks from a feed store. We have six Plymouth Rocks and one Buff Orpington. It was more than the 5 chicks that I planned to start with, but the store had a minimum purchase of 6 and there were 7 chicks left.
The Rocks and Orpingtons were our top two breed choices for their tempermant, looks, ability to deal with cold weather, and a fun perk of laying brown eggs.
COOP BUILDING 101 -- Lesson Learned: Bigger would have been better.
This photo on the right is of Minnie, one of our Plymouth Rocks, at 6 weeks.
After living in a large dog kennel for the first few weeks under a heat lamp, we thought we were building a palace for our girls! We would let them free-range, and they would only use their coop to sleep and lay eggs.
This spring, we must build a LARGER coop because they have outgrown their humble palace. Two girls don't even try to fly up to the crowded roost. There is enough space, but they constantly bump each other off. We knew these breeds would grow large, but apparently we didn't know exactly what LARGE BREED CHICKENS meant. They are much larger than any chicken I have ever seen.

click coops for larger view
FREE RANGING -- Lesson Learned: There are Positives and Surprises

At 21 weeks our girls started laying. There are several positives to letting your chickens free range that are covered in the books and blogs such as the increase of vitamins in the eggs you will be eating.
There is one large negative having us reconsider free ranging. It's an obvious one, but I didn't think it through when I decided to let our girls free range.
I even email Rhonda hoping she would explain in more detail her routine for cleaning up after her girls. I'm sure you've noticed on her blog the pictures of clean, manure free grass! Yes, I admit to having grass and porch envy.

I had NO idea what they leave behind can be the size of a small child's fist (there is the....surprise!!). At times, it feels more like cleaning up after seven small sized dogs than domestic birds.
Scrubbing down my back porch and checking shoes before allowing my children back into the house has become the only, but biggest thorn in my side. To solve this, we are considering fencing off part of the yard or simply keeping them locked in their run.
My question for everyone around the Kitchen table who FREE RANGES
:
If you have a suburban backyard and children who enjoy their time in it, would please leave a comment on how you are managing in this area?

