Posted on 03/08/2010 7:27:44 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
MADISON, Wis., March 7 (UPI) -- Keeping chickens as backyard pets was fairly uneventful until the day a hen inadvertently rode to the mall in my car.
My very sociable hens are in a coop at night but roam the backyard by day. One morning, while cleaning my car, I had all the doors open and a hen we call The Mensa Chicken found her way into the garage and into the back seat of my car.
I drove off without seeing her, and without knowing she had hopped up on the arm rest behind me and was looking out the window. I was puzzled why people in cars around me were smiling and pointing until she softly and contentedly chirped behind me and I realized The Mensa Chicken was on board.
Not all chickens are that clever. They are in fact very dumb, which is why you need to learn how to protect them and keep them healthy if backyard chickens are in your future.
Many towns and cities now allow backyard hens and for good reasons -- chicken eggs are rich in protein and far tastier than store-bought eggs, chicken poop is high in nitrogen and a great source of organic fertilizer and chickens are pest-control naturals at gobbling up aphids, grubs and mosquito larvae, which reduces the need to use chemicals in the yard.
They're also great company and follow me around the garden on summer mornings waiting for me to turn over rocks so they can scoop up baby slugs. At sundown, they voluntarily seek the shelter of their coop and sleepily chirp a goodnight to me when I close them up to keep them safe from predators, such as raccoons and hawks. A sturdy coop is a must since raccoons are strong enough to tear off wire, pull boards and burrow under the sides of a coop.
Chickens eat an amazing variety of food, including mice who inadvertently wander a little too close to a quick chicken's beak. I pamper my backyard hens with warm cornbread, oatmeal with raisins and crickets from the local pet store.
My friend Naimhe Jeanne Raia, who has a 10-acre homestead in Freeport, Ill., thrills her 38 Buff Orpingtons, Rhode Island Reds and Bard Rocks with the entrails of deer and cattle.
"We think of it as recycling," Raia said. "Chickens will choose (entrails) over grain anytime."
Online, you can learn a lot about backyard chickens and meet other chicken owners at UrbanChickens.org, which even has state-by-state lists detailing ordinances about keeping chickens. Many communities these days allow a homeowner to keep three to six hens, but no roosters because they are obstreperously noisy -- especially at dawn.
For print sources, my chicken bibles are Gail Damerow's "Raising Chickens" and "The Chicken Health Handbook," both from Storey Publishing. There's far more in those books than you need to know if you're raising just a few hens, but they are well worth owning if you're serious about keeping healthy, happy birds.
If you decide chickens have a place in your future, take a look at McMurrayHatchery.com, based in Webster City, Iowa. McMurrary, and a number of other hatcheries, start shipping chicks this month and have a dazzling variety of breeds.
I'm fond of Buff Orpingtons because they tend to be sociable, friendly birds able to weather the frigid winters where I live in the Upper Midwest. (On the coldest of nights, I still put a safe ceramic heater in the coop and rub Vaseline on the hens' combs, which can be prone to frostbite.)
When I started keeping backyard chickens years ago, I was in the minority. In recent years, however, the ranks of backyard chicken owners have swelled, forcing zoning boards and city councils to reconsider their rules.
I knew things were turning in favor of backyard chicken owners when I saw this bumper sticker on a mini-van at our very suburban mall:
"Wherever chickens are outlawed, only outlaws will have chickens."
In a prior life, did you write for the Jack Benny Show?
It was the case for the first half of the 20th Century as well in America.
My brother raised rabbits in the back yard during WWII. We ate a lot of rabbit. The problem: they tend to produce exponentially.
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EXTREMELY inconsiderate to your neighbors.
Nam Vet
backyard chicken ping
Hey! I thought about you when I saw this thread!!
Yes, they just lay unfertilized eggs. No babies.
Okay, now can either of you tell me: Will hens crow and make noise like roosters?
The hens do not crow in the morning like roosters do, which is why most cities will allow hens, but not roosters.
But hens can fly over fences.
I have never seen a dog move with such agility and lightning speed as I did the day one of those dumb birds tried to make a break for it, and it landed next door. That dog shot out from under the porch, snapped down on it, and was back in the shade was consuming said fowl in - I swear I'm not making this up - three seconds, flat.
The barnyard population went from six to zero in, I'd say, about a week. They never did buy any more chickens. 
Yes! Only need roosters if you want babies,not just for eggs.
I “herd” them back to my landlords yard with a Crosman .177 cal. pump-up “rooster rouster” on low power.
Actually I’ve been thinking about rabbits behind the garage.
wissa said:
Chickens lay better quality eggs than rabbits do.
Gonna have to disagree with that. Are you forgetting all the colorful eggs that show up around easter? Well, rabbits laid them, and they are already hard boiled too!
Do you realize how many people actually think chickens can’t fly? Too many Disney movies I guess. Anyone who has raised chickens know that they can fly, not far and not for long, but plenty good enough to get over fences and escape into wooded areas.
bump
I think sleep deprivation is why hens have that crazy scared look in their eyes all of the time.
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