Chicken and dumplings!
Posted on 06/17/2009 6:54:16 PM PDT by JoeProBono
If you hear the sound of clucking next door, you might just be hearing your neighbor's new pet.
Pet chickens are on the rise and they're making their home in city dwellers' backyards. More people are finding it attractive to keep chickens as pets, not only because they're cute, but because people want to produce their own eggs and retain a slice of rural life.
"People are turning to things that remind them of simpler times," Ron Kean, a poultry specialist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, told the Los Angeles Times . "If you're smart, you can save money doing this."
Rose and Harry Koppen of Dubuque County, Iowa, recently bought six adult chickens that produce one to five eggs a day. They told the Chicago Tribune that the eggs taste better and that they use them to make fried egg sandwiches and pastries.
More cities are taking up the issue to decide whether to allow backyard chickens. The Times reports that Traverse City, Mich., and Iowa City, Iowa, are among the cities considering whether to allow people to own poultry. Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago and Baltimore already allow up to four chickens per property.
Hatcheries say they are getting hit with orders around the country. Murray McMurray Hatchery , the world's largest supplier of rare-breed chicks, says there's a six-week backlog on orders for hens by urban dwellers.
"I tell people we're getting out of the country livestock business, and getting into the city backyard pet business," said Bud Wood, president of the Murray McMurray.
Yes that is basically licensing your chickens. I am sure it does have to do with avian flu and any other pathogens that chickens might carry. That is one of the concerns you have to take into account when farming/ranching. If your chickens got infected the government could condemn all of them. If you have 60K chickens that would be a big financial hit.
Eggs and bacon ping.
ping
Thats funny!
Hearing that song reminds me of that movie full metal jacket. And yes its now stuck in my head. Darn it!
We raise rabbits, my FRiend...for food and to barter.
When my wife suggested we get chickens, your experience with them provided me with some of the inspiration I needed to wrap my mind around it and go forward. Now I have five barred rocks chirping away in my ears. Sixteen days old and they are growing like weeds.
Rabbit meat was also promoted during WWII as an urban means to raise your own meat because other meats were rationed. For my birthday, my husband gave me a book written at the time that addresses the issue and the intense patriotism in that book makes me weep on the inside.
I’m so glad! I remember talking to you about it! Let me encourage you to try rabbits next. One buck and two does gives us meat to eat, barter and share with friends. Our does are named Rose and Hyacinth and our buck is named “Buck Nekkid”. LOL!! (My husband named the buck.)
A buck and two does, that was my plan.
Which variety (breed?) are yours? Do you have a photo of the hutch? How about your coop, any photos of that?
In addition to the Barred Rocks, I also got a Broad-Breasted White turkey chick. I named her Thursday—so that it remains clear that she is not a pet, but rather a Thanksgiving entree.
LOL! Love the name, Thursday! Benny Hen was my favorite name for a chicken.
My rabbits are New Zealand Whites. Stand by...I’ll see if I can find pictures.
PS: I don’t have my hens anymore, you know...neighbor dog got them.
I'd get more.
You don’t get much meat off a layer hen. And some breeds of layers are extremely smart. My Benny Hen was a Buff Orpington and was very affectionate and smart. Much like a dog!
What you want for meat is a meat chicken...a Cornish Cross. They are “the” meat chicken...just like what you get in the store, or KFC. They were bred to grow fast on minimum feed. As a result, I think, they are not very intelligent, I think they are literally mentally retarded due to the way they were bred. You don’t want one as a pet, for sure, because after about 6-8 weeks, their legs break out from under them due to the intense weight gain. They also will drop dead of a heart attack if you keep them much longer than 8 weeks.
There are combo chickens, but nothing compares to the Cornish Cross when it comes to meat production and cost effectiveness.
Here's one of the rabbits when they were young...
Pictures of the old chicken coop...
Here I am with Jar Jar on my shoulder and Roy near my knee. Jar Jar got up there all by herself...
An old rural South Georgia girlfriend of mine had a great story about a visiting grandmother deciding to make dinner one Sunday afternoon and grabbing the first free range chicken she could out of the back yard and serving it up for dinner.
About halfway through dinner it was discovered that dinner was the favorite pet (and very tame) chicken Harold.
Oops.
Oh Jar-Jar was so cute!
You used chicken wire? No concerns about predators in your area?
Also, I love the painting. It’s fun.
“No concerns about predators in your area?”
Not the dog. What I mean is things like weasels and skunks and such.
My hens were very tame. And they seemed to like to hang around with me, as you can see in the above picture. They’d perch on my lap and (except for when they were tiny chicks) they never once pooped on me!
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