Hobby Farm Animals. Chris McLaughlin
urban chickens?
| ADVICE FROM THE FARM The Chicken Carry When you go someplace to buy full-grown chickens, go prepared! Unless they’ve been hand-tamed, they won’t sit quietly in your lap on the way home. Airline-style plastic dog crates make good chicken limousines. Another option is a sturdy, lidded cardboard box punched with holes. If you do put a chicken in your lap, bring a towel to cover it, and wear long sleeves because scared chickens scratch. Another thing beginners may not know: don’t carry chickens by their legs! It can hurt them, it’s undignified, and it scares them silly. You should carry a chicken close to your body with your right arm hugging his body against yours. Then, your right hand can hold his feet while your left hand can support his chest. —Marci Roberts |
First Things First: Check Those Statutes
Before you scope out a place for your coop and before you pick out hens, you must carefully—and I mean carefully—investigate your municipality’s laws and regulations regarding chicken keeping. Just because your neighbors down the block have hens doesn’t mean that you can have them, too. Perhaps they are illegally keeping chickens or have applied for a personal zoning variance. The lay of their property might allow compliance to setback regulations that yours doesn’t.
Many cities publish municipal statutes online. If yours doesn’t, take a trip to city hall and ask to be directed to the office that oversees municipal laws. Request a printed copy of the appropriate statutes and then take them home and go over them with a fine-tooth comb. While most towns and cities do allow chicken keeping within city limits, a long list of stipulations may apply. You will be limited in the number of hens you can keep (roosters are nearly always verboten) and where and how you can keep them.
Consider some of the statutes in Duluth, Minnesota, where urban chicken keeping was legalized in 2008.
•A license is mandatory and costs $10 per year. Persons convicted of cruelty to animals in Minnesota or in any other state may not obtain a license. A representative of the animal-control authority in Duluth must inspect chicken facilities prior to licensing. If the chickens become a nuisance, as evidenced by three violations of Duluth City Code within twelve consecutive months, the license will then be revoked.
•Chickens may be kept only at single-family dwellings as defined by Duluth City Code. No person may keep chickens within the single-family dwelling.
•The maximum number of chickens allowed is five hens. The keeping of roosters is forbidden.
•Chickens must be provided a secure, fully enclosed, well-ventilated, windproof structure in compliance with current zoning and building codes, allowing 1 square foot of window to 15 square feet of floor space. It must have a heat source to maintain adequate indoor temperatures during extreme cold weather. The floor area or combination of floor area and fenced yard for keeping chickens shall be not less than 10 square feet of space per chicken.
•Fences around yard enclosures must be constructed with mesh-type material and provide overhead netting to keep chickens inside and predators out.
•Chickens must be kept in their roofed structure or attached fenced yard at all times.
•No chicken structure or fenced-yard enclosure shall be located closer than 25 feet to any residential dwelling on adjacent lots.
•All droppings must be collected on a daily basis and placed in a fireproof covered container until applied as fertilizer, composted, or transported off the premises.
•No person shall slaughter chickens within the city of Duluth.
These are examples of typical statutes. Many cities allow renters and dwellers in two-family housing units to keep chickens but require them to first obtain permission from their landlords and neighbors. Some allow free-ranging chickens. Some municipalities, such as Duluth, do not allow the keeping of house chickens.
Once you have a copy of your city’s chicken laws, keep it handy in case a neighbor complains. Go to great pains, however, to keep your neighbors mollified.
Choosing a Breed
Nervous, squawky chickens that fly are not good prospects for city living. Don’t overlook bantams. Bantams take up much less space than full-size chickens. As with full-size birds, some breeds are more suited to become urban layers than others. I suggest bantam Cochins, sometimes also called Pekins, like my birds Dumuzi and Marge. Cochins are gentle, quiet, attractive chickens, and they aren’t prone to flying. Bantam Cochins generate less manure (and thus less odor) than full-size breeds, and their small, light brown eggs are so tasty.
If you plan to raise your birds from chicks, you must buy sexed chicks, not straight-run packages, to get all pullets. Even then, there’s a certain amount of error in sexing day-old chicks. If you get a cockerel in your box of pullets, what will you do? A very workable solution, if you want good layers but don’t have your heart set on the standard breeds, is to buy hybrid sex-link chicks. Newly hatched sex-link pullets and cockerels are colored differently, so you can tell them apart. You’ll know the sure the sexes of your chicks, and sex-links are very good hens.
| Sex-Links as City (and Country) Chickens There are two basic types of hybrid sex-link chickens, red and black, although each goes by several names. Black sex-links, usually called Black Stars, Black Rocks, or Rock Reds, are crosses between a Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire rooster and a Barred Rock hen. Both sexes hatch out black, but a cockerel will have a white dot on his head. Pullets feather out black with a hint of red on their necks; cockerels have Barred Rock-type plumage accented with a few red feathers. Red sex-links are produced by a number of different crosses. White Plymouth Rock hens with the silver factor are crossed with New Hampshire roosters to produce Golden Comets. Silver Laced Wyandotte hens are crossed with New Hampshire roosters to produce Cinnamon Queens. Additional red sex-link combinations are Rhode Island White hens with Rhode Island Red roosters or Delaware hens with Rhode Island Red roosters. Cockerels hatch out white and then feather out pure white or with a hint of black feathering mixed in, depending on the cross. Pullets hatch out buff or red, depending on the cross, and they feather out buff or red with flecks of white throughout. Both sex-link colors are calm, cold hardy, quiet, and friendly birds with an unusually efficient feed-conversion ratio. They work well in confinement or free-range situations. Hens weigh about 5 pounds each, begin laying earlier than most breeds, and lay a lot of brown eggs. Sex-links are outstanding city chickens. |
A Home for Your City Chicks
We’ll discuss coops and runs for your chickens in the next chapter, but keep the following thoughts in mind.
•Most city statutes spell out how big your coop and outdoor exercise area should be and which amenities you must provide. What they often don’t stipulate—and this is vitally important—is that city chicken-keeping facilities must be attractive. Your neighbors won’t be pleased if you create an eyesore in your backyard.
•Buy or build the best coop and fencing you can afford. Sturdy prefabricated units are especially appealing in urban situations because they’re engineered to combine safety, convenience, and beauty. If you are going to build your own coop, collect ideas by surfing the Internet or visiting other chicken keepers, buying plans, or perusing a copy of Judy Pangman’s Chicken Coops: 45 Building Plans for Housing Your Flock.
•Obey your municipality’s setback laws. Measure to be certain. In fact, to preserve your neighbors’ good will, build your facilities as far away from property lines as possible.
•Opt for a generously sized coop, based on the number of hens you plan to house. More space means less crowding and happier hens, along with less-concentrated waste and less smell.
•While some urban chicken keepers go for cute- or quaint-looking coops, in many cases, natural camouflage is more in order. A privacy fence or shrubs planted around your chicken facilities make them less obtrusive and also serve to help deaden sounds.
•Plan