Who Wants to Raise City Chickens With Me?
All right, all you city slickers. It's time to stop jabbering about local and sustainable food. After reading the New York Times story about urban chicken raising (I don't think raising three chickens on a fire escape qualifies as farming), it's time for all of us to put our money where our mouths are by eating eggs and even chicken we've raised in our apartments.
How do we go about this seemingly insane task?
Don't worry. We're not going to go it alone like Manny Howard seemed to have done in New York magazine. Plus, he's got a backyard. I have a back window with no ledge.
We're going to get help from many sources.
First things first. Find out if it's legal to raise chickens in your city. Amazingly enough, chickens are allowed in New York City, Oakland, San Francisco, Houston, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon. Apparently it is legal in most cities to raise hens but not roosters. Something about the infernal racket of roosters crowing. Could that be louder than the garbage trucks that come by my apartment twice a week? I don't think so. Bostonians are out of luck. Keeping chickens is banned there. Aren't the Red Sox themselves laying an egg lately? But I digress.
First I'm going to buy a book, Keep Chickens! Tending Small Flocks in Cities, Suburbs, and Other Small Spaces
Then I am going to get a subscription to Backyard Poultry magazine. It has regular stories with titles like "Chickens in the City."
Finally, the good ol' internet comes to our rescue. Great info on The City Chicken and Backyard Chickens should prove inordinately helpful.
I just thought of something. I don't have a terrace, a fire escape, or even a balcony, and I don't think my wife will want me raising chickens in my tiny home office. I have two choices. I can call my friends with a penthouse apartment and see if they'll let me raise my chickens up there. In the past they've let me brine my Thanksgiving turkeys at their place, so I know they're poultry-friendly.
Or I can do what city dwellers turned would-be chicken farmers have done for time immemorial: call my building's superintendent. He fixed my television last week, so he must know how to raise chickens, too.
Photograph from Nanimo on Flickr
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13 Comments:
There's always the rooftop.
At x dollars per square foot for Manhattan real estate, I wonder how much that chicken would cost per pound.
It might even top William Alexander's story of his $64 tomato.
Karen Resta at 8:46AM on 09/19/07
It's actually illegal to raise poultry here in Luna Pier, Michigan, something that used to be allowed in this city of about 1,500 on Lake Erie. The current Mayor's cousin is one of those who still has an empty coop. Now that my wife's running against the incumbent and would like to get that back (she used to live near that coop and loved the sounds), the Mayor's cousin stole one of Mary's yard signs from another yard last week and attached it to the fence next to the old coop! We gave him more yard signs yesterday evening. Maybe we'll have a chicken coop co-op? ;-)
LunaPierCook at 8:54AM on 09/19/07
My friend Andy, in Kansas City, Kansas, had this idea four years ago—inspired by his chicken-herdin' neighbor, who was as far from one of these urban hipsters profiled as you could get. I wish he would have done it. Then again, he really didn't need to raise his own chickens, since his neighbor routinely gave him eggs from his hen house next door. I believe those handouts were a sort of peace offering to mitigate the rooster crow in the morning.
Adam Kuban at 10:32AM on 09/19/07
There's gotta be a community garden somewhere in NYC with a chicken coop...
jamieforrest at 10:33AM on 09/19/07
Great resource right here : Chicken Laws. Thanks for taking a swipe at Boston, it's a subtle reminder that we must share this great nation with the rest of y'all. I may not be able to keep chickens in this fair city, but a nice garlicky rabbit or two would be nice.
jayfallon at 10:42AM on 09/19/07
This seems to be a very chicken moment. Just yesterday, I got an email that included links to a hen webcam and a blog about hens:
link
and
link,
dorie at 10:54AM on 09/19/07
Oh. When I lived in Portland (briefly in the late '90s), the city's animal laws were nuts. I seem to remember you could keep just about anything, even within city limits and at some point they had to revisit the laws because of some clown who had a veritable safari park on his property—a couple tigers, a bear, ostriches, etc. Chickens? Puh-lease.
Adam Kuban at 11:14AM on 09/19/07
I have been contemplating this ever since the British came out with their mini urban chicken coop, complete with chickens. I now have the space in my yard in Jersey City but I am unsure of the laws.
izzy's mama at 1:42PM on 09/19/07
i live in a rural area and have 17 chickens and one rooster, they produce more eggs than i can eat so give most away to co-workers. you need to think about what you are going to do when a hen gets old and ceases egg laying. old hens are great for making gumbo but it has to be killed and cleaned first. it ain't fun or pretty.
olddad at 1:51PM on 09/19/07
No please don't do it! People who don't know anything about farming will only make local farmers look bad. This will be the same as raw milk - when people started producing milk in breweries in cities, and the milk was terrible and contaminated, everyone got sick. Many died. Now raw milk is illegal. The only think rooftop chicken breeders will accomplish will be to prove how bad local chicken is, because they will make tons of errors. Raising animals for food isn't a hobby. You will probably get salmonella from raising them in poor conditions, and the next thing you know the FDA will insist all of our eggs must come from huge factories that pasteurize them before they hit the stores.
I am sure this was just a joke, but I wanted to make sure my point was stated.
foodette at 2:52PM on 09/19/07
I'm the person that Dorrie mentioned with the live streaming video camera on my backyard hens. So, if you can't keep chickens, but love them, you can watch mine. (www.hencam.com)
As far as keeping chickens in the city - anyone with even a slice of a backyard used to do it. The Biggle Poultry Book, published in 1895, remains a useful resource. Mr. Biggle called it the "urban hennery." I love that term.
Some hotels used to keep their own chickens, too. I've got a postcard from about 70 years ago, of the "Poultry Farm and Garden on the Biltmore Roof - The Providence-Biltmore." They even had a restaurant up there, so you could dine next to the hens.
terryg at 10:05AM on 09/20/07
Please don't, it sounds cruel.
elaine at 5:30PM on 09/20/07
As some who has an "urban hennery" (thanks Terry btw for the name that I got from a post on your blog last year) in Everett, WA I can say that pretty much anyone can keep chickens. It's not rocket science and they sure are funny to boot. But if you can't keep your own, you can always enjoy mine when you need a hen fix (www.urbanhennery.com).
UrbanHennery at 1:42AM on 09/28/07