Home to Roost Helping city folks raise chickens!

It’s not just for dogs and cats anymore.

Check out this cute collection of pix.

Michigan removed the protection of the Right to Farm Act, which had prevented banning of small-scale livestock in urban and suburban areas. For more information, check out this article. 

The ruling will allow local governments to arbitrarily ban goats, chickens and beehives on any property where there are 13 homes within one eighth mile or a residence within 250 feet of the property, according to Michigan Public Radio.

I love this funny, quirky, crazy story about a guy and his chicken! Much better than being stranded on an island with a volleyball!

Bill Gates believes that chickens are a viable solution to poverty. I’d tend to agree with him! Perhaps he needs a multilingual, well-traveled chicken consultant?

Read Gates’s original blog post here.

Apparently chickens enjoying riding on Roombas – or at least this one did!

A few months ago, I provided chicken wrangling for an indie file called Chicken Tuesdays! Chicken owner Tim Norris and I taught the actors how to hold the birds, kept them happy and well fed, and positioned them on set for shooting.

Thanks to writer/director Brandon Daley, producer Ben Gojer, and the actors and personnel in these pics (Wyatt Fair, Breanne Ward, Brian Knall, Dan Daley, Spencer Parsons, Drew Angle).

It was a fun – and crazy – day!

For those of you who missed the live radio program, check out the online clip here! A lovely experience with WGN’s Steve Bertrand!

Check out this story, which covers how the city of Detroit is becoming more urban-ag-friendly!

Citing soil remediation and growing one’s own food, the article states that Detroit is proposing legislation in which “A Detroit householder will be able to keep a maximum of eight chickens and four goats.”

Naysayers cite the arguments of noise, smell, and stray animals, which the city is creating plans to mitigate. “Good training for animal keepers, offered promptly, would stem many problems and complaints,” which is the same philosophy held by the Chicago Chicken Enthusiasts. A little training goes a long way!

Detroit’s urban ag proponents, like Chicago’s, aim self-police to ensure that all animal keepers follow best practices. This will prevent urban farm animals from becoming a nuisance to city officials and neighbors.

Kudos to Detroit for exploring this new way of thinking about urban space.

p.s. It should be noted that the animals in the photo captioned “Diane Van Buren’s chickens wander through her backyard” look a lot more like Indian runner ducks than chickens!