Home to Roost Helping city folks raise chickens!

Come out for the chicken panel at the Green Festival on Navy Pier!

Saturday, May 22 at 2:00pm in the Green Homes Pavilion

Martha Boyd from Angelic Organics is leading a panel discussion about chickens in Chicago, chicken care basics, backyard chicken-keeping experiences and advice, the egg business, chicken supply delivery business, and resources for urban chicken owners.

Meet the panelists after the discussion to ask questions!

I’ll be speaking at the Manor Garden Club meeting on Monday, May 17, about the basics of backyard chickens.

The club meeting starts at 7:30, followed by refreshments and a book raffle between the meeting and my talk. The talk will begin around 8:15-8:30 PM.

The meeting will be at Luther Memorial Church at 2500 West Wilson (at Campbell).  Entry is through the side Campbell street door.  Go down a few steps to the main room.  Street parking – which is tighter nowadays since the schoolyard went all green.

The meeting is open to the public, and there is no charge.

On Sunday, I led the Urban Chicken Check-Up at the Animal Care League in Oak Park. There were 11 people from various neighborhoods.

This hen found a human perch!

What’s Normal, What’s Not

It is important to know what a healthy bird looks like. Birds are flock animals, and the flock will cull the unhealthy members to prevent predator attacks. Birds, therefore, hide their symptoms, leading to subclinical illness. Often you can’t tell a bird is sick until it is near death. The quicker you can determine a bird is ill, the more likely that you can save the bird.

Basic Healthy Hen Signs

It’s important to know how your flock interacts. What’s the pecking order? If you realize your flock is excluding one bird, there is probably a health reason motivating the behavior. Observe behaviors carefully. We talked about the signs of a happy, healthy flock: vocalizing, eating and drinking, doing normal chicken things like dustbathing, and producing normal droppings.

Specific Healthy Hen Signs

Then we moved to specific anatomical characteristics, discussing what was normal and what might indicate disease:

Head: comb, nostrils, ears, eyes, beak, mouth

Body: feathers and molting, posture, preening, keel, vent, abdomen, places to check for lice

Vent: color, how to determine who’s laying and who’s not by looking at the keel and pelvic bones

Legs: proper appearance of leg scales and the footpad

Poop: urates, solid waste, cecal dropping, stress poops

Toweling a Bird

One couple had a bird that was not used to being handled, and I showed them a toweling technique for easier handling. Birds calm down if you place a towel over them. We wrapped legs and wings in the towel, which made it easier to examine the head and vent.

Maisie!

Maisie the hen (see my post about the hen with the soft-shelled egg) came, and she is looking good! Still a bit of residual messy stuff in her fluff, but looking good!

Maisie the hen

Seamus, Emily, chickens, and I had a great day at Earth Fest!

Exciting Conversations

I spoke to a number of folks who are interested in getting chickens, exhausted my stack of rate sheets, and allowed a lot of really cute kids to pet a chicken for the first time!

It’s very exciting to see this many people excited about chickens (and I realize as I look at the pictures how excited I am about chickens!)!

I'm not having any fun at all!

I answered question about housing, square footage per bird, chickens and other pets, anatomy, eggs, composting, emergency care, breeds and cold hardiness, coop design, etc.

My favorite question is

Q: Do you eat chicken?

A: Only chickens I don’t know!

My Lovely Assistant

Emily was a wonderful PR rep, despite having just come from ballet, graciously fielding questions about her chickens and carting them from one end of the table to the other!

Emily with Joe Schmoe, the buff Orpington hen

RootRiot Community Garden

Seamus spoke with quite a number of folks about his RootRiot Community Gardens in Austin. The proposed site is between Race and Lake on Waller. Some Austin folks will be meeting in late April/early May to discuss the project. If you’re interested in knowing more, you can find Seamus at www.lowcarbonhome.com and www.environmentalcitizen.net.

Seamus discusses his community garden plans.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and asked lots of good questions!

Q: Are chickens permitted in Forest Park?

A: No, per the Forest Park Village code: 5-1-2: PROHIBITED ANIMALS: No person shall keep or allow to be kept anywhere within the village any cattle, horses, swine, sheep, goats, ducks, geese, chickens or any other poultry except birds or pigeons used for exhibition or sporting purposes. (Ord. O-48-01, 11-19-2001) http://sterling.webiness.com/codebook/index.php?book_id=422

Q: Is there an egg co-op in the city? Someone is interested in purchasing egg-cess eggs.

A: The Wettsteins bring fresh eggs to the Oak Park Farmers Market. They are right across from the Genesis Growers stand.

One more for my loyal readers:

• Does anyone in the city have ducks? A few people are interested in ducks!

Seamus, Emily, chickens, and I had a great day at Earth Fest!

Exciting Conversations

I spoke to a number of folks who are interested in getting chickens, exhausted my stack of rate sheets, and allowed a lot of really cute kids to pet a chicken for the first time!

It’s very exciting to see this many people excited about chickens (and I realize as I look at the pictures how excited I am about chickens!)!

I'm not having any fun at all!

I answered question about housing, square footage per bird, chickens and other pets, anatomy, eggs, composting, emergency care, breeds and cold hardiness, coop design, etc.

My favorite question is

Q: Do you eat chicken?

A: Only chickens I don’t know!

My Lovely Assistant

Emily was a wonderful PR rep, despite having just come from ballet, graciously fielding questions about her chickens and carting them from one end of the table to the other!

Emily with Joe Schmoe, the buff Orpington hen

RootRiot Community Garden

Seamus spoke with quite a number of folks about his RootRiot Community Gardens in Austin. The proposed site is between Race and Lake on Waller. Some Austin folks will be meeting in late April/early May to discuss the project. If you’re interested in knowing more, you can find Seamus at www.lowcarbonhome.com and www.environmentalcitizen.net.

Seamus discusses his community garden plans.

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and asked lots of good questions!

Q: Are chickens permitted in Forest Park?

A: No, per the Forest Park Village code: 5-1-2: PROHIBITED ANIMALS: No person shall keep or allow to be kept anywhere within the village any cattle, horses, swine, sheep, goats, ducks, geese, chickens or any other poultry except birds or pigeons used for exhibition or sporting purposes. (Ord. O-48-01, 11-19-2001) http://sterling.webiness.com/codebook/index.php?book_id=422

Q: Is there an egg co-op in the city? Someone is interested in purchasing egg-cess eggs.

A: The Wettsteins bring fresh eggs to the Oak Park Farmers Market. They are right across from the Genesis Growers stand.

One more for my loyal readers:

• Does anyone in the city have ducks? A few people are interested in ducks!

Home to Roost had a great time yesterday at Cheney Mansion in Oak Park! Oak Park chicken owner Emily Wilkes and her two hens, Joe Schmoe and Dinosaur, joined us. They were housed in my grandfather’s antique chicken crate. I brought along sign-up sheets and books with coop designs and information on chicken-raising and breeds. Also on display were several books and calendars by my favorite chicken photographer, Stephen Green-Armytage.

Home to Roost was in the solarium at Cheney Mansion. I brought along sign-up sheets and books with coop designs and information on chicken-raising and breeds. My favorite chicken photographer is Stephen Green-Armytage, and I brought along some of his books and calendars.

Drawing a Crowd – and Lots of Questions!

The chickens were a big hit, and the event was non-stop from 1 PM to 4 PM. People had various questions:

Can a hen lay eggs without a rooster? (Yes, they just will not be fertilized eggs.)

Can you eat a fertilized egg? (Yes. If the hen does not start to incubate the egg, cell division will not occur.)

Can chickens fly? (Yes – kind of. They are not very good fliers!)

What do you think about this coop design?

Margot and I discussed her garage coop plans.

Do you have chickens? (Unfortunately, no – I only have parakeets and an orphaned cockatiel in my apartment.)

Can you have chickens in an apartment? (No. Their poop has too much ammonia and is very smelly in enclosed spaces.)

Well-Behaved Hens

Emily’s chickens were well behaved and did well being handled by kids and adults alike.

A family checks out Emily's buff Orpington!

I gave a brief chicken anatomy lesson for the kids, too.  We met Beatrice and her mom, who were thinking about getting chickens.

Beatrice had a seat and held a hen on her lap. When one chicken jumped up on the table, it scared her a bit, but she asked to hold the hen again!

Beatrice did very well holding Emily's hens!

The Cluck-Like-a-Chicken Contest

Patricia won the cluck-like-a-chicken contest with her loud and animated clucking!

Since I was the resident chicken expert in the house, I was called upon to judge the Cluck-like-a-Chicken Contest. People of all ages lined up to present their best chicken communication. The winner was Patricia, who animatedly clucked and flapped her wings.

The close runner-up winner was Liam, who had very nice tone quality. His mother (of Green Home Experts) informed me that each family member has his or her own cluck, so Liam gets a lot of practice. The prizes were organic eggs!

Raffle Drawing

At the end of the day, we mixed up the raffle tickets (which were in my spare chicken purse!).

And the winner is... Emily selects a winner from the chicken purse!

Emily drew a winner’s name from the purse. This person will receive one free service from Home to Roost.

A Great Day!

Emily, her hens, and I had a great day at Cheney’s Green Sunday! The event organizers enjoyed having us as well, and people enjoyed learning more about chickens!

I’ll be presenting at the Manor Garden Club at the Luther Memorial Church in Ravenswood, Chicago, on May 17, Monday evening.

The meeting starts at 7:30, presentation at 8:15. I plan to talk about chickens and composting. Details to come!

Do you want to

• know more about keeping chickens?
• have more chicken-keeping resources?
• connect with other chicken keepers?

Come to the Green Festival at Navy Pier on May 22 and see Home to Roost in the chicken panel at 2 PM!

Martha Boyd from Angelic Organics (www.learngrowconnect.org) is leading a panel discussion about

• chickens in Chicago
• chicken care basics
• backyard chicken-keeping experiences and advice
• egg business
• chicken supply delivery business
• resources for urban chicken owners

Come talk to us after the event.