Planning Your Urban Chicken Farm

In planning my chicken farm I did a tremendous amount of surfing the internet for what-to-do-first articles, checklists and anything else that would feed my obsessive need to plan. I am an animal lover and wanted to make sure I did right by the birds I brought home. 

Here's the biggest thing I've learned in the past year of chicken keeping in the city: I knew nothing about anything before I brought these angels home. This project has given me knowledge, joy, lots of laughter and peace. I can sit outside the coop watching the chickens, and experience all of those while drinking coffee on a Saturday morning. I love it.

That being said, how can you, you amazing person, find this same wonder? Why, by diving into chicken keeping as well. Here are my recommendations when planning your little farm. All of these are equally important, but I would start in the order I've chosen.

1. Check the laws for where you live (state, county, HOA, and/or city). This is a vital first step. It's important to not get too deep into this if you will have to get rid of your chickens or you need to change a city ordinance. 

2. Learn the terminology (and bookmark this page) so you know what you're shopping for. Below are a few terms for you to remember.

Pullet: Female chickens prior to 1 year of age.

Broody hen: A hen that has decided to hatch her own eggs.

Candling: The process of checking the viability or an egg during incubation. 

Chicken Coop: The house the chickens live in.

Chicken Run: The outside area, generally fenced in and connected to the coop, the chickens can spend time in during bad weather or sometimes all the time, depending on your location.

Cockerel: Male chickens prior to 1 year of age.

Comb: The fleshy thing on top of the head of male and female chickens. It's generally red or pink and comes in a variety of shapes.

Cull: Removing an animal from your flock. Often it means putting the animal down, but it can also mean re-homing.

Dust bath: When your chicken is rolling around in the dirt throwing it all over the place. It looks weird, but it's a good thing.

Free Range: Allowing your chickens to run around property during the day, eating bugs, weeds, whatever they choose.

Hen: Female chicken older than 1 year.

Rooster: Male chicken older than 1 year.

Straight-run: Chicks that have not been sexed. 

3. Why do you want chickens? This is a super important question. Do you want pets, eggs, meat, entertainment, breeding, lawn mowing services, compost, etc, etc, etc. This answer plays a role in many of the decisions with planning your farm, including breed and, if you plan to not cull at any point, making sure you plan for after your hens stop laying.

4. Space and coop requirements: It's a good idea to plan for 4 square feet per chicken in the coop, then 10 square feet per chicken in the run. Also, if you have a small yard, there will be chicken poop, do you want to keep them from one area to curb that or just let them roam about?

5. Security: It's important to protect your flock from predators. Learn about what is a concern where you live and how to protect your flock. I have possums, raccoons and hawks to deal with in my city. So I have a wired enclosure I leave them in at night and a roof over my run. That has kept them safe so far. knock on wood

6. Ok, so you are ready to start thinking actual chickens! Do you want to start with chicks,they will require a brooder and heat source, or older ones that are ready to go straight outside? And do you need to make sure you have a specific gender only? If so, buying straight run is not for you.

7. Last, but certainly not least, choosing the breed. Do you want to mix breeds or get only one breed? If mixed, what breeds get along with other breeds? Do you need them to not be quite as able to fly? Are you willing to clip the wings of the breeds that are flyers (leghorns)?

This is the fun part for me. It means it's truly about to happen and I get to look at the beautiful pictures of these beautiful creatures.

Happy chickening!

Fried Egg Sandwich - The Fresh Egg Cookbook Recipe #2

So I cooked breakfast for the family this morning, before work and school, for the first time in ages. Everyone has gone their own way in the mornings for so long, but I super wanted to try this one and thought it would be a perfect way to start the day. I was right.

This was super easy, just making a sandwich with the perfect ingredients. Normally I like eggs over easy, but I decided I didn't want these to be that messy. So I broke the yolks as I was frying these eggs, got the bacon fried up, toasted the english muffins and threw a touch of butter on them, then I slapped it all into a sandwich with a slice of cheddar cheese.

Delicious, wonderful, having these as often as possible. Booya.

I Love My Reclaimed Wood Coop

In the Fall of 2015 my husband and I made the decision to tear our back porch off the house. We had found (during a stressful, get the damn cat back in the house moment) that underneath the porch was a concrete patio as well as steps that the previous owner had built the deck over without removing. They never stained or protected the wood properly, so the porch was in horrible shape. We did some work when we moved in, but it seemed to be too little too late. This has turned out to be a wonderful blessing! Not only do I love my little patio, but from the wood we recovered we have built garden boxes, a little library and now our amazing new chicken coop.

First, my husband spent weeks planning, reading and Googling to decide what kind of coop we needed. After he questioned me, then drew everything out, we made a list of what we had and what we needed. Then we hit Lowe's (my daughter is pushing the lumber cart on the left there). We ended up having to spend about $100 at Lowe's, then making a couple more trips for about $25 each. Not bad for an 8x4 coop with a good size nesting box.

The legs, base and some of the framing wood is pulled from the deck. New studs were purchased on our first run to fill in the 2x4s as the deck didn't have a lot of 2x4s, mostly 2x8s and 1x6s. We were able to put the 1x6s to use for the sides and it almost completely covered everything. We picked up a few more 1x6 boards to wrap that up.

One of my favorite parts is the nesting box my sweetie designed and built so I could access eggs from the patio, just my short self.

The lid opens up perfectly from the patio and inside is a 2x8 board separating it into 2 boxes. I plan to hang a curtain giving it a little more privacy.

Inside is the cool roost I built when my sweetie was still in bed in the morning. I'm super proud of it. :-) I also painted the floor with a bunch of sample paints I have remaining from painting the inside of my house. I just tossed them all together, not caring about the color.

We started working on the coop in the Fall of 2015 and didn't paint it until just this week, when the weather would cooperate more. As a result, the chickens chose to sleep in the door to the coop and cracked me up. I blocked them from the old one, putting the new chicks in that one. Two chickens slept in the new nesting boxes and the other two slept here, in the open door.

Once the warm weather hit, I started with the paint sample colors. It took quite a bit, but I finally was able to color match to the super dark blue I wanted.

My husband also added the coolest thing ever, a door that slides up and down so I can easily open it without having to go into the run in the mornings. I love the man so much.

We are talking about adding some white lettering on it declaring it the roost, but I haven't decided exactly how I want to do that yet.

So, here we are. My gorgeous dark blue coop.

*A few of the pics below were taken while I was mid-painting still.