For father’s day this year, I asked for, and to my wife and sons’ delight, received a backyard flock of chickens, six clucking beauties we rescued from a farm… eh emm… an ‘el barrio’ somewhere in the San Fernando Valley. When we took on this new endeavor, I admit, we knew very little about chickens. But in our efforts to eliminate waste and become more self sufficient and local, we thought it would be a perfect match. Now we can refyll our egg cartons, too, right?
After a few months with our feathered friends (and no eggs), I confirmed that I knew very little about chickens… over and over again. Here are a few things I learned after bringing them home:
- Build your chicken coop before you bring your chickens home.
- Chickens eat everything. We have a vegetable garden. I repeat, chickens eat everything.
- Chickens can fly. They can fly really high. Like on-top-of-my-roof high.
- Chickens don’t always come home to roost. Try saying this, “Hi neighbor, have you seen one of my chickens in your yard?”
- We have red-tailed hawks in Los Angeles. You will begin to see more of them when you get chickens in your backyard.
- Chickens poop a lot. Chickens poop everywhere. Chicken poop smells bad.
- Free range means they go where they want. They don’t go where you want. Hint: keep your doors closed when chickens are “free ranging”.
- Chickens don’t always lay eggs.
- If you eat chicken, it looks different on your plate when you have chickens looking in at you from your doorstep.
- Its harder to keep the kids out of the coop than it is to keep the chickens in the coop.
So besides starting this business, raising our young children, and trying to live a more sustainable life… we now have chickens. Keep reading to find out if we get any eggs this Spring… our cartons are empty and waiting.
Much to your dismay, I found your chicken “tale” highly amusing and insightful!