Feed stores will be getting their chicks in the next couple of months, and if you’re pondering the addition of a backyard flock this year (we hope you are!), it’s time to start thinking about a coop. There’s still lots of time–this year’s chicks won’t be ready to go outside by themselves until May or [...]
Entries Tagged as 'chickens'
Coffee Chaff Chicken Coop Litter: Creative Upcycling for the Urban Farmer
January 2nd, 2010 · 15 Comments
My friend David Ruggiero is working on a new project called “Upcycling Northwest.” Upcycling, of course, is the in-word for smarter/better recycling, making use of the energy in the initial production of something, rather than using more energy to break it down into raw materials–or, as David puts it, finding “the highest and best re-use [...]
Tags: chickens, garden, upcycling, urban farming, waste reduction
Oddball Eggs in the Coop
October 8th, 2009 · 20 Comments
A guest post from my daughter Claire:
Have you ever heard of a wrinkled egg? An egg with 2 yolks? A gray egg with bumps all over? Well, neither had I until our chickens started laying.
On the first day of laying, my mom came out to me saying, “Claire! We’ve got our first egg!” And when [...]
Tags: chickens, urban farming
The First Egg
September 2nd, 2009 · 9 Comments
Esmeralda, our four month old Barred Rock hen, laid her first egg yesterday! OK. I know there are about a gajillion “urban farm” blogs out there announcing the first eggs laid by their sweet backyard hens. But how could I not mention ours? It is SO beautiful. So pink and speckled and small.
You raise chicks, [...]
Tags: chickens
Backyard Chickens, Ethiopian Style
June 9th, 2009 · 5 Comments
A wonderful guest post from my husband Tom:
In May I left Lyanda and Claire and our new little chicks for a three week trip to Africa for work. A few days later (isn’t jet travel amazing?!) I found myself in a small stone-built compound in Mekele, Ethiopia, where Julia, the photographer I was traveling with, [...]
Tags: chickens
Backyard Chicken Update
June 1st, 2009 · 11 Comments
We can’t believe the fluffy bits of down I wrote about a few weeks ago are now fully-feathered, chicken-shaped girls. With the help of my amazing dad Jerry, who worked hard with me here while Tom was in Ethiopia and Senegal, our coop is finished. We think it’s pretty wonderful. We’ll post a coop tour [...]
Tags: chickens
Raising Chicks: A Simple Biddy Box/Brooder (for first world chickens)
May 2nd, 2009 · 5 Comments
Last summer we spent two months traveling in Kenya and Tanzania, spending a fair bit of time in small, off-the-track villages. There, nearly everyone keeps chickens, which roam free in the dirt roads, alleys, fields, and schoolyards. Most homes have a shelter for their chickens, with a roof and a nestbox, but the hens and [...]
Tags: chickens, urban farming
Why We’re Raising Chickens in the City
April 30th, 2009 · 11 Comments
I write against the background sound of constant sweet cheeping–three baby chicks now inhabit a corner of our mudroom, just off the kitchen. We first raised chickens about nine years ago, when it was still something of a curiosity to do so in the city. Now backyard chickens in Seattle are so hip they’re almost [...]
Tags: chickens, urban farming
