Monday, September 17, 2012
Meryl Carver-Allmond waits for her 1-year-old son Knox to catch up as the two go to feed the chickens on Sept. 6 in the backyard of their East Lawrence home.
Two of the nine chickens in Meryl Carver-Allmond’s coop take the yard. Residents may keep one female chicken per 500 square feet of lot size, with a maximum of 20 birds, according to Lawrence’s animal regulation code.
Keeping chickens
In Lawrence, residents may keep ducks and female chickens as long as they comply with rules set out in the city’s animal code.
Following is a list of other animals residents legally can own in the city limits:
Dogs, cats, domesticated rodents, domesticated European ferrets, rabbits (up to three), birds (excluding turkeys, geese, swans, peafowl, guinea fowl, ostriches and emus), nonvenomous snakes less than 8 feet long, nonvenomous lizards, turtles (excluding protected species), amphibians, fish, invertebrates, domesticated hedgehogs and Vietnamese potbellied pigs.
Source: Lawrence City Code, Chapter 3: Regulation of Animals
Resources
Meryl Carver-Allmond blogs about keeping backyard chickens in Lawrence and other home pursuits at mybitofearth.typepad.com.
Our Local Food’s informational article, “Backyard Chickens for Beginners,” can be found at WellCommons.com, in the Food and Nutrition section.
The welcoming committee at Meryl Carver-Allmond’s east Lawrence house is nine-strong, energetic, inquisitive and all aflutter.
There’s Tori, Bonnie, Gladys, Joni and a handful of younger ladies (well, one’s gender is questionable). While Carver-Allmond is at work, they sometimes bicker, but they pitch in on groceries (albeit only one category) and help a little around the yard (if pooping in it counts).
Her brood of chickens, Carver-Allmond says, is part food source, part pet and part amusement.
“They’re really entertaining,” she says. “They have personalities much more than you think they would.”
Carver-Allmond and her family are among Lawrence residents taking advantage of the city’s law allowing backyard chickens. Most owners agree, they like knowing where their eggs — and for some, drumsticks — come from. Plus, they just like having the plucky birds around.
At his home on Barker Avenue, Bob Gent has 11 laying hens and a few more chickens he plans to slaughter for meat.
Gent, who shares eggs and meat with friends if he ends up with extra, considers raising his own chickens one step better than cooking from scratch.
“I know … everything that these birds have eaten, and therefore I feel a little more confident about what I’m eating,” he says, then pauses. “And they’re very entertaining to have around.”
Birds and bees
Residents may keep one female chicken per 500 square feet of lot size, with a maximum of 20 birds, according to the city’s animal regulation code, updated in 2009 to allow chickens and ducks in town. The birds must have coops or similar shelters of sufficient size, distance from neighboring properties and cleanliness.
Roosters aren’t allowed.
Primarily, they crow, and nobody’s neighbors want that. Also, they can be aggressive, and the spurs on their legs are sharp, says Bill Wood, extension director with K-State Research and Extension of Douglas County.
“In town, with kids or pets around, a rooster could hurt somebody,” he says.
Besides, roosters aren’t necessary to get eggs — without fertilization, hens will lay but their eggs will never develop into chicks.
Carver-Allmond names all her hens after female singers. (Did you catch the theme earlier — Tori Amos, Bonnie Tyler, Gladys Knight and Joni Mitchell?)
But she’s beginning to worry that one of the Indigo Girls, well, might actually be an Indigo Boy.
Amy, who is entering adolescence, seems to be growing more tail feathers than the rest of the flock. If she crows, Carver-Allmond says, Amy’s out.
It’s tricky to tell the gender of young chicks, and Carver-Allmond has had to give away two roosters after she realized the person who sold them to her guessed wrong.
Other facts of life must be dealt with, too, like the time Gladys “went broody.”
The hen refused to stop sitting on a nest of eggs she apparently — and mistakenly — thought would hatch. Trying a trick she’d read, Carver-Allmond bought three chicks and sneaked them underneath Gladys while she slept.
It worked. Gladys woke up and sprang into action like the new mama she believed she was, her babies trailing her all around the yard.
Even in town, predators are a threat to chickens.
At Carver-Allmond’s, chief predator is the family dog, a small but instinctual terrier. Chickens roam the backyard during the day but must be locked into their run or coop each evening before the dog can go out.
Foxes and opossums also have been known to hunt city chickens, and Gent has lost several to raccoons, even with precautions, making chickens a pet that requires twice-a-day attention.
Environmental activists
Besides always having fresh eggs, Gent also likes the activity his chickens create around the yard.
“I get some productivity out of a part of the yard I can’t grow anything in, just because it’s too shady,” he says.
When chickens are roaming the yard, they scratch around, munch on bugs and leave their droppings, which biodegrade into the lawn.
When they clean out the coop, both Carver-Allmond and Gent toss the chicken droppings into their compost piles.
“It’s just rocket fuel for plants,” Gent says.
Carver-Allmond fences most of her vegetable plants so the chickens don’t eat them. But when fall comes, she takes down the fences and lets the chickens have at the beds, which they help tear down and scratch up for the spring.
Michelle Gundy, who lives on New Jersey Street, says she and her husband, David Gundy, think of their chickens — 10, almost all different breeds — as a “moving landscape.”
“With their color, they’re just like walking flowers,” she says.
Gundy says her husband takes their son, Wendell, outside every morning to watch the chickens scurry around for their breakfast. At only 3 months old, he’s entertained, too.
“We throw the scratch grains right in front of him,” Gundy says, “and he is fascinated with it.”
Comments
RETICENT_IRREVERENT 9 months ago
"a few more chickens he plans to slaughter for meat"
Not a violation of the city’s animal cruelty code?
sshepherd 9 months ago
They can be slaughtered outside the city limits, or taken to a professional meat processor.
treeoflife 9 months ago
I love this about Lawrence. :)
lawslady 9 months ago
Anyone have good information on what it costs (per egg) to raise chickens in the city? From what I've read, so far, after calculating the costs of a coop, feed, chickens, etc, you end up paying a whole lot more (a WHOLE lot more) than even the most organic eggs from any health food (or farmer's market). Input please...
brutus 9 months ago
It's not just about cost. Chickens can be as affectionate as dogs. They like to be petted and will lean into it just like Fido.
opinion 9 months ago
Lawslady,
I built my own coop for around $80. It's on its fifth year. If you just feed them retail feed you'll spend around $60-$70 per year for three hens. Mix allowing them to "free range" in your yard and you could cut that in half plus they love plant based table scraps.
I raise buff orpingtons. The not only share their eggs with us they are dear pets usage, my wife and our young children. They are an extremely docile breed. If you spend any time with them they will come when you call them and I have never had to chase them when it's time to go back in the coop. They are a heavier breed with thick feather covering and so they handle our winters very well with very little extra work.
They are my prime source for fertilizer for my vegetable garden as well as our pest control. The three ladies I have now give me around 670-700 eggs a year right now. I expect that to go down as they age. 670 eggs are 55 dozen. Don't now what eggs cost in the store so you'll have to see what 55 dozen costs/saves me.
I will tell you I have cats, dogs, fish, and small birds and they haven't given me anything to eat! If my ladies stopped laying today, I would keep them until they decided to leave me. Chickens are one of the greatest, unknown pets there are.
RETICENT_IRREVERENT 9 months ago
"plus they love plant based table scraps" - opinion
Mine go gaga for pork and chicken scraps.
Did_I_say_that 9 months ago
R_I, Not trying to be funny, just asking for information: Since cows eating cow scraps are thought to produce mad cow disease - is there the possibility of mad chicken disease?
RETICENT_IRREVERENT 9 months ago
I have no idea, but it is table scraps left over from my plate, not brain matter and waste.
Also it is just a scrap or two, so they fight over who gets it and they end up running around playing a kind of chicken rugby.
RaynRavyn 9 months ago
My hens also love meat-type things (dinner scraps, bugs, have even seen them tear up a little mouse that decided their feed was enticing.) I have one hen that thinks she is a cat, and eats and sleeps with the barn cats. And loves bacon... They are characters. And delicious. :D
Pywacket 9 months ago
Like "Opinion," we have buff Orpingtons and I second the vote for their being docile, friendly, and hardy. We also have three Ameraucanas and two barred rocks. The Ameraucanas are as friendly as the Orpingtons, though (in my opinion) they are not as attractive, as their combs are almost nonexistent, giving their heads a "buzzardy" look. Poor girls! Their coloring is assorted, with one of ours a dark golden brown, one a dirty white, and the other a medium gray-brown with a white head (it reminds me of a bald eagle). The best thing about the Ameraucanas, though, is their green eggs. They vary in color, from blue-green to olive, dark to light. They look very beautiful mingled with the brown eggs of the other hens.
I agree with others that you save no money on eggs by keeping chickens. The startup costs aren't cheap--and my husband built our henhouse and outdoor enclosure... Feed isn't cheap, either. What makes it worth it for us is knowing that these hens, unlike commercial ones, get to enjoy their lives.
They scratch in the dirt, take dust baths, strut around in the rain, eat bugs, and get to see and hear everything that goes on outside. They can stretch their wings and run around all they like. They go to bed when they want and get up when they want--no artificial lighting dictates their wake/sleep cycles. That means something to us.
Our girls love kitchen scraps--mostly fruits & veggies. They go crazy for overripe bananas, tomatoes, strawberry hulls, and carrot peels. They are very entertaining to watch.
kublackbird 9 months ago
Lawslady,
If you do not add in the start up costs (coop, feeders, waterers), I've found that we break even. We spend a little less than $15 per month on food (our girls free-range, so they get other food too), which works out to about a month's supply of good, free-range, local eggs. (If you're buying the factory farmed ones...well, you get what you pay for.) Our coop and other odds and ends make it more expensive, but that was partly choice for us, not necessity. For example, our chickens would have been very happy with a corner of our (already standing) shed, but I wanted a cute coop for more aesthetic reasons.
Bottom line: A lot of the higher "cost per egg" figures that I've seen are accounting for top-of-the-line everything, not just the necessities. But you certainly don't save money.
HutchSaltHawk 9 months ago
A neighbor has some chickens in their front yard........I keep watching for my dog to come home with dinner.. :)
Commenting has been disabled for this item.