"Weird Eco Habits" Contest Sneek Peak: Urban Chicken Coop
by Sean Fisher, Cincinnati, Ohio on 11.18.05
With only a week to go in our "Weird Eco Habits" contest, we thought it might be time to give all of you faithful TreeHuggers a glimpse into some of the fantastic entries we have been receiving. The first of these sneak peeks takes us to Seattle, where TreeHugger Brad Hole has used recycled materials to create a very unique urban chicken coop. Brad told us, "I just finished building a chicken coop for my urban backyard in Seattle. Who says you can't raise chickens in the city?!"
Brad scavenged wooden pallets from a neighbor, a plastic dome sign from a defunct healthfood store, and a used curtain rod (for the roost) to build most of the coop structure. Only the chicken wire, nails, and staples had to be store-bought. By using mostly reclaimed materials, he wasn't only able to make the coop eco-friendly, he was able to build it on the cheap. "Total investment was around $40.00 which shouldn't take me long to RE-COOP in eggs when they start laying." Raising chickens in the city? What a cool "weird" eco habit.
If you have an eco habit your friends, neighbors, or family think is weird, let us know and you could walk away with a prize package from Greenloop. Email us at: contest [at] treehugger [dot] com by November 25th and let us know what your "weird" eco habit is!
Hey Brad, don't forget to factor in the cost of chicken feed. Wish my wife would let me get a couple of chickens, though.
This is not really about a wierd eco-habit, but I have to say that I grew up in the UK near London, and my parents kept chickens in our back garden. (Maybe it doesn't seem wierd to me as I grew up that way). Anyway, you can't beat really fresh eggs - just wait till you try them. The only drawback was that we had two cockerels and my dad had to shut them in light-proof box every night so they didn't wake up all our neighbours at day-break! Oh, and also that you might find you end up with too many eggs.
Not *that* weird - Seattle Tilth's been doing classes on it for years. They're a lot of fun.
http://www.seattletilth.org/classes-and-workshops/citychickens101sept24
I keep contemplating setting up a coop (if only to fascinate my cats!). However, I have pretty aggressive raccoons/possums/coyotes around (yes, I live in Seattle city limits) and am not sure I want to engineer the bombproof shelter I'd need.
The moron city council eliminated that possibility after years of people raising foul and other live stock. It is a shame, I would have loved to have a few pigmy goats for milk and meat. I would have used them to 'mow' the grass lawns in the neighborhood.
Who says you can't raise chickens in the city?!
In most cities in the developed world, the city council does.
I live in a mostly minority section of of town and they have brought to america some of the most economically, ecologically, and just plain logical solutions to living in a crowded and expensive north eastern city. There are chickens roaming free behind cyclone fences for eggs and meat, they use limes for deodorant, they ride bikes because they can't get licenses. The foot print of the urbanite is far superior to our far superior suburban contemporaries.
On our farm, we always reused any wood or scap material we found. We even used brush and tree trimmings for building material, if it would work. Nothing potentially useful was discarded if room could be found to store it.
My family are all packrats to this day, despite living in much more confined spaces.
Unfortunately, this is the tendency that leads some rural folk to have broken appliances covering their porch ;)
If you put the chicken coup on wheels, you have a "chicken tractor" that lets you move the birds from place to place every few days so the get fresh greens in their diet and don't ruin one section of the yard due to their continued droppings and scratching. Google the www for chicken tractors or check out this book from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0962464864/103-5031370-1781462?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance
The chicken tractor is a great idea that I started with. My only issue with the tractor is that I didn't feel that the chickens had enough room to walk around. I designed my tractor after seeing a one offered by www.backyardchickens.com. You can see version one of my coop on my blog site above.
I seem to remember someone in Hoboken, NJ having chickens as well. Wierdos.. .. in a good way.
I actually thought urban chickens were pretty common. We have 2, a neighbor up the street has 2 and then his neighbor has a couple himself. This is in midtown Atlanta. We are on our second coop after an oak branch took out the first one. It managed to miss everything else in the yard except for the coop (chickens were fine, upset but fine).
Brad, Stacie. . .
Be careful of the bird flu!!!
Keeping chickens within Seattle city limits is not at all unusual. The number residents are allowed to keep is restricted by their location within the city and the size of their lot. I have several neighbors who keep them, and have been contemplating it myself (I'd love some fresh, organic eggs and the chickens could eat the slugs and fertilize the yard during the day). Like Morfydd though, I have a lot of urban wildlife visiting my yard at night (despite a resident cat and dog) and would have to carefully construct an enclosure to assure their safety. Not sure I'm up for the additional responsibility.