Raising Chickens Part 2

Raising Chickens Part 2. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.
Yesterday we began a chat with Hank Will, Editor of Grit Magazine. Grit magazine has been around since 1882 and reflects a rural lifestyle but is equally at home in urban homes as well. They have just released a new publication called the Grit Guide to Backyard Chickens which is seeing a bit of a revolution even in urban areas.

WILL: So what’s happened is folks in town are taking sort of their food production one step further from the garden to the next logical step which I think is keeping a backyard flock, principally for eggs, because I think most folks still don’t want to take full responsibility for killing a meat animal with their bare hands yet.

A lot of urban areas are looking at allowing small flocks of chickens within city limits and Will says…

WILL: Many municipalities are changing their laws. Last year right here in Kansas the city of Lawrence changed an ordinance and passed a new ordinance that allows the keeping of hens in the back yard and there may be a number limit on it. Some cities limit you to three or five or something like that. Most municipalities try to legislate roosters out of the picture.

Roosters are the ones that are noisy and can be very aggressive but you can have a nice egg producing group of hens without a rooster, the eggs will just not be fertile. Other misconceptions are that chickens are dirty or carry disease like avian influenza. Will says you have lots of options when it comes to types of birds.

WILL: Depends totally on your situation but I think if you are limited for space you can choose smaller breeds, even bantam chickens which come in many, many different varieties but they’re genetically about a quarter of the size of the heavier of the large breeds – sometimes less and they still make perfectly nutritious eggs on a regular basis but you’d typically be looking for a more gentle breed.

The booklet also includes a section on raising other types of fowl.

WILL: It occurred to me that a lot of folks are into chickens or they might actually be more interested in guinea fowl or even curious about turkeys or ducks or what not so I thought that since it was a booklet about showing them the ropes really to get started and to encourage them, convincing them they can do it that we should introduce them to some of the other more, you know easy to raise and relatively popular kinds of breeds that they might use for either eggs or just enjoyment, yard decorations or for even meat production.

You can get a copy of the Grit Guide to Backyard Chickens at grit.com, local newsstands or farm supply stores.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.