In August 2007, I added three pullets (immature hens) to my household. I’d been talking about getting laying hens for nearly a year, and finally decided to take the plunge. My hens started laying in September, and all seemed to be going well.
Then, in October 2007 I found that the City of Chicago was considering banning the keeping of live chickens within the city limits.
And so I found myself becoming an activist and urban chicken advocate, and the hens learned to strike a pose for the cameras.
Clockwise from top: Selma, Maisy, and Betty, my Red Star hens.
We’ve been interviewed by local and national press including:
-
Red Eye newspaper (A Chicago Tribune publication)
-
Outside the Loop radio, on WLUW
-
Chicago Sun-Times newspaper
I wasn’t alone, thank goodness. There were others who helped me get the word out and to educate key alderman on the Chicago City Council. Most helpful were a handful of other urban chicken-keepers and members of the Chicago Food Policy Advisory Council (CFPAC).
If you’re looking for helpful resources on raising chickens in an urban environment, be sure to check the CFPAC site.
I regularly write about my hens on my blog. I’ve only recently started using WordPress, and can’t import posts from my previous blog. If you’re looking for tips and observations on the daily issues of raising chickens in the city, you may also want to check my previous blog on Vox.
My hens live in an Eglu, which is a stylish and convenient coop and run for keeping up to 3 standard-sized chickens.
View more photos of the hens and their home through Flickr.
hi,were english and living in norway,we have an eglu the same type as yours but green with only two hens,( given to us free today),theyre fantastic,the strange thing is that iv’e just built and filled then planted and seeded four raised beds almost identical to yours, it’s a small world..!!
Hi,
I was thinking of getting hens but our winters here are cold in New England. How do hens do in the winter? I don’t want them to freeze and was wondering if I need to do anything special to keep them warm.
Thanks
some breeds like cochins will do fine in cold weather, but with some other breeds you could have a problem.
Mary, most standard breeds (as opposed to bantams or mini chickens) do just fine in North American winters. There are some breeds that are especially hardy; check the catalogs or talk with the people you are getting your chicks/chickens from to get their advice.
Chickens need a dry, draft-free, but well-ventilated home all year long. As long as you provide them with a coop that meets those needs, they will do fine in the winter. The biggest challenge is keeping their drinking water from freezing.
Most people who keep chickens through cold winters have electricity in their coop — or a handy electrical outlet — so they can plug in some type of device that keeps the water from freezing. You can buy several different varieties of these devices. I used an immersion heater made for bird baths because it worked the best with the type of water container that came with my Eglu.
If you don’t have access to electricity where you locate the coop, you can do it the old-fashioned way and just refill their water container several times a day with warm water during the winter.
My hens didn’t mind the snow and cold at all. Once they became used to the snow (chickens approach change a bit slowly) they were out and about the yard every day looking for stuff to eat.
That’s pretty much how chickens spend their days year round: scratching, pecking, and looking for stuff to eat!
We just took in a couple of chicks that were hatched in my daughter’s kindergarten class (I had been researching this for a while so it was great timing) and they have been a lot of fun. Today, however, while we had them outside for the first time they did something odd. After eating some oats from our hands, pecking at the grass and generally exploring for a few minutes they laid down in a funny way. It was on their sides, like they had fainted, not the way they normally sleep in the brooder. Then they would get up and peck again. Thinking they were thirsty, I tried giving them water. Eventually I just put them back in the brooder. Has this kind of thing ever happened to you? Also, I also have raised beds w/ berries and vegetables … do you only let the hens out while you can monitor their activity? Thanks!
Hi, Allison! When your chicks laid down, they were probably trying to take a dust/dirt bath. This is a normal behavior for chickens and one of the ways they groom themselves. My hens do it all the time and have some favorite places in their run where the soil is nice and loose and they can dig right in and roll around.
As for letting the chicks roam the yard, you definitely need to monitor their activity if you want to preserve your garden! Chickens pretty much like the same foods we do, so they will peck your tomatoes, eat your pepper plants (mine don’t like the actual peppers themselves so much, but love the plant), and eat the ripe berries. Also, their dust bathing activity can be pretty destructive, too. The soil in raised beds is often soft and loose: perfect for dust bathing.
So, if you don’t want your garden to be too “hen-pecked” let them roam about an hour before dark (bed time for chickens) and watch them. If they get into something they shouldn’t, you’ll have to shoo them away from it or entice them away with a well-loved treat. You may decide to cover certain plants with bird netting or put some fencing around your beds to protect them, too. Recall that chickens *can* fly, though, and if the chickens really want to snack on something they will try to fly over a short barrier.
Welcome to the fun of backyard hens! You and your children will enjoy having chickens, and when they start to lay eggs…well, it just gets better!
Hi there,
I just found this neat blog!
Wanted to mention that if those chicks are still little they might need to be under the brooder lamp still for warmth (you didn’t mention their age). If it isn’t too warm outside, and if they are still little enough to need a high temperature, more than a short visit outside might stress them.
But I’m thinking maybe this is an example of how little chicks sometimes just plop down and rest in funny ways?
Best,
Nancy
I was actually hoping you could help me out. I came across you blog while looking at the Eglu site. Chickens are banned within city limit here in DeSoto, IL and I am wanting to petition the board to overturn it. (They overturned a ban on pitbulls recently so I know they can change their mind lol) But I have no idea where to start. What kind of guidelines/rules does Chicago have? What all kind of paperwork do I need to check into/fill out?
Sincerely,
Stephanie
Stephanie,
Glad to help a fellow backyard chicken enthusiast out!
If you haven’t checked out ThomasK’s Urban Chickens blog yet, that’s a great place to start. He’s been posting about the efforts of others across North America who are trying to get laws changed in their communities to allow for chickens. Looking at the proposals of others can certainly give you a good idea on what to use in your approach, although you know your community and have to take the unique “flavor” into consideration.
Here in Chicago we have NO rules about keeping chickens or any other type of “livestock,” believe it or not. The city code does explicitly prohibit the dyeing of chicks and ducklings [no pink, blue or green baby poultry for Easter] and the keeping of any animal “for purposes of slaughter” in a residential neighborhood. Now, exactly what this “purposes of slaughter” means is pretty vague: does it just ban slaughtering an animal in a residential area, or does it allow for people to bring their chickens, rabbits, etc. to a licensed butcher for slaughter, or does it outright ban the keeping of any animal you intend to eat? Most folks seem to prefer to not delve into the exact meaning behind this ordinance.
Other than that, there is no other law on the books in Chicago specifically pertaining to poultry raising. There are nuisance laws that could be enforced if people aren’t caring for their chickens well, just as they can be ticketed for not caring for their dogs properly.
If you look at the laws in other other towns, they basically have certain key elements to them: outright banning of roosters (to address the “noise issue”), restrictions on the number of hens, and requirements for accommodations. Some towns also require permitting and/or licensing, similar to how one often has to purchase a license for a dog. Permits may be required for the construction of housing, or to enforce certain standards for housing. The problem with licensing and permitting is that towns often see this as yet another thing they have to pay someone to review and enforce; the fees gathered rarely cover the costs of administering these things.
Are there others in your community who would support you? Dog breed bans often fail or are over-turned because there are enough people in the community who object to them, and because they are not supported by national animal rights organizations. These same organizations may not be viable supporters for your efforts, but others may be. Do you have a local co-op? Folks who support co-ops are often more likely to support local food movements, and raising chickens can be looked at as a local food issue. What other allies could you have in your community?
Linda
I’m so glad you’re posting, I live in an IL burb and want to raise a couple of chickens for eggs but didn’t know how others make it work. Thanks.