Urban Chickens

What do you imagine when you think of urban chickens?  A beautiful coop with chickens happily feasting on all of your backyard pests to protect your bounty of strawberries and tomatoes while you sit in your Adirondack chair barefoot sipping a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc?  That used be my image and it was fact when the hens were still young, but I'm telling a different story now that my girls are getting a little hefty.

You can forget running barefoot in your yard ever again since their poop is everywhere, in fact, we are only allowing one pair of shoes per White House Rancher in the back yard which are left at the door when the dinner bell is rung.  And for the Adirondack chairs?  You'll occasionally see a hen roosting on the back perhaps dropping a special load right onto the seat or concrete patio.  And those Strawberries?  They LOVE them more than the slugs that once infested them.  I finally raised one of the pots of strawberries up so they couldn't reach them.  And my first 3 large tomatoes that went ripe were nibbled by the little pea-brained chickadees. 

It seems like this would all be fine if I were getting eggs, but they haven't started laying yet.  I'm estimating another month.  They are looking quite mature and their combs and waddles are turning red, which I've heard is a sign that they are getting ready to lay. 

Don't think that I don't love the girls, because I do.  And I'm not ready to lock them up in their pen 24/7 either.  I just can't do it.  They're still fun to watch, provide great manure for my compost bin, are super low cost to raise, and have become so friendly.  Following all of us around the yard hoping for chicken scratch, which we've nick-named "chicken crack", a mix of cracked corn and seeds that they are completely crazy for.

I wouldn't give any of this up and we'll definitely have to make some changes to our yard if we want to keep it looking presentable...for now.