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A Chicken in Every Yard: The Urban Farm Store's Guide to Chicken Keeping
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About A Chicken In Every Yard: The Urban Farm Store's
Product Description Got a little space and a hankering for fresh eggs? Robert and Hannah Litt have dispensed advice to hundreds of urban and suburban chicken-keepers from behind their perch at Portland’s Urban Farm Store, and now they’re ready to help you go local and sustainable with your own backyard birds. In this handy guide to breeds, feed, coops, and care, the Litts take you under their experienced wings and share the secrets to: Picking the breeds that are right for you • Building a sturdy coop in one weekend for $100 • Raising happy and hearty chicks • Feeding your flock for optimal health and egg nutrition • Preventing and treating common chicken diseases • Planning ahead for family, neighborhood, and legal considerations • Whipping up tasty egg recipes from flan to frittata With everything that first-timers will need to get started—along with expert tips for more seasoned keepers—this colorful, nuts-and-bolts manual proves that keeping chickens is all it’s cracked up to be. Review “Backyard chickening may be the best next step beyond backyard gardening. Leveraging their own experience with their Oregon customers’ shared wisdom, Robert and Hannah bring to every aspiring next stepper a mentoring book that can nudge anyone into micro-eggery.” —JOEL SALATIN, founder of Polyface Farm, author of You Can Farm, and contributor to Food, Inc.: A Participant Guide “This is the guide to raising chickens that I desperately needed when I first started urban farming. Robert and Hannah have seen it all when it comes to raising cluckers.” —NOVELLA CARPENTER, author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer About the Author Robert and Hannah Litt are the founders of the Urban Farm Store in Portland, Oregon. They’ve been featured on Planet Green’s Renovation Nation, National Public Radio, and Oregon Public Broadcasting, and Robert was recently named to Food & Wine magazine’s “40 Big Food Thinkers Under 40.” Visit www.urbanfarmstore.com and www.achickenineveryyard.com. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1: Why Keep Chickens? When we tell someone that we have seven chickens living in our backyard, there is usually a brief silence, followed by a curious “Why?” Hannah will counter, “Why not? They’re great pets—charming, and useful, too.” Indeed, which of your other pets provide you with wholesome, protein-rich food and ask so little in return? Does your dog keep the bug population at bay in your backyard? Will the cat mow the lawn for you? Besides these practical considerations, we think chickens are just plain fun to be around! We derive so much delight from observing the antics of our hens that we would likely keep them even if they did not lay. Indeed, many of our customers are surprised and pleased to discover that chickens have a certain kind of grace and can be truly beautiful. Because of this, Hannah likes to call them “mobile lawn ornaments.” Robert gains the deepest satisfaction from watching them methodically graze the lawn or scratch through the compost seeking hidden bugs. As he cares for these long-domesticated animals, he feels a deep connection to the land and to a not-too-distant agrarian past. Chickens are at once so useful, colorful, and entertaining that we can no longer imagine our lives without them. Best of all, our hearts swell each time we see the look of absolute delight and fascination in the eyes of children when they see their first live chicken bounding across the lawn toward them, or when they hold a warm, fuzzy chick. Children seem to know intuitively that chickens are special creatures with a lot to teach us all about nature and ourselves. Quality of Life and Sustainability The chicken is best known as the producer of that humble staple food, the egg. Although the egg is familiar to all, we can safely say that you have never truly experienced its full potential until you have eaten one laid by one of your own hens and cracked open and cooked while still warm.
