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If you have a backyard (and oh, do I envy you)-and the blessing of your city's zoning laws and ordinances-you can raise chickens. If fresh organic eggs aren't enough of a sell, muse on the fact that free-range fowl will also gobble up garden pests, provide nutrient-packed manure for your plants, and till the ground, not to mention cut down on the amount of mowing you need to do, since they adore pecking at grass. All for the price of, well, chicken feed.
Amy Stewart, author of Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers (2007, Algonquin Books) has a Q&A on her Web site, including one oft-asked question: How will your chickens get along with your other pets? Unless your dog's a total softie, she says, it's probably best to separate pooch and bird. Cats, on the other hand, are a different story:
At the moment, my chicks are still a bit smaller than a pigeon, which means that when my cat sees them, he gets a look on his face that says, "Oh, hors d'oeurves! How nice. Will you be serving cocktails with these?" But once they grow into full-sized hens, the cats will know that they've met their match and will negotiate a truce.
If this feathery situation sounds like a hoot and a half, Mother Earth News has the details on setting up your own mini-coop. Here are some other resources to get you started.1. Backyard Chickens
2. Chicken Feed
3. The Country Chicken
4. My Pet Chicken
5. Poultry One
Other must reads include Backyard Poultry (a magazine devoted to all things cluckworthy), as well as Keep Chickens! Tending Small Flocks in Cities, Suburbs, and Other Small Spaces by Barbara Kilarski (2003, Storey Publishing) and Living with Chickens: Everything You Need to Know to Raise Your Own Backyard Flock by Jay Rossier (2004, The Lyons Press).
Difficulty level: Advanced
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