Chicken Tractor

Ira Klineschmidt showed up at tonight's CLUCK meeting with a $300 chicken tractor in the back of his pickup. Ira is the chicken tractor builder featured in the recent Sarasota Herald Tribune (see article on the right). Ira offered to donate a tractor for a demonstration if CLUCK can get permission from the City.

You can reach Ira at 941-685-6727. Or check out his webpage.

Arcadia Backyard Chicken Swap Meet Report

Its ironic that the most scenic drive around is not identified as a scenic drive. The highway from western boundary of Myakka River State Park to Horse Creek is a lovely drive that combines the natural habitats of preserve lands with working ranches. 

The Tractor Supply Company is on the north side of Highway 70, east of Arcadia. The swap meet was held in the parking lot under tents and awnings. We got there early and there were not many swappers with a combination of pullets and mature birds. From Jersey Giants to Silkies there was some variety, but since we are not chicken buyers at the moment, there was not a lot more to be done there.

Then we took a tour of the Tractor Supply Company itself -- a rural, livestock oriented hardware store with chain saws, livestock supplies and some western wear-- worth checking out.

New Yorker Writer, Susan Orlean, on Backyard Chickens

You can't read the article online (unless you are an online subscriber) but New Yorker author, Susan Orlean (The Orchid Thief) has brought backyard chickens out of the closet and related her experiences with her birds. Here are a few excerpts (but you really need to buy a copy of the September 28th issue with historic vehicles heading to a museum parking garage on the cover).

"Until the nineteen-fifties, it was common to keep a few chickens around. They were cheap and easy to raise; unlike cows or sheep, they were hardy and tolerant of most weather, could subsist on table scraps and bugs, took up little space, required the simplest of housing, and fertilized the garden while they scratched through it. Gathering eggs was so easy that children were often assigned to do it; by contrast, getting milk or meat or wool was a major production. A chicken was a good investment." 

". . . chickens seemed to go hand-in-glove with the post-feminist reclamation of other farmwife domestic arts --knitting, canning, quilting. It was a do-it-yourself hobby at a moment when doing things yourself was newly appreciated as a declaration of self-sufficiency, a celebration of hand-work, and a push-back from a numbing and disconnected big-box life."

"This year, Murray McMurray Hatchery, which caters to people with backyard flocks, sold 1.7 million chickens. . ."

" When one of my hens laid my first home-grown egg. I was as proud as f I had been attending my daughter's bat mitzvah."

"The chicken, that thing with feathers, always and sunny and useful, will endure."

Arcadia Backyard Chicken Swap Meet October 3

Chicken Swap Meet October 3rd 10:00 am until 3:00 pm

Tractor Supply Company 1701 E. Oak St. Arcadia, Florida 34266

It's located right on Hwy 70 E.

For a sense of what may be available click on BackYardChickens Forum.

If people might want to carpool, leave a comment.

Additional Backyard Chicken Benefits (we're up to a dozen)

Robin Ripley wrote an article extolling eight benefits of raising backyard chickens  (See the article on the right under Chicken Websites). Then in a followup article she added a ninth benefit-- that they are beautiful birds. Here are three additional reasons, bring the total to a dozen:

10) Food Waste Management Most households produce a measurable quantity of food waste: food discarded during meal preparation, leftovers, and old food. You can send this to the landfill, or grind it in a disposal and send it to the sewer plant or you can compost it. Composting takes time but makes good fertilizer that will produce good produce. But what if you could add an intermediate  step and get some protein before the fertilizer and produce? That's where backyard chickens come in. While there are some foods they won't eat, and some foods they shouldn't eat, chickens are omnivorous and will convert yesterday's uneaten salad into today's poached egg and tomorrow's organic fertilizer.

11) Neighboring Robin discussed how chickens are great topics of conversation from grocery lines to parties, but failed to mention how chickens help stitch neighbors together. Air conditioning, the decline of the front porch, and the remote garage door opener have all contributed to less contact with neighbors. How many of us would contemplate borrowing a cup of sugar these days? But chickens help fight the trend of neighbor isolation. Excess eggs make great gifts that lead to neighbors wanting to learn more. Returning the carton (in hopes of getting some more) creates another neighbor interaction. And maybe they leave some fruit or vegetables they raised in exchange. Their kids are curious about brown or blue eggs, so they get invited over to see the operation.  Kids are naturally fascinated by chickens, so now there is another way to get to know them aside from Halloween. Chickens connect.

12) Fighting Sprawl Somewhere realtors, planners, or sociologists have documented why people leave urban areas for rural areas and I'm willing to bet one of significant reasons is so their children can have a rural experience that includes the possibility of having a pony or rabbits or chickens. Ponies don't work on small urban lots, but rabbits and chickens can. So we have to stop and wonder why we are forcing people to adopt a car-dependent sprawl lifestyle just to have a rabbit hutch or small chicken coop. That raises the question: Since there are so many more urban and suburban households compared to farm households, haven't we passed the point where there are more urban households with chickens than rural households with chickens? 

High end parrots, macaws, and cockatoos make more noise than any hens, but hens are still burdened with legal bias. Old stereotypes about "farm animals" should be dissolving as we farm things like catfish and the category of pets has been expanded to include hedgehogs, bearded dragons, tarantulas, and prairie dogs.  We need to stop determining what pets are allowed in our neighborhoods prejudicially based on what species they are, but on performance -- what impacts they actually have on the neighbors. 

Sarasota CLUCK submits Zoning Text Amendment Request

Here's what we're asking:

Sarasota CLUCK seeks to amend current City and Zoning Codes to make it more feasible to keep a small number of pet hens (female chickens) in the Single Family Residential areas of the City. To this end we are proposing to limit the number of chickens to no more than 6, ban roosters, and require that chickens must be confined to the owners back and/or side yard. This modest number of birds may be accommodated in mobile (AKA chicken tractor) coops or low, hutch-type, reach-in coops that do not require permitting and which could be relocated if needed. Permanent, walk-in coops would be accessory structures requiring permits.

CLUCK presents at CCNA meeting

Tomorrow (Saturday) we will present at the CCNA meeting. With so much positive media, we expect it will go well. We will be armed with lots of good information and resources to share with folks from neighborhoods around the city. I will post an update on how things went tomorrow afternoon ...