Seattle Bans Roosters!

City of Sarasota planning staff wisely considered what other communities have done when they drafted the changes to the City Code regarding chickens. One of the places they may have looked is the City of Seattle, which this past summer only allowed three chickens, including roosters. Seattle just recently fine-tuned their rules and decided enough with the roosters. Existing roosters are "grandfeathered" in, but no new ones will be allowed.

But other aspects of the chicken rules have also changed and the City now allows eight hens.

Does Seattle's shift support CLUCK's contention that six hens is a more appropriate number than four? We'd like to think so. Banning roosters and implementing a ten foot property line setback brings Seattle's rules more in line with what our City staff came up with. Now we have to ask if our city shouldn't rethink the proposed four hen limit.

What is your position on how hard to push for six hens? Participate in the poll on the right hand side of the CLUCK Blog.

Chickens Impact on Urban Quality of Life

Do backyard chickens have a negative impact on quality of life? Chicken proponents would argue no, they actually improve a community's quality of life, while opponents aren't so sure. But are there any data? A planner with the City of Springfield Missouri looked at the 2008 CNN Money Magazine "Best Places to Live" Ratings. According to his findings, seven of the ten top-rated best small cities allowed backyard chickens (and seven of the top eight slots). Does that mean chickens made those communities better? Not necessarily. But it does mean backyard chickens didn't knock those places out of contention -- that backyard chickens were not symptomatic of communities that had lost their way, but rather that a few hens were positively correlated with small cities that were doing things right.

Intriguingly, a November 15th, 2010 article in the Coloradoan suggests that the top-rated city in the 2008 Best Places to Live list, Fort Collins, Colorado, now allows chickens. According to the article "Most municipalities in the county, including Fort Collins and Loveland, in recent years have adopted regulations permitting backyard chickens."

Fighting the Backyard Chicken Fad

If you haven't thrown this weekend's Parade Magazine away, you'll notice a favorable article about backyard chickens, just more evidence about how trendy backyard chickens have become. Martha Stewart raves about them and there is no shortage of other articles about this nationwide phenomenon. But trends can devolve into fads pretty quickly.

Of course, most fads are pretty harmless -- abandoned pet rocks don't suffer. But when a living pet trend becomes a fad, animals are at risk. Dalmatian registrations surged after re-release of 101 Dalmatians. And Clownfish capture increased in the wake of Finding Nemo. So there is a possibility the backyard chicken movement will turn into a fad placing chickens at risk.

The difference between a trend and fad is that a trend has underlying rational basis while a fad is driven primarily by its own popularity. So the challenge for serious backyard chicken promoters is to stay firmly connected to the underlying rational basis and resist popularity for popularity's sake.

That's why CLUCK emphasizes and supports workshops and educational efforts to impress on would-be chicken keepers the challenges and responsibilities of owning chickens. Those of us who have raised chickens before know what we are getting into, but first timers are owed a clear understanding of what is involved. Luckily both the local Extension Office and private educators are offering workshops and there are now some great resources that explain the dimensions of backyard chicken keeping.* Fight the fad.

* This blog lists a number of online resources in the column on the right. Perhaps the most impressive is the BackYard Chickens website, which has lots of info and over 70,000 chicken keepers in its forum.

One can also subscribe to Backyard Poultry magazine, which contains both helpful articles and advertisements for everything from the basics (baby chicks, coops, feeders, waterers) to automatic coop closers and incubators.

There are dozens of books (93 hits for "backyard chickens" on Amazon). Here are three I have and can recommend:

City Chicks by Patricia Foreman (Subtitled Keeping Micro-Flocks of Chickens as Garden Helpers, Compost Creators, Bio-Recyclers and Local Food Suppliers) This is the longest (464 pages) and the best I have seen since it focuses on micro-flocks.

Raising Chickens for Dummies by Kimberly Willis with Rob Ludlow

Keep Chickens! Tending Small Flocks in Cities, Suburbs, and Other Small Spaces by Barbara Kilarski

Backyard Chickens Not Worth It?

Today's Sarasota Herald-Tribune features a story (THE GREEN LIVING EXPERIMENT) by Susan Carpenter of the Lost Angeles Times. Ms. Carpenter has spent the last two years trying various ostensibly sustainable strategies around her home (and writing about her experiences). Of all the things she's tried, she ranked keeping chickens as the lowest. This blog entry exams why that may be and whether backyard hens are inevitably a loss leader.

Susan's bad experience can be traced to at least two errors. First, she obtained her hens from animal services, a compassionate gesture, but one has to wonder if her hens may have been past their prime and that's why they were available. But more importantly she didn't construct a predator resistant coop, so her ignorance led to the demise of her chickens. No one can make chickens rewarding and productive if they can't keep them alive.

But beyond bad coop design, are chickens worth it when the local corner pharmacies are pushing eggs at 99¢ a dozen? Those eager to avoid the argument might point out that no one asks for a cost/benefit spreadsheet for their pet dog or cat, but, that aside, what's the bottom line?

That all depends on your assumptions. If you sink $300 or more into a fixed coop, spend another $150 outfitting it and buying some ready-to-lay hens and feed them organic layer pellets at roughly 66¢ a pound, then your return on investment, as expressed solely in eggs, is destined to be a negative number.

But people don't get pets to save money and there are other ways to crunch the numbers. Building from scraps and recycled materials can dramatically cut coop costs. Chicks are inexpensive. That minimizes the fixed start-up costs. So setting those costs aside, and, based on an earlier blog "Tons of Rotting Garbage or 1,000 eggs a day?" if you fed your hens half on kitchen scraps and what they could find in the yard and half on that high-end organic feed, six hens might produce three dozen eggs a week at a total feed cost of $10.00. Then, when browsing Whole Foods, you notice organic eggs are going for $4.49 a dozen. Now your chickens are looking pretty good because you're getting three dozen for what your neighbor is paying for about two.

But wait, there's more. You may not need all those cable channels if you have chickens. Yes, they are that entertaining. You may drop that expensive collectibles hobby. The eggs you give neighbors may come back as grapefruit or tomatoes --put that in the plus column. Oh, and now you have organic fertilizer -- better get a price check on that and add it to the avoided cost column. And, guess what, if you decide you really didn't want chickens, your movable coop can be sold to the next owner, allowing you to "re-coop" most of your construction costs.

So as pets go, the balance sheet on backyard chickens can actually look pretty good.

Response to Sofia: Why 4 chickens, Why movable coops?

Backyard Chicken supporter Sofia wrote to ask why four chickens and why movable coops? As for the number of hens, CLUCK recommends 6 and staff, 4. For an analysis of why we support a slightly higher number, see the blog post Fine-Tuning the City Code for Pet Hens. As for the movable coops (also known as chicken tractors), we see three distinct advantages that render movable coops a better choice for the owners, the neighbors, and the chickens.

The owner argument may be particularly salient in this hurricane conscious part of the country. We have been concerned that fixed coops could be viewed as accessory structures that need to meet hurricane wind codes -- a requirement that could make coop construction costs prohibitive, especially for just four birds. Sheds, for instance require a building permit. Small movable coops are consistent with a small number of birds (coop design will help keep flocks from expanding) and avoiding permitting paperwork is a benefit for owners and city staff alike.

The neighbors will benefit because coop location can be adjusted. There's more to it than simply one time minimization of visual intrusion. Neighbors change and move. It makes sense to have a coop that can also adjust to changing conditions and perceptions. One neighbor may be a snowbird or take extended vacations, so the coop could be closer that property for awhile, then relocated. Another neighbor may volunteer to take care of your birds while your away, so you drag, roll, lift, or skid the coop over there where it is more convenient for them. And if you ever decide to get rid of your hens, the coop goes with them to the new owners.

As for the birds, they will benefit in several ways. First they will get to different sections of the yard, minimizing impacts (scratched up areas) and maximizing new bugs, seeds, etc. You can put the coop in your garden plot after harvest to weed, till and fertilize the soil. And when hurricanes do threaten, the coop can be tucked away in a carport or garage.

There are hundreds of mobile coops designs available. Over 170 images are available at The City Chicken. Many are triangular prisms and most have wheels. By looking at so many designs, it is pretty easy to deduce what the key features are. If that seems too complicated, plans are available for sale online. And at least two local entrepreneurs are building and selling chicken tractors: Ira Klineschmidt and Mike Lasche.

Chickens Not a Problem After 2 Year Test in Colorado

Naysayers in Longmont Colorado predicted allowing chickens would mean more work for code enforcement and animal-control officers. Now two years later, the City Council has voted to extend the ordinance and remove a prior limit on how many households could have chickens. Read all about it in the daily camera.

How ya' gonna keep 'em in Sarasota?

Here along the North Trail we have somewhere around five educational institutions and attract smart and creative students from around the state and country. Most leave when they graduate and that's to be expected, but those that stay or return contribute immeasurably to Sarasota's economic, social, and artistic vitality. Sarasota's reputation as an elderly community probably reads as a minus to many young professionals, but our climate, beaches (and inertia) conspire to keep recent graduates here. But we need to ask: what more could we be doing to attract or retain these creative, entrepreneurial types?

My informal polling suggests a more vibrant (later) downtown music/social scene, community gardens, and (drumroll) chickens. I don't know about other institutions, but New College students not going to graduate school head out to places like Portland, Asheville, Austin, New York, Boulder, and Seattle and, surprise, all these places allow backyard urban chickens. The terms and conditions vary from 3 to 9 hens, but they all allow hens.

Of course, should they migrate to Chicago, Madison, Atlanta, St. Louis, Baltimore, Ann Arbor, Los Angeles, Denver, Miami, Des Moines, Boise, or Louisville they could also have a few hens there.

The City of Sarasota, usually a leader, needs to catch up with the rest of the country if we are to remain competitive in attracting and keeping the young and the skilled.