Backyard Chickens

Many of you are reading that title and thinking, "I"m really tired of listening to Megan talk about her future chickens!" And then there's a lot of you going.... "Huh?" 


After reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, one of the things I was most inspired to do was raise backyard chickens. My fascination with them did begin a bit earlier than this book, but Barbara was definitely the extra push I needed to cement in my mind the need for these lovely little creatures. I am not totally new to chickens--I worked with them for a summer while camp counseling at Long Branch Farm after freshman year at college. These were arguably the most tame chickens I'll probably ever come across after their many years of being handled by random kids. But I like the animal as a whole nonetheless. 

I'll take 6 please! This photo comes from a very interesting article on how much better their color vision is than ours if you're into learning about that kind of useless trivia knowledge. 

We spend over $3 a dozen on Eggland's Best organic eggs. 3 DOLLARS. WITH COUPONS!! I'd rather have all the eggs I need whenever I need them for much less than that! (And maybe dinner as well. Let's not rule out their other natural appeal) So over a year ago I stumbled upon this really addicting website: BackyardChickens.com. My absolute favorite feature is the gallery of chicken coop designs. And it's not just photos. Each coop comes with it's own personal triumph story of a proud owner/builder who made their chicken coop dreams come true. At the moment, this beautiful coop and funny tale of its creation is my most favorite. It doesn't even LOOK like a coop! 

Can I live in here? 

The site is really a community of pros and newbies figuring it all out together. I feel that as long as I have this site as a resource I'll do just fine in the future. And on that future note, our future realtor is going to HATE us. Because in addition to nailing down how many bedrooms we want, and if there is a full basement, she's going to need to find some land and know the local chicken laws!