I know women who gaze at their engagement rings and wish the diamonds were bigger. I know women who want bigger houses and/or bigger cars. I know women who want new furniture or to remodel perfectly functional living rooms. I know women who want roses and chocolate and fancy dinners for Valentine's Day. At any point of time in the past I might have wanted one or more of those things.
Not anymore. Now? I want chickens.
I know I'm in town and probably can't legally have chickens on my small lot (a difficult thing to research, it seems). I know I have a dog with a strong prey drive who would probably kill a chicken the first chance she got.
And yet....
I have a small area that would be nice to keep a few chickens in. I could fence it, preferably with solid fencing so Girl Dog doesn't spend all of her time barking at the chickens, and build a small portable coop. The area is where our backyard intersects with 2 other neighbors, so the chickens would be far from everyone's houses. I know the side neighbor wouldn't care at all, I don't know about the back neighbor. The space is about 400 square feet, and would have a small SFG box in it as well, and perhaps the berry patch if we revive it.
I don't need a lot of eggs. Okay, I can get by without eggs at all, but GF baking is a lot easier with eggs. My standards are so high that there is only one small egg producer in town that I will buy from, and getting to her stand at Market Night isn't always feasible. That's one reason we pretty much don't eat eggs. The other reason being that modern egg production, even at so-called humane operations, even when they are supposedly organic or cage free or free range, well, it is still so inhumane that I cannot ethically buy and consume those eggs.
I keep thinking, in a time of converging catastrophes, that total veganism may not work out, and having chickens and the skills to keep them might be a very good thing.
Of course, Papa has started investigating a real downsizing plan, so chickens may not be in my future for many years....
Go for it! They are wonderful!!!!!! Ours give us lovely organic eggs and we just love them like they are our pets. They each have names, and the neighbors wouldnt even know they were there, they make no noise except the occasional sort of groan when they are laying their first eggs, but that is really low. We have twelve and just adore them!!! The best part is the raising of them, my boys really did learn a lot through that process, including responsibility.
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