Kelly's comments:

on Urban Chickens

Yeah...I'm puzzled about the locales like Salem, Hillsboro and Gresham banning chickens.  These are all locations of some major agricultural history....For crepes sake, Salem is the home of the State Fair and Hillsboro is the home of the Washington County Fair...

It's like they'll accept the revenues that chickens (and other agricultural endeavors) bring to the town, but they won't allow them in.  Talk about bigoted.

What?  Are they running some kind of entrapment program?  To get chicken owners to bring their birds to town...only to cite them for violating the local chicken ban?  Sorta like a 'speed trap', only a 'chicken trap'?

Personally, I think it is suburban pretensions.  They are trying desperately to pass themselves off as 'suburban', as part of the 'urban scene'.  Having chickens abuses that quaint delusion, ergo they ban them....No horses, either.  But you can have a dog as big as a horse.  (And...Talk about danger, noise and stench.  Try living next door to the fully legal dog kennel that abuses its animals with way too little room.)

posted 2 years, 6 months ago
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on Urban Chickens

I live in the inner city of Portland in an older bungalow on a substandard sized lot.  I'm a gardener.  After twenty years of fighting insect pests with all manner of substances, I finally got smart and paid attention to the warnings and directions on the insecticides.

HOLY GUACAMOLE!!!  That stuff was dangerous....masks, goggles and protective suits, if you really want to be safe.  So, put out ladybugs and used other 'old wive's tale' prescriptions.  Until I got cutworms that nearly defoliated part of my rose garden....I didn't know what to do until a friend suggested I get some chickens.  She assured me that even though cutworms come out only at night, when chickens roost, the 'scratching' nature of chickens would root out the problem.

So, I picked up three pullets at the county fair, brought them home and made them a coop from the abandoned bunny hutch.  I lost two of my original three chickens to raccoons during that first year.  But they got rid of my cutworm problem.

They also got rid of twenty years of accumulated yard debris that made up my compost crib, removed every spider below knee height in the back yard, provided some of the best eggs I've ever had.  To replace my lost hens, I got day-old chicks and raised them...talk about entertainment value...that was the best.  I kept three, but by then, I was hooked.  I wanted more chickens.

After raising sixteen more chicks the following year, I got all legally permitted for the six I kept.  The county gave me a permit for ten.

The six I have are probably too much for my little property.  I didn't even have to mow my small back lawn because the chickens kept it in check.  My grapes, downstream when I hose the chicken poo off my patio, are exceedingly pleased.  My neighbors are happy too, in that they get to let the girls in to clear the insects and groom their gardens and they occasionally get some chicken poo for their yards.

I'm not much of a trendy guy.  I was flabbergasted when, a year into being a 'beakwipe' and I found out that I was on the crest of the latest social fashion rage.  Ah, well, I'd found a new entertainment, a new source of nutritious food, and a fun set of garden assistants who always come running when I step out my back door, into my garden.   They're my 'entourage'.

posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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