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We have 3 lovely ladies sharing our SE Portland backyard. I call them my "pets with benefits". They are cooped at night and have an oversized attached run, but also roam the backyard some during the day when I'm home.I warned the neighbors and talked to them before I got the chickens, and share the eggs occasionally to keep up the good vibes.

After the coop and run were built (with dumpster-dived materials and things I had sitting around), the chickens are the lowest maintenance pets I own. They are great de-stressors and fun to watch. Nothing like a game of keep away between 3 greedy hens over a fat slug!

When they are older and stop or slow down laying, I'll have a backyard full of barren old biddies. I do understand that chickens are somewhere on the line between pets and livestock, and that some may choose to have the older birds in the stockpot, but we've named ours, so I don't think we could do that. It's possible that I would seek a permit for more birds once this bunch has stopped laying, but for now, 3 hens provide more than enough eggs for us!

posted 3 years, 6 months ago
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