Urban Farmers' Almanac: Backyard Chickens Part 2

I've been a bit remiss in following up my post about our experience with Rent a Coop's month-long backyard chicken experience. Part of that is because I've been distracted with other things and part is that the second half of the hens' visit wasn't particularly eventful. But, because there have been requests to update the original post, I thought I probably should get to it. The bottom line is that the month-long urban farming experience worked out well. We really enjoyed the chickens on a short-term basis. However, keeping chickens long-term would require a bit more infrastructure and is not something in which we are all interested.

We and our two hens fairly quickly settled into a routine. Each morning we would find one or two eggs in the pen. Once or twice a day, we would let the chickens out to range freely in our yard. The chickens identified their favorite places to forage, they became more comfortable with our dog (and she with them), and the hens became less a novelty and more like pets. We started to recognize the hen's personalities and they seemed to get to know us. When the chickens were free, they would often come to us and try to get some attention. If we could speak chicken, we probably could have had some nice conversations.

As time went on, we started to realize the deficiencies of our temporary set-up. Most glaring was the lack of a protected chicken run. The chickens seemed to enjoy their opportunities to be free of their coop. We also liked giving them the chance to explore our yard. But, due to fear of predators or the off-chance they might escape, we had to keep watch over them when they were out of their pen. This sometimes didn't fit well with our schedules. I've read about people who built moveable chicken runs and quickly saw the wisdom and convenience of such things. However, our yard is simply too small to make chicken runs practical (while leaving room for children to play).

The area around the coop did eventually start to smell, though not all that strongly. We changed the bedding and moved the pen and that helped reduce the oder. But, the larger issue was that we had a long dry spell and the chickens had left droppings all over the yard. Things got to the point that I was about to get out the water hose and spray down the yard, but then we finally had rain. That solved that problem.

There were times when the chickens made a bit more noise then I would have liked. We have kind and patient neighbors and didn't receive any complaints. The noise wasn't bothersome to us, but I was frequently concerned about it disturbing others. An alley runs behind our backyard that gets frequent use by dog walkers and others passing through. I often wondered what they thought of the chickens squawking on our side of our fence.

All in all, whether you just want to have a short-term experience with backyard chickens or are interested in a test run before making a longer term commitment to raising chickens, the Rent a Coop service is terrific. The coop was well-built and easy to move around. It can even be easily dismantled if access to your yard is constrained. If you are the slightest bit curious about giving backyard chickens a try, I'd highly recommend the service.