Doing the Funky Chicken

In the backyard of her South Minneapolis home, Louise Hotka, is retaining a small bit of her farming past. Through her urban farming experience, she is also providing for her household and changing the way people think about the possibilities of their own city backyards.

Louise raises chickens and finds that “these animals are a perfect fit for gardeners on an urban lot.” There are several reasons for this. First of all, Louise stresses that the chickens are pets. Although the hens are not eaten, they are kept around after they pass their egg laying years. On a rural farm this is not common, but Louise says, “in the city, where people feed cats and dogs, and what they pick up after them is only a nuisance disposal problem, we might look at it differently.” As pets, the hens are independent and require only food and water. Second, chickens are flock animals so they meet their own social needs and, with an automatic waterer that costs less than five dollars and a bowl of mash, they do not miss their human friends when they do not come home for several days.

Creative Clean-up

Chickens can become an integral part of a vibrant yard in any setting. When it comes to the disposal of kitchen scraps and other yard debris, such as leaves and grass clippings, the hens are a great help. “Hens eat or use up a lot of what would otherwise be considered a waste in the urban household,” said Hotka, and “what they don’t eat, they will scratch around and compost in their pens.”

A second benefit of having chickens around an urban household is the fertilizer they produce. Unlike cat and dog waste, which has pathogens that can be harmful to humans,

* chicken manure is safe to compost and
* use around the yard on garden beds.

Chickens are also relatively clean and their manure does not smell bad. The plants and flowers in Louise’s backyard attest to the benefits of a steady dose of chicken fertilizer.

Alternative Egg Source

But perhaps the best part of raising chickens in the city is the eggs. The eggs that Louise and her household eat are high quality. They are fresh and the health of the hens translates into an egg that tastes good. The more variety that is in the diet of the animals, the more flavorful the egg. Louise knows the history of her eggs, and what goes into their production. She can be certain that she is eating hormone and chemical-free eggs and that her chickens live good lives.

“I’ve gone from thinking it would be possible in town to keep hens for the eggs, to thinking that it is the best way for an urban household to get its eggs.” After the construction of a 4′ x 3′ raised coop and a 4′ x 10′ enclosed pen four years ago, Louise has found an alternative egg source and her hens are inexpensive and easy to care for. For bedding she makes a trip to the local box company where they are happy to dispose of their wood shavings. In the winter, when the hens stop laying, they hunker down around a 25-40 watt bulb to keep warm.

Chickens are interesting pets, says Hotka, “there is no end to the interest watching these beautiful birds holds for us, our neighbor kids and their parents.” And there seems to be no end to the great tasting eggs and the bountiful fertilizer that her chickens produce as well. Amid the people and size of the city, Louise’s hens have found a home. Louise has integrated her chickens into an attainable and manageable system of egg consumption and gardening enjoyment and satisfaction of having chickens in the city extends beyond their eggs, to include the pleasure and experience she and her friends and neighbors all share in as they take part in Louise’s farming experiment.