Living in the city? Did you know that for fresh organic and free-range eggs, you can rear chickens in the middle of a metropolis?… Yes, you heard that right! Living in an urban space should not hinder you from keeping chickens whatsoever.
What prompted Active You to write this blog? Martin Williams in East London – near where our office is located - has been keeping 3 chickens for the last 2 years (Video here). Chickens, he feels, are not only enjoyable pets for kids to play with, but these birds are actually useful in the garden, eating pests and clearing rubbish too.
You can get around 5 eggs a week from a single chicken. You also don't need to keep many chickens; two or three chickens can comfortably live in your yard or kitchen garden and should be enough for a small family. Concerned about lack of space? City chickens have more space to move about in than free-range chickens have from well-known supermarkets.
What else do you need to know? Chickens go slow on the egg-laying in winter, usually in their moulting period. So from November to February you can expect fewer eggs from your chickens. For people who don’t know this fact, the lack of eggs can cause concern and in some cases a visit to the vet. The bottom line is it is all part and parcel of a chicken’s natural cycle and the birds soon get back to their usual pace once spring sets in.
Another option, if you have enough room, is to construct or buy an 'Egloo'. This is an urban home for chickens which houses up to eight chickens in a 'Cube'. You can also attach a cage or a chicken run to the cube to give the chickens more space to move about.
Investing some time, effort (and money) in building a chicken coop in your garden or yard, and installing an Egloo Cube can give good returns. Keeping 3 chickens will give you not less than 12 eggs a week which are purely organic, free-range chicken eggs that would cost much more in a supermarket. These gains are worth much more than the expenses for chicken feed. Also chickens will eat scraps of food off your breakfast table but I’d stay clear from giving them left-over Eggs Benedict.
Cleaning and maintaining an Egloo is easier than you think. Since these are not made of wood, the menace of pests and mites can be ruled out; and these also have plastic trays underneath which hold the chicken droppings. All you have to do is slide the tray out, bin the droppings and replace the newspaper lining. An Egloo also has a nesting box which gives you easy access to the eggs.
Finally, once the chickens slow down or stop giving eggs, you can eat them. I didn’t want to say that – it sounds callous & cruel – but you can rest easy in the knowledge that your chickens have been tended and cared for properly throughout most of their life, unlike 99% of the chickens on the planet today.
An Egloo.......
