Check out this gallery of images to get you dreaming about what your future chicken coop could look like … come on, I know you want one of your very own.

My favorites are the ones with a living roof, like this one:

Thanks to Melanie for the link.

So I was going to write up my own post on how to test the freshness of your eggs, but the My Morning Chocolate blog already did: How to Tell if Your Eggs Are Fresh

Of course, our eggs sink like a rock

Back in July, the New York Times published an interesting article and video essay about a mixed-media artist who became involved with chickens:

The article – Feathering Her Nest

The video essay – Home to Roost

Oh. My. God.

This video begins slow and then goes nuts at about 2:05!

The most spectacularly horrifying highlights:

2:32 “The Separator”

3:10 “Females down one chute, males down the other”

3:50 “The Optical Counter”

4:05 “‘Falling’ into transportation boxes”

I don’t think this is cool, no matter how ’safe’ they claim it is.

“The dye is injected into ordinary chicken eggs a few weeks before Easter….”

First, what kind of dye? And just because the article says that the hatchery says it’s safe, doesn’t make it true.

Second, even if it is safe, it encourages people to buy chicks they have no intention of taking care of or even eating. It turns a living animal into a trinket. This is not being responsible with either our pets or our food.

A Family of Injuries

Those of you who know me in real life — which, let’s face it, is probably all of you cause who else would read my chicken blog besides friends and family? — and follow me on Facebook, know that The S.O. injured himself while mountain biking last week. A week before that, we were horribly irresponsible and let The Dog run around on a bunch of jagged rocks at the lake. The rocks cut up his pads so bad he limped and needed to wear the Cone of Shame for a week. Just a few days ago, I managed to cut my hand pretty bad on a broken piece of glass.

Injury of the Week

The chickens are not immune to our bad luck. We’re not sure how it happened, but Wanda injured her foot at some point during the last week. Possibly she jumped off something a little too high, or maybe pinched her toe–I don’t know. What I do know is that one of her toes swelled and twisted a bit so that it doesn’t lie flat on the ground.

She’s still laying an egg every day, walks around ok and jumps up and down from her night perch, but leaving it alone has only increased the swelling and she has a bit of a limp.

I researched the forums on www.BackyardChickens.com to see what other people do with an injured, possibly infected, chicken foot (it’s a pretty common ailment). Many people suggest antibiotics, but I don’t want to go there if I can avoid it.

Cross-species First Aid Kit

After sorting through the various advice, and figuring our family has further injuries in our future, I took a trip to the local drugstore with the specific goal of only purchasing first aid supplies safe to use on ALL members of the family.

Yes, that’s right. I am putting together an all-purpose, cross-species, basic first aid kit.

Here’s what I have so far:

• Aspirin (just need to be careful about correct dosage for our various species and weights.)
• Hydrogen Peroxide
• Neosporin (MUST be original formula. The ‘with Pain Reliever’ version is lethal to chickens. Otherwise it’s fine to use on all members of our family–human, dog, chicken, cat–but should be wrapped well when used on dogs. It’s not healthy for a dog to ingest a lot of neosporin.)
• Cotton Balls
• Bandages (I got the kind that’s easy to cut to fit dog-sized paws, chicken-sized toes, and human-sized shins.)
• Bandage Tape
• VetWrap (self-stick)
• VetBond (super-glue meant to replace the need for stitches. Regular super-glue is toxic when it enters the human bloodstream. A prescription is needed to obtain medical grade super-glue for humans. VetBond has, from what I’ve researched online, the same formula as super-glue for humans, but because it’s for ‘animals’, you don’t need a prescription. Well, humans are animals too, especially when it means saving ourselves a trip to the emergency room. Just be super careful about really cleaning out the wound before sealing it over.)
• Latex Gloves (I got a nice big box of gloves. It makes me feel less when squeamish dealing with various family members blood and other liquids, plus, it’s just more sanitary.)

I’m sure I will add to the above list over time, but it’s a good enough start for now.

One specialty item I added just for Wanda’s toe was a razor blade. I will need to cut into her foot soon and take out the infection.

Stay tuned …

National Geographic talked about the growing urban chicken movement in their March 2009 issue. Click on the link to read the article. You can learn more about Talib, the Bronx’s Taqwa Community Farm, and see more pictures by going here.

It’s just a one-page thing, but I think it’s pretty awesome!

We figure our backyard chicken eggs cost us 4-6 cents per egg. At the grocery store, eggs equivalent to ours (pastured eggs) cost $2.79 for 6 eggs (that’s 46.5 cents per egg)!

Here’s the math if anyone is curious:

Average of 15 eggs per week for 18 weeks (4 months at 4 weeks per month) = 240 eggs.  We are low-balling this number. On many days of the week the chickens are laying 3 eggs per day, not 2.

$12 (the cost of feed for 3 chickens for about 4 months) divided by 240 eggs = 5 cents per egg.

*There were some initial startup costs not included in the above figures, mostly related to the coop/run – which we didn’t do right the first time. If we count the cost of our mistake-coop, then initial startup was about $130. If we only count the cost of the coop we got right, then initial startup totaled about $60 ($16 for waterer and feeder, $3 for 3 chicks, $10 for a tarp, $18 for 6 months of chick/pullet feed, and some add’l dollars for miscl materials like zip ties).

We either already had the other necessary materials (like a light bulb and extension cord to keep the chicks warm), or created free work-arounds (like using shredded paper for bedding instead of pine shavings).

Select articles about backyard chickens in the news this month:

NPR: City Folk Flock To Raise Small Livestock At Home

Mother Earth News: More Great News About Free-range Eggs

Atlanta-Journal Constitution: Atlanta’s “Chicken Whisperer”

Norwich Bulletin: Eating Locally Grown

Our chickens have not yet used the nest we set up. I’ve found the eggs on the floor of the coop, on the ground outside the coop and in a plant pot.  It makes me wonder if there are more eggs around the backyard that I just haven’t found yet.

I’ve read in multiple places that chickens like to lay eggs in places where chickens have already laid eggs … get that?

Some people use golf balls to great success, but we decided to go to the local magic store here in Sacramento and bought two fake eggs.  The only color the magic store had was white, hopefully they’ll work anyways. The plan is to place these two fake eggs in the nest as ‘guidance’.

If all goes as planned, the chickens won’t be able to resist laying their eggs alongside the fake ones.