Chicks in the City

By Jan C. Baxter

Photos by Irissa Baxter

I live in Tulsa between 71st and 81st and Memorial and Mingo, one of the most built-up and traffic-sodden areas of the city, and I keep chickens. Really. No supermarket eggs for my family. No more confusion between free range, cage free, natural and organic. We will know where our eggs come from, how the hens who laid them lived and what they ate.

I got turned on to “real” eggs by buying from the Oklahoma Food Coop (oklahomafood.coop). They looked and tasted different, rather like the difference between grocery store tomatoes and the Cherokee Purples you grow in your backyard.

I figured, if I can grow Cherokee Purples, freeing us from the grocery store pap they call tomatoes, I can grow eggs. I checked the Tulsa Animal Shelter City Ordinance, which required that I keep my chickens 50 feet from any adjoining residence. Even in the 25-year-old white bread suburbs of southeast Tulsa, a spot in my backyard measured 50 feet from all neighbors. I figured I could bribe them with eggs if necessary. (They already think we’re crazy at my house.) And I’d keep only hens, not loud roosters that would disturb the peace.

Joining the Yahoo group Okie Pioneers gave me access to many “chicken enablers.” A trip through Amazon.com had me ordering books about keeping backyard flocks. Even a magazine serves up information for backyard poultry keepers. Google lead me to Backyard Chickens (backyardchickens.com), My Pet Chicken (mypetchicken.com) and other websites run by chicken addicts. This project began to look possible! Convincing my family was the final step.

And it proved much easier than I thought. By buying two-day-old chicks from a local chicken enabler and fellow addict, I won over the whole household—dogs included. Baby chicks are incredibly cute, have a lovely little peep, and are friendly and curious when handled daily. The kids love putting them on their shoulders and letting them burrow under their hair. Our English Shepherds (farm dogs to the core) immediately adopted them as pack members who deserved protection and lots of licking. Our cats learned quickly that the chicks were under the dogs’ protection. And my teenagers loved them and brought their friends over to see.

We got two Polish chickens (black and white) and named them Emily and Charlotte. (Okay, so I’m an English major. I can’t help it.) Charlotte, alas, got overheated on July Fourth and did not recover. Emily started growing spurs and crowing, but wound up happily renamed Poppy Cock and residing in a petting zoo because of her, uh, his, excessive good looks and personality. Alice Walker turned out to be Alice Cooper instead, and moved to a friend’s farm to pass on his dark brown egg-laying genes to my friend’s flock. (Alice is a Maran—they lay the darkest brown eggs of all.) Nefertiti (an Easter Egger who will lay blue-green eggs) and Maya Angelou (a black sex-linked chick) are chugging along toward hen hood.

But I wanted more than two hens. And I could no longer bear the heartbreak of chicks turning into roosters. You can buy chicks two ways: sexed or unsexed, called a “straight run.” Apparently, the ability to sex chicks at a day old is a highly sought-after skill. Good chicken sexers can make as much as a thousand dollars a day. (I think I’m in the wrong business.) I turned to an online source where I could order fewer than the usual 25 straight run chicks by mail. Amazingly, one of the last things chicks do before they hatch is eat the egg yolk. Thus, they are well nourished and hydrated and can be shipped via mail very safely for the next day or two. Most hatcheries sell 25 chicks at a time, but My Pet Chicken caters to us backyard flock keepers. They will let you order as few as three, and sex them for you.

Picking up a peeping box at the post office on the hottest day of the year was a hoot. We had to open the box at the post office so everybody could see the chicks. I stuck in my finger, and the New Hampshire Red I ordered pecked me. She was immediately named Red Sonya. The Blue Andalusian, who bonded to my daughter and started peeping madly whenever she put her down, was dubbed Andi. Havoc (Silver Wyandotte) was named by my son, leaving the crazy-haired Buff Polish to carry the name of Roxanne (always sung in the manner of the Police song).

So our littlest chicks are growing in their dog-crate brooder, and the older ladies strut around all day in the back yard eating mosquitoes (I hope) and weed seeds. Join us, as we attempt this journey toward egg-sustainability.

And chew on these facts from Mother Earth News (October/November 2007):
Most of the eggs currently sold in supermarkets are nutritionally inferior to eggs produced by hens raised on pasture. That’s the conclusion we have reached following completion of the 2007 Mother Earth News egg testing project. Our testing has found that, compared to official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutrient data for commercial eggs, eggs from hens raised on pasture may contain:
• 1/3 less cholesterol

• 1/4 less saturated fat

• 2/3 more vitamin A

• 2 times more omega-3 fatty acids

• 3 times more vitamin E

• 7 times more beta carotene
(http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2007-10-01/Tests-Reveal-Healthier-Eggs.aspx)