Urban chickens? For the love of God no.
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| From Flickr |
Stupidity is the devil. Look in the attention of a chicken and you will realize. It's the most scary, cannibalistic, and nightmarish creature on this international.
- Werner HerzogI read an article on Re-Nest yesterday and it was about how to build a backyard chicken coop . Re-Nest is a website owned and operated by Apartment Therapy, an organization devoted to the propagation of inane ideas and harebrained schemes. Except of course, when they're quoting me .
Apartment Therapy and it is ideological me-too-ers seem to be using the concept that it's one way or the other an amazing aspect for city dwellers to begin raising chickens. It looks as if a brand new shape of eco-narcissism to me but I'd be willing to test that if everyone else has a higher concept. Whatever's driving it, it's pretty fallacious for a bunch of reasons.
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| A hen in a quiet moment. It won't last. Poultry Ireland |
For starters, you need a flock of quite a few birds to yield enough eggs to wean you from the grocery store. Even then, I'd hate to have to depend on a backyard flock exclusively. In order to keep a flock going, you'll need to keep a rooster around. Once there's a rooster around you'd better get used to eating fertilized eggs. Trust me, there are few things more surprising than cracking an egg into a cake batter only to find a bloody pulp in the middle of the yolk.
Not to mention that chickens are loud, aggressive, foul-smelling salmonella delivery devices. Why would someone want that in their life? On behalf of urban dwellers everywhere, please re-think the idea that a chicken has any place in an urban environment other than in a bucket from KFC. If you live out in the hinterlands, set yourself free. But let's keep cities chicken free zones please.
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| Weapons of mass destruction. Paul Midler |
We had chickens when I was a kid. The very spawn of Satan they were. Hens are aggressive and roosters are downright dangerous. That's a slight exaggeration, but not really. Chickens are not pets. You can attribute as much human emotion and intelligence to them as you want to, but they will not respond to you, they will not be affectionate and they will not look at you as anything other than an irritation at best.
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| A rooster catches his breath between violent outbursts. Poultry Ireland. |
Roosters do not crow at dawn. They start crowing before dawn and they crow all day. Very loudly. Your neighbors will hate you.
Hens shape flocks and use their hive minds to plot homicide and mayhem.
We had a hen house when I was a kid and my brothers and I had to feed the chickens every morning before school. They figured out that there was a ledge over the door where they could roost. It took a day or two for them to then realize that the ledge was the perfect launch pad for an aerial attack. So it went every morning. Whoever's job it was that week had to go down to the chicken coop to feed the chickens. The second that he opened the door and entered, they'd pounce --spurs first. There's nothing quite like having blood drawn by a "domestic" bird at 5:30 in the morning, let me tell you.
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| These hens are scheming, don't be fooled. Whoever wrote the Velociraptor in the kitchen scene from Jurrasic Park raised chickens. Gardening without Skills |
Due to chickens' foul tendencies and even extra foul habits, this is fashion with a constructed in expiration date. Knowing that makes it less difficult to study about. But still, shop yourself the trouble, the cost, the bodily and emotional scars. Chickens belong on farms.
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| The happiest day of all when you raise chickens. Cool Creek Farm |