'Tour d'Coop' in Raleigh
http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/440523.html

Are go to N&O then take link to chick...

Here is a link that might be useful: News&Observer

thanks basil! not sure why my link didn't post.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tour d'Coop

I did this in Phoenix and want to do it here, but now I'm afraid of orders to kill my poultry if (when) bird flu (even the non-human present type) crosses the Atlantic. Think I'm being too cautious? I don't want to get birds and then have to sacrifice them. The ones I had in Arizona became like pets.

Marsha,
What kind of chickens do you have? DH's grandparents used to have bantam chickens and they were rather fierce -- the dogs and cats learned to leave them alone.

we always had show chickens, mostly bantams, when i was growing up. we also had some big ones for selling the eggs. we had ducks, too- whose eggs are very good, especially to bake with. the banty eggs are good, too, but noone wants little eggs. only tried raising a few roosters for meat once. too traumatic & they didn't taste good to boot- too stringy.

they definitely become like pets! they can live 10+ yrs if well taken care of. we had one who liked to come inside & watch tv, one who loved to 'fly' around on our hands and thought she was a lap chicken, and many others that had funny quirks/personalities. i hatched one who was an arucana and laid greenish eggs (the ones martha s. was forever nattering about). she looked like a fat crow and had a foot/toes turned sideways, so her name was crooked toed crow. one of my jobs was to wash & blowdry the silkies (feathers like rabbit fur) before the shows. some people went so far as to put blueing in the water to make the whites whiter, though we never did. funny group of people who show chickens (read really weird in general!!).

i'd love to have them again for the fresh eggs & fertilizer, but it would be tough with my indoor parrots. there are certain diseases that pass between, and i'm not willing to take the risk- or the crazy workarounds. i'd worry about quarantine/kill orders, too. heck, i worry about that with the parrots. they are our 3rd, 4th & 5th kids. birds have as much personality as furry pets. tam

I'm more interested in the extravegant chicken coops people will build to fit into inner city architecture than being sold on chickens as yard pets.

The five-six years I've lived here is the longest I've ever gone without pet chickens. I miss having them around. I dream of some sort of chicken coop/rabbit hutch combo where I can incorporate a compost pile and worm farm all into one structure and really crank out the perfect garden soil.

i started out 9 yrs ago with 4 bantams (silver seabrights) given to me by a neighbor who'd been raising them for years. once i got the hang of chicken care, i added several kinds of feather-footed cochins & some silkies, also bantams. i'd use the word "skittish" rather than "fierce" to describe some bantam breeds (like the seabrights). the cochins are friendly girls, as are the silkies. tammy mentioned the green egg layers - the americauna/aracauna ... i had one that definitely fit the "fierce" description - that was one crazy chicken! it's living on a large farm in pittsboro :) last year, i added some heavy breeds - buff orpingtons, dominickers & rhode island reds. they are fabulous, docile, friendly chickens & fantastic egg layers.

when i first acquired chickens, i visualized them freely wandering the yard, eating weeds & bugs, and fertilizing the gardens as they went. that was a short-lived fantasy. they eat everything in sight with the exception of conifers. they dig & scratch 12" diameter holes wherever they see fit for their daily dust baths. so much for free-ranging in the city yard of a gardener :) they now happily occupy a large far-corner of my lot, enclosed with 5' wire fence that is firmly anchored to the ground. i bring the weeds to them, as do my neighbors. i have started to plant shrubs in their area, but each one is surrounded by protective wire fencing.

they are in their 3rd, and final, coop - lots of trial & error in the coop design realm. like john, i'd be interested in the Tour d'Coop just to see the structures people have devised to house their hens. our first coop was a hastily slapped together contraption of old stockade fence sections - it was ok for awhile, until oppossums discovered how easily they could slip inside - we lost a few chickens to them. we then built a tight, critter-proof coop that was too cute and soon became my potting shed :) the final coop is another tightly built addition on the rear/side of our log cabin. the final design was done with non-chicken use in mind. we can remove the nest boxes and roosts and it'll be easily accessible yard machine storage.

as far as avian flu goes, i've read everything from credible sources i can find, and it's a "wait and see" thing for me at this point. it would be hard to put down aretha, fi-fi, fiona, gladys, goldie, francis, blackie, buffy et al ... but i would not hesitate if warranted. if i didn't already have them, i might be reluctant to start a new flock right now - again, i'd take a "wait and see" stance.

Mine always had names like: Frick Cassey, Terri Yakee, Gordon Blue.. you get my drift. It was much harder to name the sheep.

i *definitely* get your drift, john :)
i've got an antique sign hung by the coop door:
"fried chicken dinner .25 cents" ... just to
keep egg production at peak levels :)

while some of our banty roosters were fierce, only a couple were truly mean. most of the hens were sweet as could be- a few a little skittish, but we babied them from chicks on. crooked toed crow was pretty nice- a little skittish, but not mean. we rotated our roosters out on the floor/outside- never more than one at a time to prevent fights. the others stayed in pens in the main chicken house with a hen or two for company.

dad went through 3 house designs before he hit on the one that worked well for them. it was cement floored, very sturdy, insulated, & lightly heated with a space heater in winter. fairly large building- about 8'x16', maybe. there were stacked cages, 3 deep, 2 across, for a total of 6, about 3'x4' ea that we kept the roosters/extra hens in on the long side. the large rhodies, leghorns and buffs were on the floor, with some mixed banties- barred rocks, millie fleurs, wyandottes, cochins, etc. the silkies stayed in the cages, else they'd get too dirty. it had a big person door on the close end that was left open when the birds were out or the weather was nice so the cooped birds got light & air, and a chicken door in the middle betwen the nests & feed box that could be opened or closed. he also had many windows, some screened, again for ventilation & light. all in all, they were spoiled rotten. the ducks (mostly calls- minis-, a few runners through the yrs and 1 big pekin) mixed freely with the floor chickens. (i adored the ducks despite the mess they made). for a long time we even had a huge rabbit who lived in the space under the coops with the pekin duck, quackers, who was his best bud (they went outside with everyone else). it was sad when thumper eventually died. outside they all had a huge pasture in which to roam that was shared with a cow & goat, and in later yrs the e-fence got unplugged & they had the whole 2 acre yard. in the coop there was a long line of double decker nests, and a steel enclosed place for feed (to keep the mice down). it worked somewhat, but we always did have mice issues out there. on the far end was one bigger coop, used originally for the goat, but later whatever chickens needed separated out were there. he used sawdust on the floors & in the coops because they heated with wood and we had amill just down the rd.

i would think any of the little outbuilding you see at h/d lowe's would make a decent starting point if someone wanted really easy (not cheap, tho). dad was the king of thrifty re-use, so his coops were made of whatever he could find- & they weren't pretty! the first was roofed with part of an old metal coca-cola billboard, edged with the old 50's metal awning type stuff. i looked down from my bedroom window on that silly thing for many yrs.

mom's down to one geriatric rooster now, and he's been by himself for most of a yr. if she could find someone who'd let him live out his days & not fricasee him, she'd give him away to simplify things. after dad died, it was too much with her bad health for her to keep up with, and she said once they died off she wouldn't get more. she misses the fresh eggs, but not the work, esp in winter. when i lived at home, we had probably 70 chickens, tops, but by the time dad died they were down to maybe a dozen or so. i would never want more than 6-12. too much to bother with after that point.

marsha & john- i love your creative names! what fun. john, if you ever do get chicks again, i'll come & help & get my fix now & again. you got a built in baby sitter for when you're gone. :) i have to admit, i don't miss mucking out the coop, though. gross. tam

DH told me his grandparents' chickens were bantam mixes, with spurs, and that they were only aggressive when they had chicks. I don't think they went after people so much as potential predators.