Chilly Chickens

Before the hens were ever introduced to our urban backyard we have faced the question, "what are you going to do with them in the winter?". Up until a couple weeks ago my answer was consistently "I'm not to sure". The three options as I've seen it have been to send them to a friends farm, insulate the coop and see how they manage, or eat them. All three of the hens being under a year old means that they still have well over a year of consistent laying ahead of them. This makes the "eat them" option seem un-economical to me. Why kill something for 10 dollars worth of meat when there are still 200 dollars worth of eggs to be layed? Sending the hens to a friends rural farm somewhat de-legitimizes our entire urban farm experiment, so this option was abandoned. This left us with keeping the chickens in our backyard throughout the chilly winter season.

The first issue that needed rectifying was finding a friend to keep Samantha company. At this time Samantha had been sleeping in a smaller separate coop, as a result of her precarious position at the bottom of the pecking order. My original intention was to find another hen of similar colour to Samantha and then hopefully be able to house all four together. Prior to moving in a new hen I set up Hepzebah and Baylik in the smaller coop to try and reduce their ownership of the large coop. So for a week I allowed Samantha free range of the large coop and didn't allow the other two in.

One day later in the week while working on the hotbed, I absentmindedly left the large coop door open. I realized that all three hens were peacefully eating out of the large coops feeder. Surprised by this, I sneakily added the other feeder and closed the door. I had learned via a chicken forum that having multiple feeders reduces the chances of fights. But for the odd peck, the three ladies have been getting along marvelously. It has been incredibly satisfying to see all three of them eat, roost and peck together.

Common suggestions from people have been to get a heat lamp to put into the roost to keep the hens nice and toasty warm. From my research and discussions with other chicken owners this actually not the route to go. Providing heat prevents the hens from acclimatising to the cold, and so makes it more dangerous for them to venture out of the coop. All chickens require is a dry, draft free environment. Chickens provide tonnes of body heat, and through huddling together will stay warm on the coldest of days.

Maintaining a dry environment is taken care of by the structure of the coop. To ensure that there is no draft I stapled strong plastic along all the chicken wire. It is also important to make sure that there is still ventilation in the coop. Poor ventilation can result in condensation from the hens breath settling on the comb and waddle and causing frost bite. To avoid this I put in place some small steel vents.

Another important issue with having chickens in the winter is making sure that one doesn't have to continuously clean droppings out of the coop. To make sure that this isn't the case I put in place a deep litter system. This system uses a deep bed of a carbon based material, such as straw or wood shavings. This carbon based bed will absorb any nitrogen that is introduced, such as chicken poop, this mixture will compost and create a nutrient rich soil. As long as a proper ratio of carbon to nitrogen is maintained the coop wont smell and will even produce heat as the compost off gasses.

Our relationship with the chickens is a symbiotic one, I recently imposed a system that will get them to do some work for me. I put a thick layer of mulch of leaves collected from around the neighborhood over the garden bed. I have been scattering feed over the mulch to to encourage the chickens to scratch through the mulch. As they do this they are aerating the mulch and dropping their nitrogen rich manure into the garden bed. This will encourage the mulch to break down and provide a rich garden bed for next years vegetables to grow.

Chicken Maintenance

Last week I was lucky enough to befriend a fellow urban chicken raiser. Unfortunately, our reason for meeting was that she was in the middle having her chickens extradited to a rural farm by Toronto bylaw officers. I volunteer in City Councilllor Joe Mihevc's office. Joe is a supporter of legalizing backyard hens in downtown Toronto, and so his office regularly receives calls when people get into trouble with chicken laws. She, and her neighbour's, had happily lived with five laying hens for several years. She had lots of tips to give me on strategies for raising hens, but primarily our conversation was about chicken laws. Her concerns were not only that the law should be changed to allow people to raise hens, but that policy needs to be put in place to ensure that people raise their hens humanely and with an understanding of the amount of work that hen raising requires.

Raising hens is not like raising rabbits or gerbils. Chickens require a lot of upkeep, disease prevention, and protection from the cold and predators. The area that I have had the most difficulty with is disease prevention. I think this is because laws restrict a contraband chicken keeper from taking their hens to a professional veterinarian for assistance. This leads to a lot of internet research and guessing. Luckily I've only encountered a couple of health problems in the ladies.

One of these common problems was our Spotted Sussex becoming egg bound, or eggs-tipated as I like to say. This is when a chicken gets one of her eggs lodged in her Ovduct preventing other eggs from being made and causing the hen discomfort. I noticed something was wrong with her as she wasn't laying any eggs and was lying on her side and panting a lot. I started to do some internet research which, as any hypochondriac knows, can lead one to believe that thousands of diseases apply since so many diseases have similar symptoms. After being convinced that Samantha had the Bird Flu, Marek's Disease, and failed kidneys I realized that the most likely ailment was for her to be eggbound. Further research led me to find the cure, a nice warm bath and massage, which I found more appealing to an alternative cure which was to shove a pencil up the birds vent to dislodge the stuck egg. She really enjoyed the bath, and the following morning produced an egg, and was in much higher spirits.

Another common problem has been the appearance of lice on the birds feathers. At first I thought this was a big problem and it left me worried and itchy. But after some reading I realized that this is very common, and that chicken lice won't transfer to people. Living in downtown Toronto without a drivers license means its very difficult to get to a farm supply store and purchase a delouser. This forces one to get creative. I've used a natural insecticide for removing ant hills in the past called Diatomaceous Earth. DE is ground up fossils of diatoms, a type of algea, which dehydrates insects by absorbing lipids from their exoskeleton and thus killing them. To apply this I put the DE into a pantyhose and powdered the chickens, being careful not to allow the chickens, or myself, to breath it in as its bad for the lungs. From researching DE I learned that its good for removing parasites and worms from and animals and so I've now put a mix of 5% DE into the ladies feed.

With winter fast approaching, I am sure that new difficulties will transpire in raising hens and that the daily chores of cleaning out droppings from the roost will become more tedious. But I am very excited to take advice from my fellow chicken raiser and feed the ladies nice warm steel cut oatmeal with milk on cold mornings, and since this is one of my favourite winter breakfasts, I'll enjoy it with them.

Introducing Samantha

Getting two eggs a day from one's backyard is nice, but three is even better. On a recent trip to my friend Leland's farm in Cambelford we made sure to stop in at their weekly livestock auction. This place was a real scene. Inside a large barn, off the side of the highway, an auctioneer was gathering bids as calves were pushed in and out of small doors. My three vegetarian accomplices didn't much care for this part of the livestock auction so we went outside where the smaller livestock were being sold. This is where chickens, turkeys, pigeons, and rabbits were sold. The man I wanted to see was Chicken Charlie, who is known around Cambelford for having the best selection of heritage breed birds. Chicken Charlie had more than just chickens, he had cats, dogs, bantams, and turkey's. He also had meat bunnies and pet bunnies, which Kayla quickly learned the difference between, meat bunnies are five dollars and pet bunnies are ten. While Kayla ran around trying to get enough money to buy all the meat bunnies and set them free, I started to look at all of Chicken Charlie's heritage breeds.

Chicken Charlie had Silkies, Barred Plymouth Rocks, crazy looking Polands, and your standard Rhode Island Reds. The one that I decided would be best suited for us was a beautifully feathered and docile Speckled Sussex. The standard manner of purchasing heritage breed birds is to get both a rooster and a hen in a package deal. This makes sense for anybody in the country as you'll want your eggs to be incubated so you can replenish your flock with chicks rather than buying new birds. But in the city roosters are not the greatest idea. Roosters make loud cocka-doodle-doo's all day long and, while I might find it charming, I am sure would eventually irritate the neighbors resulting in a call to Toronto's bylaw enforcement offices. In fact the neighbor who borders the west side of our backyard had his chickens taken away several years ago after he had bought and begun to house a boisterous rooster.

Chicken Charlie wasn't entirely on board with selling me just a hen, and couldn't quite comprehend why my neighbors would have a problem. He even pondered what this country is coming too if the government can tell you not to have chickens. After a little haggling and five dollars added on to the price of the hen he agreed to sell me Samantha for a wopping 25$. This is a fancy chicken when you consider Baylik and Hepzebah were only 7 bucks a pop. As Chicken Charlie handed Samantha over to me he didn't treat her as the fancy expensive chicken she is as he pulled her out of her cage by a wing and shoved her into my chest. With wings flapping and a few loud squawks I placed her into a box for the ride home, which always seems to instantly calm a hen.

I have always heard that introducing a new hen to a flock can be difficult. It can result in pecking, defeathering, and even death. All sources that I have read, and even Chicken Charlie, suggest that new hens should be introduced at night while the original hens are asleep. In the early hours of their first morning together this seemed to have worked. The three of them all peacefully pecked at the grass together, and so with a big smile on my face I went back to bed. When I returned to the yard a couple of hours later Franka, who had been watching from her backyard into ours, warned me that "they are going to kill that poor chicken". I suppose Baylik and Hepzebah hadn't realized that a new hen was pecking along side them until after I had gone back to bed. Once they did realize, they did not appreciate her presence.

We decided to wait it out for a few days and see if the pecking would subside. After three days of pecking, several warnings from Franka, and a growing pile of Samantha's removed feathers I decided to build a separate coop for Sam. I decided to go with a triangular coop design. The triangular design allows for a coop with a smaller foot print because the roost area is built above the run. This was important as I didn't want to clutter the backyard with another structure. I also wanted the coop to stay small and light so that it can be moved around the yard, and maybe to the front yard so that the hens can mow the lawn.

Now that Samantha has her own coop she is getting along much better with the other two ladies. They even peck along side each other with out much incident. Samantha has also put on a little weight and become a little more bold, and with her sharp beak and flying capabilities may even become top hen someday. From this experience I also realized that I am pretty good at building coops and so, If anyone is interested in raising their own backyard hens they may want to check out this craigslist ad http://toronto.en.craigslist.ca/tor/grd/1766576663.html .

Fowl: Making a Home for the Ladies

No, this is not a letter for the penthouse forum, the ladies I speak of are from the galiforme species. As discussed in my last post on chickens we had decided to construct the coop based on plans recommended by the blog Toronto Chickens. Toronto Chickens is a fantastic blog that works to promote the legalization of backyard chickens in Toronto as well as provide people interested in raising chickens with useful information.

Two types of coops are recommended by Toronto Chickens. One is the Eglu, which is a ready made coop that comes in a wide range of colours. Though these coops may be a great design they are expensive. The prices range from 500 to 1300 dollars, and the one sized to our needs is in the 1300 dollar range. The much cheaper, and better suited option, was to purchase plans from a company called Ready Coop.

The price tag to buy the plans and all the materials for the coop was 270$. Not only was the coop affordable, but the way the plans outlined the steps of construction made its assembly very easy. I took advantage of my Dad's wood shop to do all the cuts, and then transported all the pieces to the farm for construction. The transportation of wood nearly broke my bike trailer and garnered me some strange looks. Both of which are bound to happen when you strap three 4x8 sheets of plywood to the back of a bike and fly down Christie hill. Once I arrived home, having all the pieces already cut to size made constructing the coop almost like putting together Ikea furniture. The process of building the coop also gave me a much more satisfying feeling than I think having a ready made coop, such as the Eglu, arriving in the mail could have.

The coop provides an area large enough for 6 hens to roost, and has two laying boxes for the hens to share. There is a short case of chicken stairs so that the hens can traverse down to their run. This is where the feed and water are kept and there is 16 square feet of room for them to stretch their legs and peck at the soil. A door in the coop allows the hens access to the rest of the yard so that they can hunt for little grubs and slugs and have a dirt bath. The coop seems really secure from predators, especially with the addition of a chicken wire skirt we attached to prevent raccoons from digging under the coop walls. It would take a particularly clever raccoon to break into the coop and do any damage to the chickens, and if one is capable, it probably deserves its dinner.

The completed coop looks great, and Jacob's suggestion to paint it a barn red makes it even more bad-ass. The place is starting to look more like a legit urban farm everyday.

Fowl: Weekend at Leland's

This past March twelfth I headed to my friend Leland's farm in Cambelford for the nearby Warkworth Maple Syrup Festival. At this festival we celebrated the end of the sugar harvest with a massive pancake breakfast, syrup on snow, and a log sawing competition. Although I enjoyed the trip and festivities, particularly the breakfast at which I received all the maple syrup sausages of my vegetarian companions, I had an ulterior motive.

Leland is proprietor of a coop of beautiful chickens, and I will take any opportunity i get to go and visit them. These chickens have wonderfully decorative feathers and produce the most magnificently coloured eggs. The eggs come in pale blues and browns and have richly flavourful yolks. These birds are nothing like the poop covered White Bantams that I've seen crammed into massive coops in movies like Food Inc. They don't peck each other, or pick out their own feathers from stress. They are given enough room to run in the day, and yet still huddle together at night in cute sleeping arrangements. Having the opportunity to spend time with the chickens at Leland's farm has inspired me to make a chicken coop, so I can keep egg producing hens in my downtown backyard.


For things like smokehouses, cheese-presses, and compost bins, it's fine to "wing it" without plans, and figure out later if they work. For a chicken coop, that will be housing live animals, I would rather approach the building process with a little more care. So I purchased plans for a coop design that was suggested by www.torontochickens.ca. This coop provides room for six hens to sleep in a roosting box, and a wired in grass area for them to walk. The benefits of having a design include, being provided with the know how to make the coop easier to clean, and keep out predators, like cats and raccoons. My older Italian neighbors, all of whom have had chickens in their backyard at one point, will also be great sources of advice on keeping the hens happy and safe.



I am approaching this project with a bit of apprehension because of the illegality of keeping chickens. This is not so much a fear of reprisal from law enforcement, but rather I worry about what I would do if a chicken gets sick or injured. Would I be able to take the chicken to a veterinarian? Without proper policy in place to help people with backyard food producing animals it puts urban farmers in a precarious position. This is why I have been discussing this issue with city councilors and the Toronto Food Policy Council to see what initiatives can be taken. My ultimate goal is to make our coop a part of a pilot project for keeping chickens in the city of Toronto.