Living in the City...But Country at Heart

The girls hanging out in the shower

We’ve been studying small-scale farming for going on a year now. Our dream is to have at least five acres, a couple of goats, a half dozen chickens, a horse or two, a few apple trees, maybe some pear trees, and a vegetable garden.

If we could afford it, we’d do it tomorrow. But that just isn’t the case. So we’ve thought and thought. What can we do right now here in the city? The answer:

Chickens.

We’ve been researching coops, chicken breeds, necessary supplies, etc. But the one detail we hadn’t settled on was the when. That was until we got a call last Monday. A friend wanted to give us her two Ameraucana chickens, but the catch was…we had to pick them up that week.

So we went into game mode. Jonathan printed a coop blueprint off the Internet and went to the Home Depot for the supplies. We took a trip to Tractor Supply (my new favorite store) and bought layer feed, watering jug, feeder, poultry grit, bedding, alfalfa straw for the nest boxes, and a heat lamp.

Next came the building of the coop. That was a process, and the process took a lot longer than anticipated. We began building on Wednesday, and it still wasn’t completed by Saturday, even though that was the day we picked up our chickens.

So I improvised.

That night our hens, Lily and Tiffany, slept in the makeshift coop I prepared in my downstairs stand-up shower. What a sight that was. But oddly enough, the girls liked the shower coop because they both surprised me the next day with eggs! That’s my girls! Well-behaved, sweet, and flexible.  

Sunday we completed the coop and moved the girls into their very own Chicken Chalet. And Monday morning, they said “thank you” with two more eggs.

I think I’m in love.