Add more green with backyard chickens

  Keeping chickens in an urban setting isn't a new thing. When I visited the early American settlement in Plymouth a couple of summers ago they had a garden and a chicken house in every yard...OK, that was a while ago...and they didn't have a handy grocery store just around the corner. However, it does demonstrate  that Americans started keeping chickens at home a long time ago.  Fast forward to the late 1990s. The movement to keep chickens in the city was revived in London largely because of an ingenious chicken house design called the eglu that was produced and promoted by the Omlet company. The movement rapidly spread to west coast cities in the U.S. like Seattle and Portland, where keeping chickens in the city was already legal. In the last five years, keeping backyard chickens has continued to become popular across the country...including my backyard here in Iowa. Actually, it's in my garage right now...5 adorable 2-week old chicks that hopefully will grow up to keep my immediate and extended family in eggs for quite a while. We are making our own coop (I can hear my husband drilling as we speak) and plan to have them in the yard in another 4 weeks or so...provided it warms up around here (sounds like snow tomorrow...augh!)  I think that raising pet chickens appeals to me because it makes so much sense from an environmental and health perspective. The chickens will be moved around the yard in a portable coop while fertilizing the yard and eating pesky bugs and grubs. Manure that accumulates during the winter will be composted into the garden to produce as many vegetables that I can produce...ensuring a healthy food supply that is locally grown. And eggs are a superior source of protein...and I like 'em! Now that's a whole lot more than I get from my cat...sorry, Maggie. I'll give you the blow-by-blow as we go through this adventure including the costs/savings involved...happy clucking!