The trend toward keeping backyard livestock in urban and suburban areas seems only to be growing. We've featured plenty of chicken coop designs in the past, but we loved this homemade coop in a small backyard in Los Angeles so much that we wanted to share the story.
Irwin Miller, whose kids' room we featured for its clever use of small space, inherited some chickens from his son's school. He explains how the whole addition happened:
We finally got chickens last year from my son's school, as each year they hatch chicks from eggs and then seek homes for the young chicks in the community. We started with a wood wine case and heat lamp as their first home and then migrated to a used bookcase on its side, with chicken wire along the top. Finally, I realized it was time to build a formal house or coop for them.
Irwin set about building a coop from scratch:
The coop is roughly 2' x 4' x 4', so it's based on a standard wood size and easy to buy the materials with little or no waste. The main frame was new and repurposed wood framing from around the house and my woodshop. For the façade, I got a lot of the wood from our neighbor, who has an old house in Beverly Glen as well, so it all has a nice naturally patina'd finish. The design fits in well with our existing house and guesthouse, which date from 1927 and was originally a hunting lodge before the area was developed. I added some bright accent colors on the windows and openings in a lime green and persimmon red color.In the mornings we open up the coop door and the chickens come out and essentially walk around the backyard all day. They usually sit in front of our glass-window kitchen door and watch us have coffee and wake up. At night they all end up in their individual beds and we lock them up to keep the local raccoons out.
We asked Irwin a few questions about his project and the prospect of keeping chickens in an urban backyard.
What do your kids think of the chickens? Do they help with the maintenance, or are they simply pets for the boys?
The boys love the chickens — they go out each day looking for eggs, and now that the weather is warming up in LA they are laying pretty regularly. Since we do a lot of cooking together, it's satisfying that they know the pancakes and other foods we make are from our own eggs.We go to the Red Barn feed store to get supplies in the valley, and they have been very helpful at advising us on feed and other needs. The owner is a WWII vet who is always willing to work with customers at finding homes for chickens as well.
Have you encountered any difficulties having chickens in an urban area like L.A. (complaints from neighbors, difficulty finding supplies or vet care)?
I think every 1 out of 10 people we would speak to about our chickens would ask if it was 'legal' to have them in LA. As it turns out, it is indeed legal to raise chickens on your own property. Our first chickens were from the boys' kindergarten class (they hatch chicks from eggs at LAUSD in our area). As the chicks grew into chickens, we realized one of them was a rooster. At first we kept him, but when he started crowing every hour during daylight and attacking the other hen, we gave him to the Red Barn and they placed him on a farm.
You have three chickens. How many eggs are you getting a week? Any plans to add more?
We now have 3 chickens - a Delaware, Silkie and a Cochin. What is interesting about chickens is they are actually pretty smart and have funny characters that are each unique. The Cochin is our favorite; that breed is short and fat and she appears to be wearing clown pants. The Delaware was our first chicken, Peggy, and if there is a house or guesthouse door open, she is the first to come inside and act like she belongs there. The Silky is not too smart and always does her own thing but she has a great hairstyle.The chickens lay an egg every day; basically it's a 22 hour cycle or so. The funny thing is each chicken lays their own uniquely shaped egg, so you know whose egg it is by the shape and color.
Thanks for the insight, Irwin!
Read and see more: Irwinopolis
MORE CHICKEN COOPS ON APARTMENT THERAPY:
• Now This is a Chicken Coop!
• How To Build a Backyard Chicken Coop
• The Hen's Dream: A Stylish Chicken Coop by ModoVerde
(Images: Irwin Miller)
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Thank-you for this little article! We're in the process of buying our first house w/ a YARD! Something our boys have never had- I'm totally intrigued by the idea of having a few chickens- JUST a few- I was discussing with my mom about if we needed to have a rooster. I'm happy to be right- lol- I didn't want one!
This is funny because people in East LA where I grew up had chickens and roosters, and people would get all pissy about it. Now after everyone got rid of their chickens, its the cool thing to do.
I swear these people live near me because I hear a Rooster crow every morning and I don't live far from Red Barn.
Keeping animals outdoors in the suburbs is tricky. They attract opportunistic predators like racoons and their feed attracts rats. Rats also attack animals caged outdoors, for example tearing off the feet of birds that cling to the cage wire. A small terrier can control vermin if you don't mind his killing them, assuming he wouldn't also attack the caged animals.
Thanks for sharing! We have purchased some land and are planning to build our own chicken coop once we build our green home. It will be great experience knowing that the food we are cooking is made from our own happy chicken eggs!
So cool!! It so happens that my mother wants to have a chicken coop at some point, so this was a great and fun article to read. :) Thank you for sharing!
our cat takes care of all the mice. We also make sure their sleeping quarters are well secured. My husband goes out everynight and shuts them in.
Neighbors are a tricky thing to deal with on things like this. Chicken droppings attract flies, and some people don't much care for roosters crowing. The benefits of having a chicken, though.... they're just funny, you get free eggs, and depending on if they imprinted on you at hatching, they can be quite "affectionate" (as far as a chicken goes, anyway). We had one that would jump up on our lap. She also roosted in our lemon tree at night, but attracting predators, including raccoons and possums is a constant issue. More than once we had to come outside at night to rescue her.
We've been keeping chickens in our San Francisco backyard since 1976 (not the same ones, silly).
Two serious issues with having urban chickens are predators and rats.
Our cats keep the rodents under control.
As for the raccoons, the girls are locked in the coop every night, by 10:00 or so at the latest - early nightfall in the winter is the most inconvenient, and many times we cut short visits with friends because we have to come home and put away the hens.
DH put together a magnetic coop latch that automatically springs open at 6:00 in the morning, so the girls get out at an appropriate time and we can sleep in.
For those of you considering having your own chickens, here are a few nice posts from a blog that I read on a regular basis. The entire construction of the coop is covered in the send link. This is one stylish chicken coop.
http://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/chicken-coop-inspiration/
http://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/building-the-coop/
http://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/the-coop-at-christmas/
I grew up in East L.A., and we kept a ton of chickens and rabbits. It may not have been technically legal. One of our neighbors, who was always calling the police on us (for example, for running a day care, since there were seven kids in our family) turned us in for having animals-- no roosters, though! The inspector was shown around the back yard as my mom gushed about how educational and healthy it is for children to be around animals and to learn how to take care of them. By the end of the visit, he just said, "Lady, let's pretend I was never here. And be sure you never get a rooster." Then, a few years later, we moved to the Philippines, where we had pigs, geese, turkeys, monkeys, parrots, goats... and chickens (including roosters.) The end. :)
Hmm, we have chickens in the city, and have no problems with rodents, predators, or flies. We built our coop to be predator safe (lots of info on the web about this if you look) and also rodent deterrent. We have never seen any sign of rodents in there. As for spare food, we keep it sealed tight in a metal can. Flies are not a problem in cool weather, and the part of the coop where most of the chicken poop is concentrated is always dry, so it doesn't get musty, and we sweep it out almost daily in the summer (and compost the poop and shavings) when it is hot and humid and smells/flies could be a problem. It takes all of one minute, and we are problem free.
Chickens are allowed in Tucson but not roosters. Some families get a rooster, use its services and then throw it over the fence so they don't get caught with it. One day my boss was out chasing down a beautiful rooster who was out in the road. This guy in a beat up old pickup stopped to see if he could help. It was Lee Marvin. Great guy and a real gentleman. They don't make them like him anymore. Bye the way, they caught the rooster and took it to the feed shop down the road.
love a good story about some urban chickens! I'm in a suburb of Dallas and we have four backyard hens. Never had an issue with predators, flies, rats, or neighbors. They are A LOT of fun, and as my husband says, more low maintenance than a goldfish!
Backyard chickens are wonderful! I keep three beautiful hens in Brooklyn. They were recently interviewed for TV Tokyo.
http://www.twotastes.com/2012/07/the-chickens-are-big-in-japan.html