The urban farmer’s almanac
Diane Peters, National Post
October 24th, 2008
The backyard of this downtown Toronto row house looks like many, with a small patio and a rectangular lawn adorned by perennials along the border. But at the far end of the yard is the not-so-regular sight of a fenced-in wooden chicken coop.
Red, Ramona and Daisy, three 18-month-old hens, spend their nights in the enclosure and their days nibbling and digging in the yard. They eat a mixture of chicken feed, grass and kitchen scraps (the house’s green bin goes out nearly empty) and provide their owners Chris and Cara (who asked that their last names not be used) with three humongous brown eggs almost every day. His hens utter the occasional cluck, but their poop fertilizes the lawn and the neighbours, far from offended, show up at Chris and Cara’s front door with empty cartons.
“There’s really nothing to it,” Chris says as he eats his fried egg sandwich for breakfast. “You wouldn’t believe how good the eggs are.”
So why isn’t everyone living this locavore dream of having organic, free-range eggs for nearly nothing, right from their own backyard? Well, for one thing, it’s illegal.
7 Responses to Raising chickens in Toronto
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The other day I {tried|{ate|consumed|eaten|ate up|ate on}|{tasted|tried|sampled|savored|savoured}} omega 3 {rich|full|valuable}, free range eggs and they were {really|truly|real|genuinely|very|rattling} {good|pleasant|great|superb|healthy|wholesome|hearty}. Made me {want|wish|desire} to {raise|produce|grow|farm|nurture} chickens of my own to get {more||to a greater extent|more such|more some|more numerous} eggs into my {diet|dieting}. I used to {have|{own|possess}} a {duck|duck’s egg} coop a while ago, now {I’d|I would|I think I } {like|wish|care} to get {started|started out|initiated} {again|over again|once more|once again}.
This is a wounderfull post. Keep it up…
If you enjoyed learning about Backyard Chickens and reading about the woman known as “Toronto Chickens”, then perhaps you may be interested in watching a video interview with her. We have just posted the interview that we conducted with her on our blog site. Check it out at:
http://greenapple.ca/blog/2009/11/24/toronto-chickens-exclusive/
Cheers =)
Thanks for the good post, ill be tellimg my mates about your blogg.
http://roostershamblin.wordpress.com/ please read my chicken blog. 40 years experience raising chickens.
Cool ideas on this site, thanks. I honestly took the plunge and got me some chickens last week! Now I have more eggs than I know what to do with!. You might like these egg recipes.
I wish more people would write sites like this that are actually fun to read. With all the fluff floating around on the internet, it is a great change of pace to read a site like yours instead.