Skip to main content

Backyard Chickens!


One of the things I love most about Madison, WI is the local enthusiasm for raising hens, even in residential neighborhoods.  Our neighbors have several chickens, which they kindly take Caya to feed about three days a week in the warm months.  Kilia even got involved in the action yesterday.  She wasn't scared, but seemed not too sure about the whole situation.  My dream, in our "real life" (post-residency) is to have a small chicken coop (trailer perhaps?) so that the girls can help with raising hens and collecting eggs.  I think it would be a great way to teach about local food production, composting (chickens are great at that!), the economics of food production, and ecology.  I still have to get Ian on board (he's not so keen on the whole chicken idea), but I'm sure these two adorable girls will be able to convince Daddy to get them a few chickens someday.

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 23, 2012 at 1:26 PM

    We had chickens when I was a kid. He'll cave in for them to have chicks.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Raised Bed and Rain Gardens

Caya working on the raised garden We've had a busy past couple of weeks.  The nice weather has meant a lot of walks to the park, riding bikes on the sidewalk, and of course, working on the gardens. Completed raised vegetable bed.  We are going to wait a couple of weeks before planting to be safe from a frost. Our little Easter bunny! Caya was given a tomato growing kit for her birthday - bad move on my part trying to plant the seeds inside!  But we did notice them sprouting today (about a week after planting).  I told Caya that the tomato plants had sprouted, she ran into the kitchen all excited, looked in the pot, and said, "But where are the tomatoes?"  Well, I guess gardening is a good lesson on delayed gratification.  We did talk about how the seeds she planted had now sprouted.  My goal is to try and take pictures as they grow so she can go back and view the different stages of growth (that is, if they don't die while we are gone on vacation this n
Post a Comment
Read more

Serviceberries - Edible Landscapes

Serviceberry Blossom April 16 Last fall we had the front of our house landscaped with plants all native to our region.  There are several reasons I chose to stick with native plants - basically they enhance the environment by providing food/shelter to animals, particularly pollinators, using less water, not requiring fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides.  Indiana Wildlife Federation and Indiana Native Plants and Wildflower Society are great sources for using native plants in landscaping for people in Indiana. Our yard is dominated by many large, old oak trees, so the landscaper we worked with wanted to keep with that theme and create type of woodland edge-habitat with the design.  You will learn in any Ecology 101 course that edge-habitats are where the action takes place.  Because they occur at the boundary between two habitats and provide a variety of heights in vegetation they support a high level of biodiversity.  This is something that is easy to replicate in a yard w
Post a Comment
Read more