This is something that I would do were it not for deed restrictions (link):
WASHINGTON – Shenandoah is a red-feathered hen nestled under the right arm of Anna Mae Conrad, who is 10 and lives in Takoma Park, Md. “When you hold her for a long time,” Anna Mae says, “you can feel her relax; you can feel her putting pressure on you.”
Anna Mae strokes the stole of plumage around Shenandoah’s neck, and the bird closes her eyes in a moment of chicken bliss. “This is actually my chicken.”The announcement is to distinguish Shenandoah from the four other hens clucking softly in the back yard of the home where Anna Mae lives with mom Mary Cush, dad Kevin Conrad and sister Zhania. The family got its first bird six years ago, and the hens live in a converted greenhouse in a corner of the shaded lot, which is in an established suburban neighborhood inside the Capital Beltway.
The Conrads are at the vanguard of a resurgent interest in backyard chicken keeping, especially in distinctly nonrural settings. In cities across the United States, raising backyard poultry has suddenly become as chic as growing your own vegetables. It’s all part of the back-to-the-land movement whose proponents want to save on grocery bills, take control of their food supply and reduce the carbon footprint of industrial agriculture.
The urban homesteading movement got a huge symbolic boost this spring when the first family installed a 1,100-square-foot vegetable garden at the White House.
Poultry is the natural next step in the sustainable back yard; chickens produce eggs, devour kitchen scraps and add manure to the compost pile.
“Chickens are America’s cool new pet,” said Dave Belanger, publisher of the magazine Backyard Poultry. When he launched it three years ago, “we were thinking 15 to 20 thousand” subscriptions, he said. The print run for the bimonthly is now 100,000.
Our family would like to do backyard birds at some point, but it will have to be in a different house. Though, I figure if the proverbial S hits the Fan we may reconsider it if possible.
T. Boone Chickens is an awesome name, by the way.