Last year I had five real estate transactions that involved chickens, and multiple buyers looking for space to raise their own flocks. It seems everywhere you look are chickens, chickens, chickens! I’ve had chicken envy ever since the craze hit Portland, but I knew with my busy schedule, I could not take on this project alone, so I had to convince the rest of my family that we needed chickens.

I got Calvin (2½ years old) on board by reading Keeping Chickens together, and thumbing through the beautiful photos. He quickly became obsessed with them too and started picking out which ones he wanted to have and learning their names: Americana, Australorp, Leghorn, Silver Laced Wyandotte. I fell victim to pastoral images of my children running out each morning, to the nest, in search of fresh eggs that we would eat for breakfast. There was no way my husband could talk us out of it now.

So he reluctantly set out to build a “simple” chicken coop. Those of you who know Chad know that “simple” doesn’t quite cut it, so two months later we had a craftsman chicken coop, complete with cedar shingles, insulation, composition roof, marmoleum floors, and paint to match our house.

We marched down to Livingscape Nursery (address below) the first day of Spring and picked out our three fuzzy girls. We named them after our three living grandmothers: Mildred, Jackie and Betty, and kept them in a brooder in the basement for the first 3 months of their life under a heat lamp – what a mess! But we spent many happy hours on the floor with them, petting and cooing, while trying to make sure Calvin did not squash them with his eager hands. Chad became the surrogate mother hen and brought them worms from the garden. To this day they still have squawking fits every time he comes into sight.

In June they graduated to their coop. The sun was finally shining and they were so happy to be out there with the worms and bugs. They tripled in size overnight, it seemed, turning from cute little soft balls into awkward teenagers with sparse feathers.

Now we worried about them sharing the yard with our Golden Retriever, Lewis, who is a trained game-bird hunting dog. Small oversight. But by some miracle, Lewis co-exists peacefully with them, and was even caught cuddling with Mildred on one cold morning (Seriously!). The only danger they really had to worry about was the preschooler, chasing them around the yard trying to catch them, screaming: “COME HERE GI-IIIIIRLS!!”
It’s a lot of work. Making sure they have food/water, shutting them up in the coop every night, and letting them out every morning, no matter how cold it is outside. Cleaning up their endless, abundant poop. Getting a “chicken sitter” when we go out of town. Our beautiful lawn and most of our plants have been completely destroyed. We started to wonder what we had gotten ourselves in.

Chad, however, does reap some rewards – most carpenter/contractors have a shop dog. Instead Chad and his coworker Luke, have shop chickens. On nice days when the shop door is open, those chickens are up on the work table, leaping over 2×4s, clucking and pecking away. They have become so tame, in fact, that they will come up to Chad and rub against his leg when they want to be picked up.

I think we became so pleasantly accustomed to having them around, that we forgot about their main purpose, until one fine Summer afternoon, Chad emerged from the coop victorious with one weird-looking, deformed, scrawny little egg in hand! We were so proud! The eggs started to come regularly in lovely shades of blue + speckled brown. I still smile every time I look at the full bowl of colorful fresh eggs in my fridge.

Overall: reward outweighs the effort, and I will happily continue to be a chicken owner for the remainder of these ladies’ lives. If you ask my husband, though, he might grumble a bit, but I know he would secretly agree.