The craze for urban poultry farming.

We often relate to two movements which are similarly focused but opposite directions in our adventure.  One is “urban farming” and the other is “homesteading” or “back-to-the-land”.  This is a great article about real people’s experiences in urban poultry farming.  Even though I don’t think it would change our decisions, I wish I had known more about this when we were living a more sub/urban life.  One of the biggest revelations for me, out of our experiences to date, really is just how incredibly easy it is to keep chickens.

“For Brooklyn real-estate agent Maria Mackin, the obsession started five years ago, on a trip to Pennsylvania Amish country. She, her husband and three children—now 17, 13 and 11—sat down for brunch at a local bed-and-breakfast, and suddenly the chef realized she’d run out of eggs. “She said, ‘Oh goodness! I’ll have to go out to the garden and get some more’,” Mackin recalls. “She cooked them up and they were delicious.” Mackin and her husband, Declan Walsh, looked at each other, and it didn’t take long for the idea to register: Could we have chickens too? They finished their brunch and convinced the bed-and-breakfast owner, a Mennonite celery farmer, to sell them four chickens. They packed them in a little nest in the back of their Plymouth Voyager minivan and headed back to Brooklyn.”

Newsweek: The New Coop de Ville