By Norm Wagenaar

First: a confession. I grew up on a broiler farm—tens of thousands of chickens in large, enclosed barns where the birds live short lives never seeing the sun or able to poke at an insect.

Conditions were not cruel, so far as I could tell—we gave our chickens plenty of space, fresh water, and ventilation. But that early experience with industrial agriculture soured me on chickens for many years.

So I’m finding it ironic that, in writing this story, I’m having warm and fuzzy thoughts about keeping a few hens. And, thanks to the work of some local urban chicken enthusiasts, I can do just that and still live in Nanaimo.

Nanaimo residents Anthony James and Roblyn Hunter, who both keep chickens on properties in Nanaimo, were a part of the loosely-formed ‘Nanaimo Poultry Collective’ which, last fall, lobbied city council to change a bylaw that had previously restricted poultry to lots of over an acre in size.

After examining similar bylaws from other cities, the collective proposed and won changes allowing up to four hens, or ducks, but no noisy roosters, on lots of less than one acre.

"We were actually encouraged to take this to council as a sustainability issue," says Roblyn Hunter, whose experience raising chickens began at a young age on Gabriola Island.

Anthony James has a similarly long history with poultry. "I’ve had chickens for years," he says. "It’s sort of aligned with the rest of my life,"—which includes making building studios, greenhouses, ovens and, yes, chicken coops, with natural materials.

"I’m an avid gardener and their poop is great fertilizer," he says.

In keeping chickens on their properties Anthony James, Roblyn Hunter and Nanaimo’s other urban chicken enthusiasts are continuing a human activity dating back 10,000 years to Asia, the home of the chicken’s direct ascendant, the red jungle fowl.

From Asia the bird went global, to the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. The jury is still out on whether they arrived in South America with the Spanish or were brought, much earlier, by intrepid Polynesians.

A bit of research quickly brings out some fascinating information on chickens. For instance, according to animal behaviourist Johnathon Balcombe, chickens have a complex communication system of 25 to 30 calls, each with its own meaning. They also have enough long-term memory to recognize other individual chickens and, despite thousands of years of domestication, will quickly revert to wild behaviour, such as roosting in trees, if given the chance.

They’re also surprisingly long-lived, five to 11 years depending on the breed, although commercially-raised chicken have much shorter lives. Broiler meat chickens typically live less than two months before they’re slaughtered while egg-layers can look forward to a 12-month lifespan, at which point their production starts to drop and they’re butchered.

A final, startling, factoid about the modern chicken is that, globally, humans raise about 50 billion annually for meat and eggs, mostly in factory farm situations.

Roblyn Hunter’s backyard, where she keeps buff orpingtons and ‘Australorps’—black orpingtons from Australia, is about as far from a factory farm as it’s possible to imagine. On a warm summer afternoon the chickens roam freely, pecking in the dirt, on food scraps, and in the garden. "They love comfrey," says Roblyn.

She explains that orpingtons are a heritage breed, long valued for their temperament, hardiness, ‘ranging’, which means they’ll wander around eating what they find, and because they’re ‘dual purpose’, which means they’re good for both egg and meat production. Another orpington trait, with mixed desirability, is a tendency to ‘broodiness’—they like to sit on eggs to hatch them.

The issue is that a broody hen is a hen which is not laying eggs. "They just sit," says Roblyn, whose solution is to put the birds in a special ‘broody pen’ where, it seems, a little alone time does the trick. "Everyone has their own theory about how to get hens off broody."

Assuming such vagaries of chicken behaviour are managed, the four birds allowed under Nanaimo’s bylaw will typically provide three to four eggs daily, although Roblyn comments "It (egg production) really varies, depending on the time of year."

Chickens are omnivorous, which means they’ll eat just about anything. Along with what they find in the yard Roblyn’s birds consume commercial chicken feed, garden-grown kale, and periodically have their diet supplemented with seaweed and the sandhoppers found in it. Roblyn says the sandhoppers—tiny relatives of shrimp and barnacles—give the yolks a deep colour. "I’m always on the lookout for protein."

Food and, of course, fresh water, are vital factors for chicken health and egg production. But so is providing them with property shelter. "Designing your coop is really important to the health of your hens," comments Roblyn Hunter.

A good coop, she says, must be easy to clean, warm in the winter and provide good ventilation in summer, be off the ground so there’s no moisture, and keep out the critters, such as raccoons and, in more rural settings, mink. "Mink are deadly," says Roblyn. "They don’t leave anybody alive."

However, once such basic criteria as cleanliness, warmth, ventilation, critterproofness and space—give each chicken about four square feet—are met, coop design can be as varied as the imagination and resources of the people who build them. For instance Roblyn constructed her coop as an addition to a backyard shed while Anthony James built his as a separate, stand-alone unit.

A quick search on the internet finds a multitude of sites devoted to coop design and many other facets of small-scale chicken growing. "One only has to Google and there’s a slew of information," says Anthony James. He also recommends that would-be urban chicken keepers borrow or buy the book Chicken Tractor: The Permaculture Guide to Happy Hens and Healthy Soil, available on Amazon. "It’s full of information. It’s a great book."

The rewritten Nanaimo bylaw prohibits chicken keepers from butchering their birds but, if Anthony James and Roblyn Hunter are typical, it’s unlikely many urban chickens have much to worry about in any case.

As well as being a good source of eggs and garden fertilizer, it turns out the birds make great pets, with interesting personalities and a fascinating social order. "All the kids from the neighbourhood come over and see them," comments Anthony James. "It’s so easy to own chickens. It really takes 10 to 15 seconds a day. It’s so easy and it’s such a joy."

Roblyn Hunter agrees. "They make excellent pets for kids. They love coming in the house. They have a lot of character. They have a lot of intelligence. If there’s a hawk flying over they’ll let out a squawk and they’ll all run."

So, chickens—easy to keep, friendly, smart, and food producing, which gives them one advantage over a dog or cat. Sounds like Nanaimo’s urban chicken keepers are on to a great pet, or domestic animal, or both. Sounds like it’s time for me to take another look at chickens. 