Urban 'farming'

[Tyler]

Putting canned goods back and storing freeze dried food and rice and beans is all good and well, but does anyone take it past that?

I'm currently on a crusade to convince my wife that we need 3 or 4 laying hens in the backyard. This struggle continues...

From my chicken research, there's no way to offset the cost of keeping such a small flock vs buying commercial eggs, but I've discovered some things I hadn't considered before. To offset feed costs, some people grow sprouts which can be used for human consumption as well. Apparrently chickens will also eat grass clippings as part of their diet and their toxic poo is great for composting in order to enhance your garden.

My hope is to raise and keep 4 Buff Orpington hens and use their eggs to feed my household, give to family and friends and become a little more self-sufficient. I also plan to grow spouts to feed the chickens and myself if I get to feeling a little bit hippy. If the chickens go well I may get into raising meat rabbits as well.

Is anyone else doing this or am I just going to be playing country on my own?

[JoeColeman]

We have 11 hens and a rooster in our back yard, and they are pretty easy to care for. We use lime and wood shaving in the coop to keep the smell down. Rachel often sells eggs to cover the costs, but layer feed and cracked corn isn't too expensive. Since ours have free roam of our backyard, they don't need as much feed. We spread the old shavings from the coop over our garden and it does make for a good fertilizer. Processing them is also easy. It's like they were meant to be eaten.

I'm sure Rachel will chime in here at some point.

[ChickenLady]

Chickens are so much fun! Roosters are really annoying and i would advise not having one in the city. But joe summed it up pretty well. If you have questions just ask!

[guncrank1]

I am staring to start some urban farming at my house.
Mrs Cranky is trying to help me with a compost pile to start.
I don't know about chickens but who knows........

[son of liberty]

I'm building a coop now, I figure we will keep 6 good laying hens and a few slaughter birds as well maybe 10, and 2 big old turkeys. I will have an enclosed area for them but ill free range mostly if the darn other critters don't kill them

Might do lamb and goats as well, not sure , depends on how well I can keep the coyotes and fox away.