Cartoon by T. McCracken.

Raising fowl in our yard was supposed to be a fun urban farming experiment. Then it took a turn for the absurd

By Marci Riseman
Salon
Oct 6, 2010

Excerpt:

Tallulah was listless. At least I think it was Tallulah. We had four identical Plymouth Rock chickens, and we’d only gotten around to naming two of them — which two, we weren’t quite sure.

After googling “San Francisco” and “bird hospital,” I secured a diagnostic appointment for the chicken, who lay uncharacteristically still near the water dish in the coop in our backyard.

The chickens came from my son’s first-grade classroom. At the end of the school year, they were going to be sent to the farm if no one claimed them, so we took them home.

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