Category — Livestock

Urban Farmers: Left, Sue Reddington with Victoria Burgess-Hall, a 17-year-old on work experience. Photo by Mark Bickerdike.

“Some people were afraid we were introducing a lot of hippies into Meanwood.”

Yorkshire Post
Apr. 18, 2011

Excerpt:

Thirty years ago this July, the Lord Mayor of Leeds officially opened the Meanwood Valley Urban Farm – one of the first of its kind. It seemed like a good time to ask how the books are balanced.

The front-of-house hens, which wander freely, are backed up by a couple of hundred standard hybrids laying eggs in a deep-litter barn with access to the outdoors – but not quite enough space to be called free-range. The market garden is run on organic lines but without a Soil Association certificate, which is too expensive for the turnover, and it supplies fruit and veg to a smart Leeds restaurant, The Cross Keys on Water Lane, as well as the farm’s own shop. Bees chip in honey. Two little Dexter cows used to get bulled by arrangement and produce a calf each for the market for hobby cattle, but are now semi-retired.

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Easy Acres Chicken Sitting

By Lisa Boone
LA Times
March 23, 2011

Excerpt:

First there was the dog walker.

Then came doggie day care and pet cams.

And now? The chicken sitter.

After spotting a sign that someone posted looking for a chicken sitter, Anna Goeser established Easy Acres Chicken Sitting. Now, when urban farmers and chicken lovers go out of town, they can have more confidence in the idea that their flock is taken care of.

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The Urban Farm Store’s Guide to Chicken Keeping

Written by Robert Litt and Hannah Litt
Publishing date March 22, 2011

Got a little space and a hankering for fresh eggs?

Robert and Hannah Litt have dispensed advice to hundreds of urban and suburban chicken-keepers from behind their perch at Portland’s Urban Farm Store, and now they’re ready to help you go local and sustainable with your own backyard birds. In this handy guide to breeds, feed, coops, and care, the Litts take you under their experienced wings and share the secrets to:

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For Gloria Putnam and Steve Rudicel, goats, eggs and produce make a winning enterprise. Photo by Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times.

Neighbors swap produce, honey, eggs and much more in Altadena, where the urban homesteading movement has produced much more than sustenance.

By Veronique de Turenne,
Los Angeles Times
March 10, 2011

Excerpt:

Sometimes, the peach on a backyard tree is just a peach, a sweet, home-grown bonus. In certain circles of Altadena, though, that peach is a gateway fruit.

One tree becomes three, which becomes an orchard. The quest for organic fertilizer leads to a flock of chickens, which beget a garden. Before you know it, there’s a herd of goats out front, heritage turkeys in back, a beehive, a rabbit hutch and a guard llama.

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Hedahl raises two types of domesticated ducks, khaki Campbells and Indian runners, in her backyard in Seattle’s Wedgwood neighborhood. The colorful duck eggs sell for $6 a dozen out of her home.Photo by Erika Schultz/Seattle Times

Around Puget Sound, urban farming has extended to various small-plot livestock, with lots of city chickens, and now ducks for eggs and goats for milk.

By Tan Vinh
Seattle Times
Mar 9, 2011

Excerpt:

In the name of urban farming, there were a lot of ways BJ Hedahl could have transformed her spacious, fenced backyard in Seattle’s Wedgwood neighborhood: putting in an organic garden, a beehive or a chicken coop maybe.

But no. Hedahl wanted ducks. Or rather duck eggs: richer, denser, with yolks bigger than your chicken variety, she said.

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By Alice J. Hovorka
Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography,
1360-0524, Volume 13, Issue 3, 2006
Pages 207 – 225

Abstract

The research draws on a feminist political ecology perspective to demonstrate that agrarian restructuring and rural-urban transformation in Botswana offers women opportunities to renegotiate their marginalised positionality within the commercial urban agricultural sector in Greater Gaborone. Men and women participate in equal numbers, and both perceive of this sector as offering them new and accessible avenues for economic and social advancement. Although there is continuity of women’s social and economic disadvantage relative to men from rural to urban contexts, women are actively making claims on land and capitalising on their traditional roles and responsibilities associated with poultry production.

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At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Natalie Coughlin became the first American female athlete in modern Olympic history to win six medals in one Olympics.

February 23, 2011
Natalie Coughlin’s Blog
Natalie Anne Coughlin is an American swimmer known for winning 11 Olympic medals.

Excerpt:

I’ve always loved eggs. Nearly every meet growing up started with my mom making me my favorite pre-meet meal: fried eggs and rice with soy sauce. Despite what we were told during the late eighties and early nineties, eggs are very healthy. Not only are they a cheap and affordable source of protein, but they are also a great source of lutein, choline, omega-3 fatty acids in addition to a variety of other vitamins and minerals. The cholesterol in eggs is only a problem for those who already have heart troubles or high cholesterol.

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Nathaniel Bryant washes one of his five horses in Richland Farms, a unique rural community tucked into the urban core of Compton. Other residents raise goats and poultry. Photo by Mark Boster.

Residents of a small rural enclave in the middle of the city raise goats, chickens and horses, hearkening back to the city’s agricultural foundations. But they fear their way of life is under attack.

By Ann M. Simmons
Los Angeles Times
February 20, 2011

Excerpt:

Over the years, the city has imposed limits on certain animals, granted variances allowing for multiple structures on a single lot and introduced new parking restrictions.

“They are sabotaging the community so that developers can eventually come in and take over,” said Wilkins, a retired teacher with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

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Isolde.

Since this is our first season, our rewards so far have been purely visual

By Lydia Strand
Urban Farm Hub Team
February 8th, 2011

Excerpt:

When I tell people that my husband and I keep sheep in the city, some giggle, some are shocked, and almost all want to know how? why? what? So here’s a little background.

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“Lately, we’ve been sending quite a few Henry Milkers to urban farmers.” Mike Henry

Associated Press
Palmer, Alaska
June 23, 2010

(AP) When Mike Henry began raising goats on his 5-acre farm north of Anchorage, he found the milking tough going. His hands ached, and the milk wouldn’t flow. He tied a piece of leather loosely around his doe’s back legs to keep her from kicking, but she didn’t like that at all.

“She would kick loose and kick the milk bucket over and when she wasn’t kicking, she was stepping in it. I honestly tried for two weeks because I thought I was out of practice,” said Henry, 58, who had milked goats as a child. “I thought she would get used to my hands, and she just didn’t.”

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Using modern technology to modernize an ancient practice

By Diana Vergis Vinh
Urban Farm Hub
January 5th, 2011

Excerpt from letter from Lydia Strand:

We have in total 19 sheep at various locations in King County- Tukwila, Redmond, Renton – on land that has been generously offered up by private land owners. We take turns checking in on the sheep, using Google Calendar to choose our check on dates, we meet face to face monthly to talk about the status of the project and what is upcoming for our collective flock. We use email to give daily reports on the sheep and keep on task of our shepherding duties.

See Urban Farm Hub story here.

1877. Upper right, “Tunnel From Dock”. Part of image: The Manhattan abattoir. By Kingsbury, V. L., artist. Harper’s weekly : a journal of civilization. Link.

The development of urban foodways in New York City

Archaeological Documentary Study No. 7 Line Extension/ Hudson Yards Rezoning, New York, New York
April 13, 2004

Excerpt:

Historically, meat marketing and processing facilities in Manhattan were established along the shoreline to facilitate the movement of livestock and feed since the waterfront, with accessible transportation routes, was ideal for receiving goods from Long Island, upstate New York, New Jersey, and eventually the Midwest. Manhattan’s supply of beef in the 19th and 20th centuries came from local slaughterhouses, with livestock arriving by rail at terminals on the west shore of the Hudson River. Large stock pens were maintained primarily in New Jersey, where the cattle were kept until needed by the slaughterhouses in Manhattan.

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Historical: Long Beach Ostrich Farm, ca. 1900 By Benham Co.

It shouldn’t be up to your neighbors to decide.
Your happiness is just as important.

By Donna Marykwas, Ph.D.

The neighbors who complained about us are “within spitting distance” of our goat and hen yard, so says Animal Control. Well I can’t spit that far, and even if I could there is a tall wooden fence separating our yards, ensuring that my spit, our animals and any dirt that they generate stay on our side of the fence, not the neighbors’. These same neighbors have a VERY mean dog that they sometimes let out front unleashed. I love dogs, but their dog scares me. In addition, they have a semi-industrial machine shop in their renovated garage in their backyard. I can’t hear myself think over the sound of the power tools, yet they claim that my chickens and goats make too much noise. Listen for yourself . All recordings were taken from the same window that opens onto my animal yard.

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James Boatman, left, with his son Aaron, 12, who’s holding the family’s rooster. The Boatman family practices urban farming raising chickens and produce at their home within the city limits of Independence. Photo by Adam Vogler.

Boatman, who lives in western Independence, owns several dozen chickens – within city limits.

By Adrianne DeWeese
The Examiner
Dec 3, 2010

Excerpt:

Which came first: the chicken or the egg? For Independence resident James Boatman, it doesn’t matter because he has plenty of both.

Omelets, soufflés, quiche, scrambled – you name it, and it’s likely Boatman’s family has enjoyed the dish, featuring the fresh eggs they have each morning. Boatman, who lives on a 1-1/2 acre property on South Claremont Avenue in western Independence, owns several dozen chickens – within city limits. He is part of a nationwide trend of urban farming, a practice in which residents foster the growth of and distribute food in a city.

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For this Seattle coop, a hinged panel opens from the outside for easy egg collection.Photo by Credit Matt Deschler. See more photos here.

All Cooped Up – The latest accessory for a custom home? A shelter for the feathered ones

By Cheryl Weber
Custom Home Magazine
September 1, 2010

Excerpt:

When architect Michael Viveiros built a house for his family 10 years ago, he added a second house, next to the garden, for his Rhode Island Reds. The chickens probably were the first ever to live in a house recognized by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), as it won a People’s Choice Award from AIA Rhode Island. The property has since sold, and Viveiros is designing another coop to complement his new house. This one will be two stories tall and built into a hillside, with a garden shed upstairs.

“I like playing with forms typical of farm buildings, and things that are simple and handmade,” says Viveiros, a principal at Durkee, Brown, Viveiros & Werenfels Architects in Providence, R.I. “We deal so much with technology that when it comes to relaxing, I like things at the opposite end of that spectrum.”

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Hens could provide family with weekly supply of eggs

Ted Perry
FOX6 Reporter
November 23, 2010

WITI-TV, MILWAUKEE —
Those who grow their own tomatoes will tell theirs are better than store bought. People who raise their own chickens say they same thing about their eggs. The difference is you can legally grow tomatoes in Milwaukee, but the same can’t be said for hens.

As the mother of two children, Jessica Lane has pretty good wrangling skills. Just not always good enough to round up her other little ones. Lane is the proud owner of three chickens.

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Urban chickens have caught on in other Ohio cities such as Columbus, Cleveland and Toledo

By Mike Bowersock
NBC
November 16, 2010

Excerpt:

Bexley, which is home to Capital University, upscale retail and high culture, soon may be home to chickens — legally.

One area of the East Side suburb is ranked among the country’s top 100 richest neighborhoods — with a median family income of $322,000 dollars.

That same city likely will approve urban chicken farming.

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The gift of urban agriculture is the work

By Many Howard
The Atlantic
Nov 11, 2010
Manny Howard is the author of My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into a Farm.

Excerpt:

Located behind our home in Flatbush, Brooklyn, The Farm was equal parts fever dream and forced march. During the course of my unintentionally ambitious experiment I turned a neglected 800-square-foot patch of barren clay into a verdant wonderland of vegetables, fruit, and livestock. Live on what you produced, and that alone (with the exception of salt, pepper, and coffee beans) for as long as possible, that’s all I hoped to achieve.

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Kippen House chicken coops

By Emily Knudsen
Urban Farm Hub
September 1st, 2010

Excerpt:

Traci, founder and owner of Kippen House, started designing a chicken coop for her own family to use while she was living in Portland; but a few life events landed her in Seattle and building chicken coops for a living. Here’s the lowdown from Traci:

I was laid off from my architecture job in Portland. Shortly thereafter my husband’s job was relocated to Seattle. We packed up, shipped out, and I began my job search in one of the worst economic climates, particularly for architects. The unfulfilled desire to design and build was really starting to frustrate me.

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5 Dirty Backyard Chicken Secrets

By Julie Anderson
The Stir
November 3, 2010

Excerpt:

Keeping chickens in your backyard for fresh eggs and perfectly roasted Sunday dinners seems like such a sweet “Little House on the Prairie” idea, but are you cut out for the hardcore realities of urban farming?

My kids have been begging for backyard chickens ever since we saw some at the county fair this summer, so I went to have tea with a friend who has her own little flock, and some of the things she said made me afraid.

Here are five things that may happen in your very own yard if you turn it into an urban chicken farm:

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