Death by constipation

I'm officially in over my head.

Last year I humored a friend as she showed me websites of urban chicken coops and thought she had surely entered a realm in which I could no longer follow. I told her I had proudly begun to garden and compost and was comfortable with my ankle deep steps into living green. Were I to join her in chickens, I would be in neck deep. Chris peeked in the office, and, rolling his eyes, left without a word.

But a lot happened this year.

Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is a dangerous book. And Bill McKibben's Deep Economy is equally radical. Coupled together, with a course in Environmental Justice and a growing inner call to stewardship of God's kingdom, I was doomed.

I began to rethink chickens when I learned that the majority of chickens and turkeys we eat were test tube babies- artificially inseminated. They can't even reproduce anymore on their own. Furthermore, I had no idea there were different breeds of poultry... upwards of 60! I thought chickens were white or brown and had corresponding egg colors and that turkeys were turkeys: Butterball or generic. This didn't feel like good food security to me. What would happen if a weird virus attacked the entire breed?

And, as it turns out, urban chickens are becoming quite popular. Uncharacteristically, I was on the cutting edge of something trendy!

But as I began to joke around with my family about raising our own, while watching my crazy friend begin the process, the teasing and eye-rolling lessened. Eventually, the kids began announcing to everyone that we were getting chickens and my husband decided it would be a thrilling challenge to build the cheapest, coolest chicken coop around.

It looked like I was going in neck deep!









Chris started scavenging. He found a free doghouse on Craig's List, free wood and a window at a garage sale. A fruit stand gave him some crates and he bought discarded wood and returned paint from Loews. Aidan called him a trash collector.





We found a guy selling chicks on Craigs List for $5 and thought it would be fun to go visit a farm. This was a family learning project after all. So Aidan chose a Campine Red and named her Padme (it would have been Luke Skywalker had we bought a rooster, but Lynnwood allows 3 hens per household, no roosters, and it turns out you don't need a rooster to have eggs! Imagine!) Ella chose a Rhode Island Red and named her Diamond. And Sophie chose a Delaware and named her Flower (after being convinced it was a better choice than Sophie Grace).







Of course, in the end it wasn't a farm, but a guy with a big garage who raises chickens! And, nice as he was, he made it all out to sound so easy! We were not adequately prepared. Who would have thought it could be so hard to keep chicks alive?








Three weeks to the day of getting the first three, Padme died. Aidan found her in the water bowl and we have since learned that it's not uncommon for another chick to jump on the head of one drinking and drown it within a second. The other two looked healthy and we conjured up memories of Padme being lethargic anyways...

Three days later, while out buying a new chick for Aidan, Flower died. Chirpy, loud just-like-Sophie-Flower! And the suspected culprit? Constipation. Yes, I had been wiping Flower's butt for weeks. We had even cut off her tail feathers to prevent crusty dried poop balls. But according to the Feed Store, she had eaten too much of the baby feed and not enough scratch and had just died of constipation. This too is common.

So, now we have a Cinnamon Red named Sugar and an Americauna named Blackie who will lay blue, green, or yellow eggs. We put rocks in the water dish to prevent death by drowning and separated the feed to prevent death by constipation. Are there other death threats we are unaware of? Could this be any harder?

My crazy friend is now enjoying fresh eggs on a daily basis and dreaming of a cow. There's not much more of me I can sink into this new lifestyle though. Could we not compromise with a goat?