Who Are the Chickens In Your Neighborhood?
If you’re like me (and who isn’t), you’re obsessed with chickens. Seeing chickens in the country is all well and good, but seeing them in an urban environment is so totally satisfying, and surprising it makes a girl like me (and you) giddy for days.
I found this little lovely at Pistils Nursery on N Mississippi. She has a little tan friend who was feeling shy. I had to act all cool and not like I was jumping out of my skin, shrieking with joy about seeing chickens and so I inquired ever so calmly about the girls. Turns out Pistils sells chicks come spring and they have books on raising chickens and chicken feed for sale too.
According to Portland’s City Code Title 13, “residents can possess up to three chickens in the Portland city limits.” But roosters are not allowed. Oh and for those of you who are asking yourselves how do the hens lay eggs if there are no roosters, I asked that too. I said I was obsessed, not knowledgeable. The woman at Pistils was so nice and only smirked a little. Hens, like human females, produce eggs with or without a male. That’ll be all for the 4-H lesson today. You’ll be tested later.
two important facts about chickens…they only pop out eggs for the first 3 years and the can live for EIGHT (12345678) YEARS!
oh, btw…I love chicken(s)
We have been wanting chickens for a long time. We screwed up though a few years ago and adopted a crazy dog who hates everything except her own brother and sister and us. Yes, she even barks at plants. So, the chickens will come when she decides to leave us….
cute photo
OMG I love chickens! I live in an apartment so I can’t have any, but I have homeowning friends that do. It’s so much fun to hang out in their backyard in the summer talking, sipping wine, and watching the chickens strut around. :)
My best friend’s dogs ate her neighbor’s three chickens one by one. Their four year old said, “It’s really sad when your dog eats your friends.”
City code is ambiguous. No one ever answered my question as to weather you can have three chickens AND three ducks, or three chickens OR three ducks. If anyone out there can clarify, I owe you an omelette. Your choice on duck or chicken.
I would so love to have some chickens!! Not only are they beautiful and amusing and bearers of fresh organic eggs (for 3 years apparently), but I hear they are quite hearty/well equipped for the Portland Winters, needing the equivalent of a 50 watt bulb in their coops during the coldest months (I got this info from our friends who currently have 2 chickens who have lived through 2 winters here in town). AND CHICKENS ARE SO DANG CUTE!
A friend told me you could also have a goat in the city limits… though I’ve never looked into this possibility any further…
Dieselboi, our (late, beloved) Wacky Dog was wary of many, but loved the chickens who live down the street from us. Being a black lab, I think he got confused about the whole “bird dog” label.
Martin, I don’t think the city code is ambigous at all. Check out this link - http://www.portlandonline.com/northportland/index.cfm?a=ficbf&c=dfbeg
“If an individual wants to have more than 3 chickens, pygmy goats, ducks, doves, pigeons, or rabbits (3 is the maximum number of any of these animals in combination or only of one species) they must get a livestock permit from the Multnomah County Environmental Health office.”