Coop de Ville A beginners guide to keeping backyard chickens By Darby Doyle
T
he first time I ate a poached backyard chicken egg, I was blown away as much by the rich flavor— think the difference between February supermarket tomatoes versus the sweettart bomb of heirloom July cherry toms plucked straight off the vine—as by the vibrant orange color of the yolk. Like many beginning “chickeners,” my own voyage of discovery was motivated years ago by the two-fold desire of having the best-quality ingredients available as close to home as possible, and as an opportunity to have our city kids grow up with an intimate understanding of where their food comes from. Quite a few years and hundreds of dollars later, this story
14 Devour Utah • May 2016
brings us to the present, where our second generation of hens is about to be processed for the freezer and our third mixed flock of pullets will grace the coop in a few weeks. It’s been an exercise in trial and error mixed with success and frustration. And ultimately, having chickens has been one of the most satisfying parts of our family’s urban-garden experiment, attempting to close a tidy loop of production and consumption, following the example of countless gardeners before me. Here’s hoping that some of the lessons my friends and I have learned the hard way will save chicken-curious readers some time and expense when planning for their own backyard flock.