For years, I have wanted chickens for my urban garden. I want them for several reasons: They will eat my snails, they will be nice companions for me while I tend the garden, their poop can be added to my compost bin and it would be good for the kids to help care for them. But mostly…I WANT THE EGGS! I used to buy fresh eggs from a local farmer’s market and they were wonderful. But that farmer is no longer at the market and I have no other convenient source of fresh eggs.
So…I started pining for chickens.
I have read about 5 books on raising chickens and I have even started to design the coop I am going to build. It will be cute…that is all I am saying right now. BUT…I realize that it may be another year before I get the coop built. I don’t want to wait that long for my chickens!
A few days ago, I learned that Robin at the Bumblebee Blog had an unexpected delivery of chickens this week. (BTW, she has a great garden blog! You should check it out.) She used the coolest portable chicken coop to store the chickens until she has time to build her own cute-as-pie chicken coop. She said the coop is called an EGLU. I had never seen one before so I checked it out.
Here is the website for the EGLU company. I WANT ONE! It would give me a way to have chickens now while I plan their new home.
And here is a YouTube video by a darling little British girl showing how the Eglu works. I just love the way she says that you just need to "twizzle it" to open the door! Check it out!
About the Author
Theresa Loe blogs here about taking the garden full circle while striving for a more local, fresh-from-the-garden lifestyle. She is a TV producer, video host, freelance garden writer and a wrangler of chickens and children. (Not necessarily in that order.) For more information on these topics, you can subscribe to her free monthly newsletter.
Theresa Loe is the award- winning Co-Executive Producer & Canning Expert on Growing A Greener World TV. She blogs here about Living Homegrown®, local and fresh-from-the-garden. 
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Theresa,
I found you today through Twitter and like your blog.
Through serendipity, I am writing an article for a magazine about selecting living Christmas trees for your area. Zone 23-24.
Any suggestions about which trees to pick?
Please email me at thekilns at excite dot com or leave message on my blog, and of course feel free to ignore. I am a fellow writer and hope you will say hi.
http://terragarden.blogspot.com
Hi Terra — Welcome!
Gosh, I wish I knew which trees to recommend, but I don’t. I am sure you have pine trees on your list. They do great here, but I honestly don’t know which cultivars would be good choices for Xmas trees. Junipers do well here too. I’m stumped. I’m more of an herb/veggie/flower person. Not so much a tree expert. Hmm….I will think…
Chickens: one of our favorite topics! Right now, we have 30+, but some will be culled in the next month or so. We get plenty of eggs with about 8 laying hens.
Dh built a “chicken tractor” from some rudimentary plans from Mother Earth News. It works beautifully. I really like the EGLUs, but we’d go broke trying to house a ton of chickens with those. The best thing we bought for the chickens is an electric fence (a portable one so they can be moved all over our property). They still have to watch out for hawks, but at least the fence keeps the neighbors’ dogs and raccoons at bay.
The kids and I are researching the coop they want to make and came across your site. They were showing me this post and it looked familar! “ohhhh that is my friend from @GGWTV …charlottes mama!”. Great link and this project is turning out to be another great way to get the kids in the garden!