Baton Rouge tries the coop

Editor’s Note: By day, the author works at the Legislature. On the weekends you’ll find him tending his backyard chicken coop.

On most mornings these days I’m up about dawn and out the back door to tend to our chickens.

There’s not enough light to appreciate the gray and white stripes of the Barred Rocks, the brown and white of the Speckled Sussex or the subtle iridescence in the Black Stars. The sleek bantam crosses do stand out from their bulkier flock mates. The eggs will be laid later: a few blue-green, the others shades of brown from deep chocolate to tan and pink-tinged.

I check their food and water and release them from the coop and into the run before their squabbling gets loud enough to disturb the neighbors.

That’s right, neighbors. We aren’t on a farm or out in the country. We live in the midst of the city, around the corner from the main library on Goodwood Boulevard and close enough to Independence Park to hear crowds cheering at soccer games.

Urban poultry, backyard chickens, whatever you want to call them, our family is far from unique in Baton Rouge, or other cities across the country. Keeping chickens—mostly for eggs—has a long tradition in this country, but mostly out in the country.

In Baton Rouge, we’re lucky enough to have some of the best laws on city poultry. Hens are fine, but roosters, geese, ducks, peafowl and turkeys are banned; it seems to be a noise issue. Only three birds are allowed on a lot smaller than an acre. No limit on larger lots.

The stuff you’ll need—and need to know—to raise chickens in your back yard.

The law: Within the Baton Rouge city limits, you may keep up to three hens if you live on less than an acre. If you have an acre or more there’s no limit to how many hens you can have, but you may not in any circumstances keep roosters, turkeys, ducks, geese, peafowl or guinea hens. There are no restrictions in the parish.

Gear: You’ll need a coop to give them shelter, a run where they can stretch their legs, chicken feed and water. Coops should be 4-square-feet per chicken, and the run should be 10-square-feet per chicken.

Chickens: Day-old chicks, available from some of the supply stores listed below, cost about $2 each, older chicks cost more.

Expenses: For several hundred dollars you can buy pre-made plastic chicken coops, or you can build your own with lumber for a bit less. Chicken feed costs about 70 cents per week, per chicken.

Counting the eggs: You can expect about 6 eggs a week per hen, a bit less in winter.

What else are they good for? You can train chickens to be hand fed, and they are just entertaining on their own.

Hugh Riddick, the manager of Marston Feed and Seed in Prairieville, noticed the business in chicken feed and equipment fly off the charts in 2009. “During the credit crunch … about the time the economy started tanking real bad,” Riddick says.

The business in feeders has dropped off, but feed sales remain high. “We’re selling way more layer pellets than we did last year,” Riddick says. In his 20 years at Marston, he’s never seen anything like this before.

Chickens are small and relatively easy to keep, Riddick says. “It’s not like there are that many people trying to raise cows.”

The trend is not surprising, says Gary Chapman, owner of Plant World, a mash-up of a hardware, feed, gun and plant store on Greenwell Springs Road.

“People are just working to save money by producing and growing their own food,” he says.

From January through June, Chapman sells chicks and ducklings (to customers who live outside the city limits), and he’s seen his business grow during the last couple of years along with the popularity of backyard chickens.

Plenty of folks are taking advantage of Baton Rouge’s chicken laws and joining the national trend like Kenny Neck in Kenilworth, the Mercer family off Jefferson Highway near Bluebonnet and Jenni Zell and her family in the Garden District.

Kenny Neck grew up in Central next door to his great-grandmother who kept several dozen hens and a few roosters. “I’ve pretty much had chickens ever since,” he says.

Moving to a house in the city did not stop his love of poultry. He built a coop and a run off his barn-like shed and bought three Rhode Island Reds, a popular heritage breed known to a good layers. “I wish I could have more.”

His neighbors on both sides love his chickens, not to mention the fresh eggs he shares.

Tim and Paula Mercer live on three acres of land in what was once the edge of the city and is now one of the busiest parts of town: right outside the city limits at Jefferson Highway and the new Bluebonnet Boulevard.

They have dozens of chickens. Roosters, even. The hens are for eggs. Most of the roosters (technically, male chickens less than a year old are cockerels) will end up in the Mercer’s freezer.

They also have eight goats (for milk) and beehives a friend keeps near their citrus trees.

They started with the chickens in 2001. “We feel like we were ahead of the trend,” Tim Mercer says.

He is a teacher in Livingston Parish and—thanks to a grant from the lieutenant governor’s office—uses a curriculum he developed to teach special education fourth- and fifth-graders. They also bake bread and make cheese, Mercer says.

The Mercers’ canning and freezing, bread baking and goat-milking, egg-gathering and chicken-plucking is aimed at providing for themselves as much as possible. Throughout the years, they’ve shared their knowledge—and the eggs—with a neighbor or two.

One neighbor even brings her kitchen scraps to feed the Mercers’ chickens.

Kitchen scrap disposal is one aspect of keeping chickens that Jenni Zell especially loves. “They eat my kids’ leftovers and give us eggs,” Zell says. “It’s like a closed loop for one meal.”

Plant World (also sells chicks January through June)10131 Greenwell Springs Rd272-7144

Marston Feed & Seed Inc.17989 Airline Hwy, Prairieville752-8112

Dodge City Farm Supply (sells chicks before Easter and after the weather warms up)101 Hatchell Lane, Denham Springs664-3351

Zachary Feed & Garden Supplies (sometimes stocks chicks)20987 Plank Rd, Zachary654-6052

Don’s Evergreen Feed38526 Highway 42, Prairieville673-4550

Sac’s Feed & Western Store125 S Burnside Ave, Gonzales644-2252

Where can I learn more? backyardchickens.com, and mypetchicken.com

As a landscape architect, she also appreciates that chickens eat pests like fire ants and weeds and leave behind fertilizer. Inspired by a brother raising chickens in Kentucky, she joined the backyard movement in July. Her husband wanted nothing to do with chickens—at first. “Then he got into it and built a real cool coop,” Zell says.

The coop, painted sky blue with a zippy rooster painted on the front, dominates the family’s small backyard. A low run built from two-by-fours and wire fencing gives the Zells’ six chickens (technically, a female chicken is a pullet until it becomes a hen at one year) protected outside space.

They spend plenty of time free-ranging in the backyard. “They are pets who do something for you, and you don’t feel guilty not spending time with them,” Zell says.

Olive the beagle gets along fine with the chickens, but Jenni’s had to protect them from some of the neighborhood wildlife. One evening, while in costume for a Harry Potter birthday party, she dispatched a possum with a shovel.

At this writing, Zell has yet to experience the joy of finding that first egg or the delight of eating a “homegrown” omelet (hens start producing eggs at about 16 weeks), but her girls are on the cusp of maturity and should be laying by the time this reaches print.

Her Ameraucanas are a beautiful, smallish breed that lays blue-green eggs. Their antics chasing bugs or each other are entertaining. The loudest hen is quieter than any dog. Plus they’re a guaranteed conversation-starter.

Zell says she’s had to clear up a few misconceptions about chickens. No, they don’t stink. No, hens don’t need a rooster to lay eggs. Roosters are needed to produce fertilized eggs.

Like so many others and myself included, Zell learned about keeping chickens (and protecting them from predators) on the Internet.

Several Web sites—including backyardchickens.com and mypetchicken.com—host communities where novices can learn from more-experienced chicken lovers.

Like the fact the meek-mannered possum is a vicious killer of chickens, almost as murderous as the raccoon. Or that “chicken wire” works great for keeping chickens in but is merely a speed bump to raccoons, dogs or even foxes intent on killing.

And, it turns out yard eggs are higher in good cholesterol and lower in the bad than factory eggs. Composted chicken manure is fantastic fertilizer. Chickens shouldn’t eat citrus.

You can read about residents of other cities in this country and Canada waging (and sometimes losing) well-documented fights to change zoning laws, or even maintain their chicken-keeping privileges.

The Zells, the Mercers and others around Baton Rouge find themselves part of a national movement to know more about the food they put on their tables, what’s in it, where it comes from and what it can do for us. Thanks to a respectable law, we in Baton Rouge can scramble eggs fresh from the hen.