Urban Hens workshops discuss raising chickens
The law passed last month, which made owning chickens legal in Columbia.
Published March 12, 2010
After a city ordinance passed allowing city residents to own chickens, chicken enthusiast Mary Stilwell has been offering workshops for citizens to become more educated about raising the animals at home.
The third Introduction to Urban Hens workshop was held Wednesday evening in the MU Agriculture Building.
The workshops aim to educate Columbia citizens about raising, owning and eating chickens and their byproducts after the city ordinance allowing residents to raise up to six hens in their backyards for noncommercial purposes passed last month.
"You can get chicks every three to four years depending on how often you want to eat them," Stilwell said.
The Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture, a strong proponent of the ordinance, has been advertising for the workshop through its events calendar. The center also runs an urban garden.
"There was one guy here during the first work shop with three kids and two chickens each," Center for Urban Agriculture Director Bobby Johnson said. "These little kids are excited. A dog doesn't give you anything, but she (the hen) gives you an egg on most days."
The ordinance allows hens and not roosters, primarily because roosters are loud, Johnson said.
Stilwell said owning hens in the city became illegal after World War II. The law was in response to the desire to move away from agricultural-based life and further into city life.
The ordinance faced high amounts of opposition during its deliberation.
"A lot of people who are against chickens are misinformed," Johnson said. "They're thinking about hen houses with 200 chickens. This is only six."
One of the main commercial chick distributors in Columbia is Bourn Feed and Supply Inc. They sell chicks between March and June. It is also possible to buy chicks from local farmers.
"We get all of our chicks out of Lebanon, Mo., and we have for the past 20 years," employee Melissa Haley said. "It's a really nice family business with good healthy chicks, and we can keep around 500 at once."
Haley said they usually have an even ratio of people looking for a few chickens to keep at home, and farmers with a lot of land looking to keep 50 to 100 chickens at once.
"Baby chick sales have been increasing over the past couple years, and we usually don't have a problem selling every last one," Haley said.
She said the store sells the necessary tools to raise chicks into chickens.
"The most common cause of death is cold and dehydration," Stilwell said. "Everything needs to be at 95 degrees before chicks come home."
The chicks need to be placed in some kind of container, most commonly a cardboard box, with a litter they can digest and peck at. Many chicken owners will use a product high in carbon because chicken waste is high in nitrogen, and together, they make a good compost, Stilwell said.
During the workshops, Stilwell aims to educate the audience about raising the chicks to adulthood. Once they're adults, they will begin laying eggs.
She said it is important to collect the eggs on a daily basis, otherwise the hens will become broody, a term used to describe a hen in mother-mode. This is undesirable for those who want eggs because broody hens stop laying eggs.
Stilwell said she prefers having a few hens as opposed to eating factory-produced ones.
"I'm OK with raising things to kill, what I have a problem with is the way in which we do it," she said.