Raising Chickens in the City
(Page 4 of 4)
May/June 2006
By Linda Baker
Mrs. T., as it turned out, was actually Mr. T—a gender mix-up that got the hapless male whisked out of Rich’s yard to an urban farm operated by the Southside Community Land Trust. “I didn’t want a run-in with my neighbors,” says Rich, an avid organic gardener who tends a vegetable patch and grows five kinds of berries. “And I wanted eggs.”
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For Carlson, eating eggs straight from the source is like nothing else. Between March and October, Beatrice, Zelda and Gertrude each lay about one egg per day. The rest of the year, Carlson gets an average of one or two eggs per day from the trio. “I make the mistake every now and then of ordering an egg dish at a restaurant, and I regret it,” she says. “It’s like eating cardboard. A homegrown egg tastes just like butter. It’s fantastic.”
Aren’t Chickens Unhealthy?
Talk of chickens inevitably brings up two big health concerns: salmonella and Asian bird flu.
Emilio DeBess, public health veterinarian for the Oregon Department of Human Services, says his department occasionally sees outbreaks of salmonella associated with chickens in Portland, where hen-free neighborhoods are becoming the exception, not the rule. These outbreaks usually occur around Easter, when families get baby chicks and keep them inside, DeBess says. “Keep chickens outside, wash your hands and don’t allow kids under 5 to handle them,” he says. “If you follow these guidelines, you’ll reduce salmonella exposure by 100 percent.”
First-time chicken owners often raise questions about Asian bird flu. Like mad cow disease, avian flu is largely a product of limited resources, overcrowded conditions and cross-contamination between species—and thus has little to do with managing one or two chickens in a yard. The fear among world health officials is that the disease will spread to migratory birds; if and when that happens, urban chickens will be a bit player in a catastrophic global epidemic, not the cause. Echoing DeBess, organic gardening expert Jennifer Carlson says: “It’s a matter of being mindful and keeping clean.”
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