In This Case, the Chicken Came First

At Kyle Pratt’s house, the chickens came before the eggs. Last July, his parents bought four chicks for his seventh birthday. The idea was that he would have the birds for pets and, in a couple of months, his family would have a steady supply of eggs.

Now, the chickens are not only good providers but the stars of play dates.

“To my mind,� says Kyle’s mother, Karen Haas, “chickens are the perfect pets.� She argues that Los Angeles is long overdue for a renaissance in backyard chicken-keeping, particularly in her neighborhood, West Adams, a large area of historic homes southwest of downtown. Their large gardens, many with old stables, can usually satisfy the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services requirement that chicken coops be stationed at least 20 feet from the owner’s house and 35 feet from any other dwelling. (Crowing roosters, alas, are verboten.)

Haas and husband Paul Pratt had spent years restoring their Craftsman-era house but so far had done little to the garden. When Kyle declared an interest in chickens for his birthday, it was decided that the first serious garden feature would be a chicken coop.

His mother, observed Kyle, started “loading up on chicken information.� The Tamara Staples book, “The Fairest Fowl� (Chronicle, 2001), proved an essential frivolity: a book of chicken portraits revealing varieties of plumage that could leave a peacock envious.

But these were show birds. The Murray McMurray Hatchery chicken catalog, from a poultry firm out of Webster City, Iowa, proved a more realistic guide to what kind of birds are for sale, though Haas would buy the birds at Red Barn Feed and Saddlery in Tarzana rather than have a minimum order of 25 chicks shipped from Iowa.

Haas wanted good-natured birds, not squawkers. After long deliberation, she settled on the classic egg hen, the Rhode Island Red, which she and Kyle named Ginger, a black-and-white Plymouth Barred Rock (Doris) and two gold Buff Orpingtons (Vivien and Violet).

It is important for a flock dynamic that chickens be the same age, Haas learned. Ginger, born on the Fourth of July, was a week older than the other girls when Haas and Pratt brought them home last summer. She would clearly be top chicken. As the family set up a chicken nursery under the stairs leading to the attic, Kyle began a chicken diary to commemorate the event. “There was chick food and water and a heat lamp and thermometer. They liked it a lot warmer than we did,� he recorded.

He became the surrogate parent: “I always sat down to hold them and tried to be very peaceful.�

As feathers started emerging from their down, Doris the Plymouth Barred Rock began trying to keep up with older Ginger. “Doris is the trouble-maker,� wrote Kyle after a scary incident in which Doris was found hanging, her foot entangled in a clothespin that had been used to clip the netting around the brood pen. But a visiting neighbor revived Doris, who now only has a slight limp.

Kyle’s parents purchased an outdoor cage, and he started taking the chicks outside on warm days and bringing them back in at night. Meanwhile, Haas was busy ordering a deluxe coop. An Anglophile, she insisted on a henhouse from a company called Forsham Cottage Arks in Kent, England. It arrived in September, shipped in panels, like pieces of a prefabricated house. Coop in place, the 8-week-old birds were moved outside. “When I checked on them they were all huddled together on the same perch, asleep and comfortable,� recorded Kyle.

Comfort is an understatement. There is an open-air common area in this chicken Hilton, then a ramp up to a nesting area. In centuries of chicken keeping, coop designers have studied and come to accommodate every chicken habit and need, including foraging, perching, brooding and pooping. For those squeamish about mess, it’s worth noting that the droppings collect neatly in a cleverly fashioned pit. The chickens are so unlikely to foul the other living areas of the coop that Haas estimates she cleans the coop once a month, and it takes only 10 to 15 minutes.

The chickens are only allowed out when there is someone to watch them, since the neighborhood predators include a local hawk and housecats. “After school I let them out into the garden to snoop and forage,� Kyle writes. “They run around in a pack.� Doris likes hopping on his shoulder. “She’s like a parrot,� he explains.

Kyle knew something was up when, early last February, he “heard strange sounds coming from the coop.� Ginger, he noticed, was acting oddly. She didn’t come out with the other chickens: “When she did come out she would lift up her wings a little bit and squat.� Ginger was about to lay her first egg, quickly followed by the ever-competitive Doris.

The family set up nesting boxes in the coop and has been getting a steady succession of eggs from all the birds since then. Every time an egg is laid, the birds let rip with an exultant chorus of clucks. “We probably have to eat more eggs now,� Kyle says. His mother roars with laughter at this, and says neighbors like getting the ones they don’t eat. They are smaller and have better texture and taste than store-bought ones, she says.

Feeding the chickens is relatively simple, Haas says. The feed is a mix of store-bought grain, mineral supplement, kitchen vegetable trimmings and garden insects. “They clear our garden of snails and just love those little slugs,� she says.

In the last nine months, the birds have succumbed to routine cuddling by Kyle and his 2-year-old sister Lydia. When Lydia creeps up behind them, they even bend down, to accommodate the lift and hug they know will follow. But occasionally, says Kyle, they get fed up.

“Don’t over-love them,� he warns, making a rocking and smoochy face gesture. “If you over-love them, they get fed up and peck you in the least place you need to be pecked.�

At this point, Lydia, runs into the kitchen clutching a warm, freshly-laid egg. She sets it on a chair next to her mother, peers at it, and says, “Hi, egg.�

*

For the A-to-Z of backyard chicken keeping, Haas recommends “Chickens in your Backyard: A Beginner’s Guide� by Rick and Gail Luttmann (Rodale Press, 1997).