Tour de Coops Recap

The 2008 Tour de Coops was last Saturday and we estimate somewhere between 125-150 people came through our yard from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm. By the end, I felt like I was slurring my words from talking so much that day. I had my “chicken-experience-in-a-nutshell” down to about two minutes.

As you may recall, I rebuilt my chicken coop this past Spring. The major changes were the addition of some old windows to add light to the hen house. I also installed some metal mesh behind the windows so on hot days, like Saturday, the windows could be propped open for cross ventilation and the mesh acts as a screen. On one side of the narrow ends is another window, with no screen, so I can clean out the hen house easily.

The chick condo is now used for storing straw, since the chicks are all grown up. I had a few conversations with people about how that whole process worked for us. I feel really lucky that the introduction of new chicks to my existing flock was such a smooth process.

People asked generally the same questions:

• How much room do they need?
• How do you combat predators?
• How many eggs do they lay?
• What breeds are they?
• Are they friendly?

I did have a few longer conversations with people about the local food movement, my edible landscape, etc. I ran into one of my old classmates from high school, which was both cool and totally weird at the same time. A few blog readers stop by, so this my little shout out to you guys! (Nice meeting you!) Several people complimented me on the garden, which both surprised me (since all I see these days are things I still need to do) and delighted me.

The post tour meet up for the coop owners was a bit of a bust. We ran into one really nice family and had a nice short chat, but they were the only ones who showed up. I think everyone else must have just been too pooped out. And after such a long day, I can’t blame them – I am still trying to recover from so much urban chicken talk in one day.