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Elizabeth Lampert’s daughter, Siena, wanted a horse. “But that would have been expensive,” says Lampert, the owner of a public-relations agency just outside San Francisco. Instead she went to a local hay-and-feed store and bought the 10-year-old a pair of chickens. “Then Siena thought they were getting lonely, so we got three more.” Lampert pays her daughter $2 a day to feed them, herd them back into their coop every night, and collect their eggs, generally two or three a day. “The eggs are amazing,” Lampert says. “They taste rich and creamy. The yolk—it’s very orange. Siena used to ask...

Now that October is closing out, I have tallied my numbers and thought it might be interesting to discuss egg production year to date in our Chicken McMansion. June 2010: 2 eggs; 84 grams total; 2.963 oz.; .185 lbs July 2010: 86 eggs; 4415 grams total; 155.735 oz.; 9.733 lbs August 2010: 154 eggs; 8117 grams total; 286.319 oz; 17.895 lbs September 2010: 134 eggs; 7512 grams total; 264.978 oz.; 16.561 lbs October 2010: 140 eggs; 8923 grams total; 314.749 oz.; 19.67 lbs. To date, our coop has produced a total of 516 eggs weighing 64.044 pounds. (One ounce is...

What could contaminate the feed that caused the salmonella egg outbreak? How about feeding the chickens back their own manure and litter? If you think that that is far fetched, read here and here. The word "by-product" starts to take on a different meaning. Not only do chickens get fed chicken litter, but chicken litter is also fed to cows.

THE HAGUE, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- The Dutch troops ended Sunday it' s four years mission in Afghanistan and handed over the responsibility in the Afghan province of Uruzgan to the U.S. and Australia, makes the Netherlands the first NATO member to leave Afghanistan. According to the Dutch Defense Ministry, the Dutch troops had 24 casualties and 140 injuries during the last four years. "But we have brought the people of Uruzgan major improvements." "It hurts because it marks the end of the Dutch leading role in Afghanistan, I want to say goodbye to the people here we have intensive...

Nevada election officials say voters dressed in chicken costumes won't be allowed inside polling places this year. The chicken suits were added to the list of banned items Friday after weeks of Democratic ridicule directed at Republican Senate candidate Sue Lowden. Lowden has suggested bartering with doctors for medical care, like when “our grandparents would bring a chicken to the doctor.” Democrats have set up a website, Chickens for Checkups...

If you haven't heard the name Sue Lowden, brace yourself. She is a Republican who might well become a U.S. senator from Nevada, and judging by her idea for containing health-care costs -- critics call it "chickens for check-ups" -- she threatens to make Sarah Palin sound like some kind of pointy-headed policy wonk. Yes, I said chickens. There is a larger point to be made about the kind of thinking, or non-thinking, that Lowden exemplifies. But first, it's my duty to recap her perilous foray into health-care policy, which sounds like a good premise for a Monty Python sketch....

Whether it's a desire to eat locally or a concern about where and how food is raised, a growing number of people are adding a little cluck to their backyard. While urban chicken farming, like food gardening and beekeeping, is nothing new, its popularity has grown in recent years. "Sales of baby chicks are up about 50 percent from a year ago," says John Bellandi, owner of Alamo Hay & Grain. Online searches are going gangbusters. According to Yahoo, searches for "chicken coops" are up 100 percent, while searches for "chicken coop plans" are up 225 percent (these numbers represent...

LOS ANGELES — The chickens have come home to roost for Los Angeles city dwellers who keep roosters. The City Council on Tuesday passed an ordinance that — with few exceptions — allows only one rooster per property. It was spurred by complaints over noise and hygiene and concerns over illegal cockfighting. Janice Hahn, who authored the bill, says it will give residents of her district some peace and quiet.

Early Polynesians Sailed Thousands of Miles for Trade Dave Hansford for National Geographic News September 27, 2007 Early Polynesians sailed thousands of miles for exploration and trade, suggests a new study of early stone woodworking tools. The analysis confirms traditional tales of vast ocean voyages and hints that a trading network existed between Hawaii and Tahiti as early as a thousand years ago. The work also bolsters research suggesting that the Polynesians were skillful sailors who rapidly expanded across the Pacific and journeyed as far as South America by the 1400s A.D. Kenneth Collerson and Marshall Weisler of the University...

Chicken Bones Suggest Polynesians Found Americas Before ColumbusBy Heather Whipps, Special to LiveScience Which came first–the chicken or the European? Popular history, and a familiar rhyme about Christopher Columbus, holds that Europeans made contact with the Americas in 1492, with some arguing that the explorer and his crew were the first outsiders to reach the New World. But chicken bones recently unearthed on the coast of Chile—dating prior to Columbus’ “discovery” of America and resembling the DNA of a fowl species native to Polynesia—may challenge that notion, researchers say. “Chickens could not have gotten to South America on their own—they...

Kids hoping to grab a Happy Meal from McDonald's might end up with PETA's Unhappy Meal instead. The animal rights organization lifted its moratorium on the McCruelty Campaign this year and since June has distributed Chicken McCruelty Unhappy Meals to McDonald's customers outside about a dozen restaurants around the country. "McDonald's markets its food to children by packaging it in brightly colored boxes with toys," Lindsay Rajt, a spokeswoman for PETA, tells Slashfood. "But most kids really love animals, and if they knew that McDonald's suppliers were breaking the wings and legs of gentle animals like chickens, I think that...

Dear Martha: I'd like to raise chickens. Which breed of chicken is best for egg production, and do you have any tips? A: It's not so much about the breed of chicken as it is about how you're going to keep them. You absolutely must have a well-fenced yard, so raccoons and other animals don't get the chickens; the fence should extend 12 to 14 inches into the ground. The coop will need electricity to run a light and keep their water from freezing in winter; you can also get a heated water dispenser. I let my chickens out every...

HOMER, IL – It may seem like an easy way to save a little money on your grocery budget: Buy a few chickens and start collecting farm-fresh eggs. An increasing number of families in our area are doing just that, and some are also selling their surplus eggs to neighboring families. Garry Herzog, owner of Prairieland Feeds in Savoy, said there's been a steady increase in demand for "laying feed" for chickens over the past two to three years. He said his store also gets many requests for how-to information from chicken-raising rookies. And if Yahoo! is any indication, the...

POLSON — Therapy dogs can be a comfort for seniors and those recovering from illnesses and injuries. So how about therapy chickens? Jana Clairmont of Polson, Mont., calls her therapy birds — a white rooster and Cornish game hen — "Fowl Play."

If you hear the sound of clucking next door, you might just be hearing your neighbor's new pet. Pet chickens are on the rise and they're making their home in city dwellers' backyards. More people are finding it attractive to keep chickens as pets, not only because they're cute, but because people want to produce their own eggs and retain a slice of rural life. "People are turning to things that remind them of simpler times," Ron Kean, a poultry specialist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, told the Los Angeles Times . "If you're smart, you can save money...

Waffle Bike is a fully weaponized waffle making device complete with call to prayer public address system. It’s also the name of a short film—documenting the bike’s maiden voyage in search of chickens, naturally, to lay the eggs for the batter. In Waffle Bike, a perfectly clipped narrator chirps out Waffle Bike’s features, which include a Honda Harmony en2500 generator, a 9-inch Norweigan waffle maker, a small refrigerator up front, a tape deck (which plays through three 8-inch, 25-watt, all-weather trumpet horn speakers made in China), and two 12-gauge homemade shotguns. The film is charming and disturbing and funny—and the...

Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) - Some 3,000 chickens were culled after bird flu was detected at a poultry farm in the country's Southeastern Cox's Bazar district town on Sunday night. "On Sunday officials from the center informed us that bird flu virus was found in the samples," District Livestock Officer Dr Zaker Ullah was quoted by The Daily Star, a local newspaper, as saying. He also said they collected samples from the poultry farm on Saturday and sent them for testing to the Regional Livestock Research Centre in Feni. Poultry birds at other farms in the area are being examined to...

A sport utility vehicle loaded with 1,200 baby chicks in cardboard boxes pulls up to the Clearview Feed and Seed store, where customers come to pick up their peeping, cheeping poultry orders on a recent spring day. Poultry dealers, chicken feed businesses and self-proclaimed "chicken enthusiasts" nationwide report city slickers and suburbanites are showing greater interest in raising small flocks of chickens far from the farm. Store workers whisk boxes from the vehicle — where the heat is cranked up to keep the chicks warm — and gently sort the downy birds born at a hatchery into smaller containers. Temporary...

I need some advice on chicken breeds. Where I live in Central Texas, in the summer it’s not uncommon for us to have a 6 week run of high temperatures going over 100’. So here’s what I’m looking for in my dual-purpose hens:- I want girls that are temperature hardy that can handle the heat. (I know that I’m going to have to help any chicken survive a severe, prolonged heat-wave, [fresh water, misters, shade, etc.] but I don’t want to suffer 50% losses just because I was stupid enough to get birds which were never bred to handle it...