Backyard Chickens Blog: Chickens? In the City?

We live in a small suburb of Cleveland, OH where houses are on top of each other. We currently have a 2 1/2 year old daughter (born at 25 weeks..her journey can be viewed: HERE), 2 dogs and 2 cats but I felt like we were missing something. A while back I mentioned to my husband,Tim, that I wanted chickens. Fast forward a few months and Tim had a plumbing job at his sister’s brother in law’s house. They live in Cleveland and have a few chickens. They gave Tim some eggs to try. He said they were delicious and much better than any store bought eggs. And that, my friends, was the day we agreed to get chickens.

Tim started building the chicken coop this week. We decided to go to the nursery and look at chicken supplies. We went to Grace Brothers Nursery in North Royalton but they only had 8 week old and older chickens. If we were going to do this, we wanted to get them young to socialize them. They mentioned that their other store in Cleveland had younger chicks there. We drove there, walked in and saw a huge tub filled with a bunch of two week old chickens and fell in love. They were so cute and all your heard was “peep peep”. Avery was pointing at them and seemed very interested.

Look at how cute they are!

We weren’t planning on buying chickens that day but ended up with 3 of them. It is ok that Tim isn’t done with the coop yet because these chickens have to be kept under a heat lamp for a few more weeks. They will be spending the next month, in a plastic tote with a heat lamp, in our upstairs spare bedroom. Avery is very interested and tries to reach in the tote to touch the chicks. When I ask her if she wants to pet one, she shakes her head no. When I pick one up and hold it by her, she walks in the opposite direction. I think she will come around when she feels like it. The biggest fan of the chickens is our dog, Scarlett. She is so interested and sits with her feet up on the tote, peering over the edge to catch a glimpse.

They had three different types of chickens there so we got one of each kind. He said each of them are friendly and hardy breeds which will be good for the winter/summer.

Black Jersey- This chick is currently black and grey but when fully grown will have black, almost iridescent green feathers. We named this one Raven.

Buckeye- This chick is currently brown but will turn mahogany color with black tail feathers when it gets older. Her name is Daisy.

White Plymouth Rock- This chick is currently yellow but will turn completely white when fully grown. Kaitlin and Eddie named her Fluffy.

It takes about 16 weeks before a chick can lay an egg so they will hopefully start laying before Thanksgiving. All of the varieties that we got produce brown eggs.

If he didn’t have it before, Tim now has motivation to finish the coop quickly. Tim is a saint. He really is. I am being super picky with this coop (even though I haven’t even hammered in one nail) and he is being very patient with me. We are looking online to get some hints (such as making the nesting boxes removable for easy cleaning and putting down a poop strip where they will roost).

I decided to write a blog to document our journey. Maybe it will encourage others to raise chickens, even if you are like us and don't have a big yard.

We are super excited about this new adventure!