I'll be a featured Chicken site on the 2009 Tour de Coop. This annual event is like an art walk, but you get to visit a collection of urban chicken farmers, and see how they do it. Everyone is friendly, it's a great way to spend a Saturday, and you'll get to meet a collection of eccentrics.

If things go as planned, mz Bee will have hatched her eggs, and we'll have hen and chicks wandering around the side yard. They are due to hatch on July 15th, so by the 25th, they will be mobile and off the nest.

Saturday, July 25 from 11am-3pm - you'll need to buy a tour map for $10 - purchase locations at the link above.

My family is aware that I like to experiment outside the lines of normal behavior. Nothing completely unexpected: no public nudity, no unusual structures, no explosives. However, my neighbors have recently become aware of my attraction to the odd, due to a mildly rash decision on my part.

Enter the wild Guinea Fowl. First, you're aware that I have a small flock of chickens that we keep for eggs. Recently, I applied for a Multnomah County Animal Facility License, and am now legally able to keep up to 10 chickens. This was in preparation to begin raising chickens for meat, as well as eggs.

The economics of raising chickens for meat requires that you start them from eggs, or chicks. Rearing them in an incubator requires a lot of fiddling around, and costs about $2 per chick to get started. In contrast, a rooster and a broody hen do the job for free, and with no need for a messy incubator. Too bad Roosters are illegal in city limits, due to the never-ending racket they create. And I say that nicely.

I was surfing Craigslist for fertile eggs, and came across some folks that had three Guinea Fowls (two hens and a rooster) they needed to get rid of. I did some quick internet lookup, and found that - oh joy - Guinea Fowl Roosters don't crow! And ... their meat is a prized delicacy in France. This looks like a great solution - they'll raise a crop of birds every three months - all I need to do is supply a small amount of food.

Well - I wish I had taken better notes on my sources, as I have learned that Guinea roosters don't crow, because they can't hope to match the amount of noise raised by Guinea hens. They simply don't shut up, you can hear them for about two or three blocks, and they reliably start at about 5:00 am. After the first morning, I circulated around the three block radius to discuss the new sound in the neighborhood, and my plans for noise abatement.

I have also learned that the hen's call is different than the roosters - and that I have three hens. So the whole self-reproducing thing isn't going to happen. Which is a good thing, considering that ten of these birds would generate more complaints than any single barking dog.

We are now two days and counting from an appointment with Harrington Poultry Processing. The neighbors can hardly wait...

This past summer, Aaron and two of his friends ran a small business building chicken coops. Their company name was "Flock in a Box" (All you add is water!) For $400, they would build a chicken coop and bring it to your house, complete with watering and feeding bins, food, bedding and three chickens. All you add is water.

They are now doing an independent research project at school on how to build better chicken coops. If you have a minute - would you take their survey. You can find it at http://www.niemannross.com/fiab. It is pretty quick, and will help them with their research.