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City Chickens and Their Owners Welcome Visitors On Windy City Coop Tour

By Janet Rausa Fuller | September 19, 2014 5:35am | Updated on September 19, 2014 7:44pm
 Urban chickens and their owners open coops for a public tour.
Windy City Coop Tour
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CHICAGO — Eric Staswick and his wife made a deal with each other after buying their Albany Park home on a double lot in 2012: three garden beds for her, a few backyard chickens for him.

They got what they wanted and then some.

Their yard is now home to 12 garden beds and 10 chickens — plus four ducks, 7 goats and 20 quail, which Eric Staswick said "sounds like a lot more than it is."

Janet Fuller says its legal to own the animals, and becoming more common:

"For us, it was really a motivation to get involved with our own food chain," he said. "It's also really important to put our kids in touch with where food comes from and be an active part of the food chain."

The public can get a glimpse of just how active the Staswicks and their backyard crew are during the fifth annual Windy City Coop Tour on Saturday and Sunday, organized by the Chicago Chicken Enthusiasts and the nonprofit Angelic Organics Learning Center.

Homeowners from Edgewater to East Garfield Park will open up their yards and coops housing chickens and other creatures from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. It's a free, self-guided tour. For more details on the 29 locations, click here.

For those thinking of getting or expanding their own flock, the tour offers a chance to check out coops and ask questions. For the merely curious, there's plenty more to gawk at, including koi ponds, beehives, those goats and, in one Forest Glen backyard, two tortoises and a macaw.

Hermosa resident Kristine Anatalio, a newcomer to chicken-keeping, plans on taking the tour to learn more. She'd heard that at least one home — the Staswicks' — has goats.

Since the spring, when Anatalio got her first eight chicks, her lot has grown to 19 hens, one rooster and five quail, which she said are easier to care for than chickens.

"I do want a goat and piglet. Eventually," said Anatalio, a nurse.

Keeping backyard chickens — and other farm animals, for that matter — is legal in Chicago and, at least anecdotally, a growing trend.

Anatalio knows there are other roosters in her neighborhood because they she hears them crowing back at her rooster.

"When he first started crowing, it was like a competition, like they were showing off their b---s or something," she said.

Though it's difficult to keep count as chicken owners don't need a permit or license, the Chicago Chicken Enthusiasts, the go-to group for chicken-loving urbanites, has more than 500 subscribers on its listserv.

That number could include "lurkers" or people who may have kept chickens but have since stopped, said Martha Boyd, Chicago program director at Angelic Organics. It also might exclude chicken owners who don't network or use social media.

The number of homeowner hosts for this year's coop tour is higher than ever, spread out across 19 of Chicago's 50 wards, Boyd said.

"It does seem to me that interest is growing, and I'm certainly hearing more people talk about it from more corners that I used to," said Margaret Frisbie, executive director of Friends of the Chicago River and a chicken keeper herself. She is participating in the coop tour for her fifth straight year.

The reasons for keeping these animals can range from simple companionship to, in the case of Frisbie and Staswick, a desire to get closer to their food. Owners must keep noise and sanitation in check according to city regulations. Beyond that, there is no limit on the number of animals one can have.

"It's a commitment, and it's an everyday commitment, having something that absolutely can't be put off until later," said Staswick, who commutes daily to Schaumburg for his advertising job. "My goats have to be milked twice a day."

Staswick shares those duties with his wife, Bethany, who stays home with their five kids, all under age 5. The family spends most summer weekends out in the yard tending to the garden and animals.

It's a self-sustaining cycle. Kitchen scraps — about 800 pounds a year, Staswick said — go to the chickens and ducks, who cluck about in a 70-square-foot coop and an attached fenced-in area behind their house. The goat shed also has a roaming area. Waste is cleaned out daily and added to the compost pile. The quail have their own hutch above the compost, all of which ends up back in the family's vegetable garden.

The payoff? Fresh goat's milk, which they drink and turn into cheese, and eggs — lots of them. Staswick figures it's been at least two years since he has bought eggs from the grocery store.

Duck eggs add more loft to baked goods and quail eggs are typically higher in vitamin B12 and essential amino acids than chicken eggs, he added.

Backyard eggs "just taste better," Frisbie said.

Frisbie said the coop tour is an advocacy tool for chicken owners, who are still far from mainstream. The more people are aware that chickens "are no big deal, and they're funny and cute,"  the better, she said.

That said, they are work, and people should do their homework before investing in them. But, Frisbie said, "A dog is 10 times more trouble living with than a chicken."

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