Free Range Eggs
I thought everyone knew about free range eggs. I thought that the majority of people nowadays were educated on the benefits of eating chemical and hormone free eggs straight from a happy hen. I was wrong though, it seems. On the supermarket shelves are the packets of battery eggs and people are buying them, much more of them. There are countless brands and sizes of battery eggs, yet few free range brands, and the free range are much more expensive, therefore not as popular...
Well, if you are consuming lots of pale, tasteless, chemically enhanced battery eggs each week and the main reason is cost - that's easily changed. Have you thought about keeping some chickens? Now, you more seasoned self reliant folks are well aware of all this but more and more I notice the amount of people who just don't know how easy it is. City dwellers everywhere can be as self reliant as they wish, and keeping chickens requires minimal effort.
When I lived in the city, I had two hens. They took up a small corner of the yard and produced two eggs per day, with the exception of their "off the lay" period each year. They scratched around in their pen happily, foraging for worms and providing us with valuable additions to the compost pile. They required only shelter, clean water and kitchen scraps. We fed them layer pellets also from the supermarket, but these are very economical and last for ages. All in all, Thelma and Louise gave us fresh, tasty, bright yellow eggs; chook poo to add to the garden or compost, a place to dispose of kitchen scraps (reducing our rubbish in the process) and plenty of entertainment!
So often I look at peoples backyards and wonder why they don't have a chookpen. Some scrap timber, chicken wire and corrugated iron is all that is really needed to keep them penned in. Depending on your area, you may need a shelter in the form of a small "house" inside their pen if foxes are a threat (highly unusual in the city, although a wandering, savage nieghbourhood dog should be watched for). An old childs cubby house is ideal for this, and you can often get them free for moving them, or extremely cheap, but this isn't a necessity for all pens. Ours had a simple roof over half of the area and a reasonably high fence.
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