Perhaps you could get him some chicks that will grow up to be egg-layers that he can keep.

PPal - I have some white rock plymouths & some buff orps right now. But he doesn't eat eggs! We don't need any more pets... I have a whole house full!

@Newyorkrita , have you found this thread yet?

No, not until your Hashtag. I am not sure if I should thank you or cuss at you cause I want chickens and I can't have them. So reading about them is both good and bad.

Rita - Why can't you have chickens? Chickens are fun! I guess I should update this thread, huh.

Well, the 5 Hybrid Cornish grew to at least 10 weeks old and got to be between 10-13 lbs EACH. They were MONSTROUS birds. HUGE. I couldn't find a slaughter house within 50 miles of my house and DH really didn't relish the idea of me slaughtering them in the back yard. There was a "chicken swap" during the first Saturday of the month (July 6th) so we went to that with our one remaining Buff Orp (more on what happened to the others in a minute). We got there at 10am and stayed until about 12:15 when it was getting too hot. Everyone was impressed with their size and loved them, and I was asking only $10/ea, but no one wanted them because *they* didn't want to slaughter them themselves! So I was resigned to taking them home. We were in the process of picking them up & carrying them back to my van (I had 3 of the birds in a large dog crate & 2 in a smaller dog crate) when a Vietmanese couple walked up. The man wanted them, but the woman didn't. He asked me how much, I told him $10/ea. He immediately bought 3 of them. I told him that I'd cut him a deal & sell him all 5 for $40 (I really didn't want to take them home as they were the most filthiest, disgusting birds I'd ever been around). He jumped on that. His wife was NOT pleased, but he didn't care. I asked him if he had a box, and he said that he'd just tie their feet together. So I carried 2 and he carried 1 back to his car. He had a Honda Civic that was VERY very clean & pretty & fairly new.. he popped open the trunk & plopped his bird in the trunk. Uh.. these birds poop a LOT... "it's ok, we live 2 blocks away." oooh-kayyyy.. So I handed him the other 2 birds & he plopped them in the trunk too. We hurried back to where I was kinda set up & he grabbed 1 bird & I got the last. Went back to his car, plop, into the trunk they went. He stated that he wanted them for fertilizer for his garden.. yea, sure.. they're gonna be dinner that night. I honestly didn't care.. one man's pet is another man's dinner. I didn't like that they were going in the trunk, though, and he promised that they'd be out of the trunk within about 5-6 minutes. To be perfectly honest, I believe that one of the roo's (the smaller.. he weighed only about 11lbs) was probably going to die within the next week or so. He was having difficulties walking (talk about HUGE feet!!!) and would gasp for breath if I made him walk more than 2-3 feet! The hens were in better shape, but not by much. The biggest was one of the hens & I'm guessing she was clocking in at about 13lbs. The other roo was probably 12lbs. He was taller, but slightly thinner. They would have made a fine dinner, that's for sure!

The 4 Buff Orps & the 4 White rocks were in a separate pen from the CornishX's. They were literally half the size and I knew the hard way not to mix big chickens with little chickens. I had them all in a HUGE bunny hutch (6' x 3') and they had plenty of space as they were only about 3-3.5lbs. However, one of my neighbor's cats discovered them and managed to kill one of the buffs. She was sleeping outside of the covered part of the hutch (half was enclosed, the other half was just wire). The cat slipped a paw inside through the chicken wire & grabbed the chicken. Pulled all of it but a leg through the wires. I found the head, the tail, & a bunch of feathers, but nothing else. The other leg was still inside the hutch. Gross.... So I was down to 3 Buffs & 4 White Rocks. I posted them on CL for sale and immediately the White Rocks went (I sold them for $15/ea). Everyone here wants egg chickens. Another family wanted just 2 buffs, which left just the single buff. That's the one I took to the chicken swap. But because no one could really see her (I had her in a smaller dog crate) and when I held her, everyone thought I had bought her, so no one asked about her. So I brought her home. Posted a new ad on CL and then she did go to a new home. So no more chickens for the 2013 year.

Learned a lot about chickens this year. Leghorns are flighty, nervous birds. Cornish X are disgusting pigs of chickens. Orps can be friendly once they get older, but not as chicks. Everyone loves Brahmas due to their coloring. And egg producers such as White Rocks are in high demand. Now I know what to get next year.

Rita, perhaps you could start a local effort to update your municipal code to allow chickens. Many of the larger cities are doing so, and I think they come up with very reasonable guidelines - no roosters, limit of 3 hens, maybe some set-back restrictions of some sort, not sure what else. You could start by getting copies of various city ordinances that do allow fowl and approach your ruling counsel to find out what the process might be. Just a thought.

Nope, no chickens allowed here. They are illegal in our town.

Bonehead said:Rita, perhaps you could start a local effort to update your municipal code to allow chickens. Many of the larger cities are doing so, and I think they come up with very reasonable guidelines - no roosters, limit of 3 hens, maybe some set-back restrictions of some sort, not sure what else. You could start by getting copies of various city ordinances that do allow fowl and approach your ruling counsel to find out what the process might be. Just a thought.

I know many people have been successful that way but it is not for me. I simply do not have the time nor the energy.

Toni, unless you actually saw the cat attack, I would bet that it was a raccoon that killed your pullet. That is very much their MO.

I was thinking the same thing Porkpal, Unless it was a really small baby chick, cats ususlly will leave them alone. Speaking of chickens, I lost my good old Naked Neck. She looked a little dumpy one day and was gone the next. I think she was about 8 years old, not exactly sure, but she was one I like a lot. She was still laying a few eggs this spring.

Actually my neighbor has cameras up & he actually caught survallence video of the cat doing the deed. That's how I know for sure it was my neighbor's cat.