Urban chickens allowed in Gatineau..

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Ontario Chick
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Urban chickens allowed in Gatineau..

Post by Ontario Chick » Tue Mar 06, 2018 11:34 am

There was a very nice picture of the family and a pretty fancy coop, which I didn't have time to post, but pretty well written story.
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Urban chickens (banned in Ottawa) are flocking to Gatineau

Tom SpearsTOM SPEARS
More from Tom Spears
Published on: March 5, 2018 | Last Updated: March 5, 2018 5:02 PM EST

Carmen and Matthew Chase show off their three chickens their family has in the backyard of their Gatineau home Sunday March 4, 2018. Two-year-old Errol, five-year-old Ewan and seven-year-old Edmund pose with their dad as Carmen gets the third chicken who just wasn't ready for a photo shoot. ASHLEY FRASER / POSTMEDIA
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Backyard chicken coops — banned in Ottawa — are taking off in Gatineau, where the city proposes to expand its small experiment in urban farming to allow coops for 200 homes.

The expansion, still to be approved by council, would allow up to three hens per home — but no roosters because the neighbours may wish to sleep. Gatineau also proposes 50 licences for beehives. Commercial production is not allowed.

So far, the reviews from Phase 1 are good.

Carmen and Matthew Chase of the Touraine neighbourhood have one of the 50 coops approved in Gatineau’s first round. She’s a supply teacher and he’s a structural engineer (which was helpful in coop-building), and they have three Red Star hens, acquired in September at the age where they were beginning to lay.

“We are both very avid gardeners. For me, it was I guess an extension of the gardening and being more sustainable,” Carmen said.

The egg-laying works well, she said: “The coop had a light on, so they had fake daylight during the winter. Winter was a little bit bleak but now, most of the time, they are all laying. So three (eggs) most days. Sometimes two but mostly three, especially now that it’s springtime.”

We had to ask: How are these eggs different from supermarket eggs?

Carmen: “Well, if you factor in everything we spent making the coop and everything, they’re really expensive eggs! We’ve been keeping a spreadsheet. I think they are about six dollars an egg.” (The cost is dropping steadily now that the only expense is chicken feed.)

The Chases had always bought free-range eggs and don’t find that their own eggs taste any different. “I think it’s more just the feeling of having your own chickens, and that they came from your own backyard,” she said.

The daily upkeep isn’t high. “They like to drink out of puddles and eat the snow in the open part of the run. There’s a big water container, a big feed container. Every couple of days, you fill up the feed container.”

The couple have put peat moss on the ground so that the droppings will mix in, and eventually it will become gardening compost. “So it’s very care-free. We don’t even have to do a lot of cleaning,” she said.

Their kids, ages two to seven, like the hens and were allowed to pick names: Feather, Pikachu and Big Red. “Our middle son enjoyed picking up his chicken and walking around with it last summer,” she said.

A chicken “will produce eggs well for two to three years and after that just become a chicken hanging around,” Carmen said. “Or some people will slaughter their chickens. Friends of ours that come from non-western countries say they like the hens as meat because it has more flavour, but used in soups and stews. You’re not going to roast it for Sunday dinner.

“We haven’t got to that point. That’s probably our plan. Our oldest has already said he doesn’t want to know that that is what we’re eating or which one it was.”


Carmen and Matthew Chase show off their three chickens their family has in the backyard of their Gatineau home Sunday March 4, 2018. ASHLEY FRASER / POSTMEDIA
They have been lucky: No sick chickens so far. Matthew originally closed the coop windows during the extreme cold after Christmas, but was surprised to find that chickens prefer some fresh air: They can deal with cold, but not with damp cold.

Building the coop “took an enormous amount of time,” Carmen said. It’s insulated, though not heated, and the Chases picked a large design.

“Finding a coop and finding the time to build it is going to be your largest input of time,” she said.

They buy feed from a commercial chicken farm, which is also where the chickens came from. Luckily, they haven’t had trouble with predators breaking into the coop, though squirrels were sneaking in to steal food for a while. The engineer fixed that.

“We try to be as sustainable as possible and for me that means not necessarily doing everything yourself but at least knowing where things that you consume come from,” Matthew said. “I can look out my window and see where the eggs come from.

“There is a definite difference in taste between free-range eggs and factory farm eggs.

“The coop design is quite important,” he said. “It does pay to do a little bit of research.”

There were tricks he learned as he built it. For instance, he has put removable boards under the area where the hens sleep, which makes it easy to slide them out and clean off the droppings.

There’s a wooded area behind them and only one immediate neighbour, though others are close by.

Reaction has been good, Matthew said. People walking past have nice things to say, and so do those who see the couple’s photos of the hens.

“Everyone is always asking how the chickens are doing. It’s not one of the crazier things we’ve done.”
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windwalkingwolf
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Re: Urban chickens allowed in Gatineau..

Post by windwalkingwolf » Tue Mar 06, 2018 8:32 pm

:stars: Another step in the right direction! I do have concerns though...
My hope is, once more and more urban centres allow backyard hens, that processors will grow as well to meet the demand for someone to butcher soup hens. There are so few poultry processors left, and more closing all the time. I'm worried that as hens age and quit laying for the winter, that people will be unwilling to process the birds themselves, but will have nowhere to take them.
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Re: Urban chickens allowed in Gatineau..

Post by thejonesboy » Wed Mar 07, 2018 6:40 am

Woooohoooo! we should market PTO to Gatineau and Toronto on Kijiji.
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Andy :egg:

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ross
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Re: Urban chickens allowed in Gatineau..

Post by ross » Wed Mar 07, 2018 6:46 am

"Not to worry Jan they'll just turn um loose back into the wild from which they cometh " He said tongue in cheek .
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ENJOY YOUR HUNTING / FISHING HERITAGE & the GREATNESS of CANADA

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Killerbunny
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Re: Urban chickens allowed in Gatineau..

Post by Killerbunny » Wed Mar 07, 2018 8:12 am

Yes Andy, I saw we have a new member from Toronto!
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Re: Urban chickens allowed in Gatineau..

Post by JP* » Wed Mar 07, 2018 11:16 am

There is a mobile processor based out of Shawville. I hope that his business does well.
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kenya
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Re: Urban chickens allowed in Gatineau..

Post by kenya » Wed Mar 07, 2018 11:17 pm

Well I hope for the best but I can see problems developing, what to do with the unwanted ones, let them loose or dump them somewhere. Increase in rats and mice causing neighbours to complain.I hope not but I think we will see it.
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Re: Urban chickens allowed in Gatineau..

Post by Ontario Chick » Thu Mar 08, 2018 11:50 am

Luckily Gatineau is very rural and La belle province has more processing places then Ontario, so should be less of a problem here.
She said hopefully. ;)
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Re: Urban chickens allowed in Gatineau..

Post by scottishpet » Sun Jan 06, 2019 7:56 pm

Good on Gatineau!
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