Backyard Poultry in Ontario..

[Ontario Chick]

So we are now well in to the 21st century jumping from Dial up Internet, to FIBE, I feel so sophisticated just writing that
PVR has been a godsend being able to record interesting programs during the day, watching old repeats (new to me) of Escape to the Country, it amazes me how often there are chickens in back yards or keeping chickens as one of the wishes on the list of things to do after the move.
Seeing that the program is British, and mostly they are small-holdings, made me wonder how much history has to do with poultry keeping.
Just curious if seeing the poultry in your neighbors back yard as a kid, would make you more likely to choose it as a hobby.

[KimChick]

It seems Fiber has been set up around here but not connected.
I love Escape to the Country! The British are much more polite and do much less complaining about the properties they view.

[Penny]

Just curious if seeing the poultry in your neighbors back yard as a kid, would make you more likely to choose it as a hobby.

I think yes! My grandparents always had a few banty hens running around. I was both fascinated and terrified by them at that age. lol But, that memory was part of what made me want my own few chickens.

[windwalkingwolf]

I don't know what FIBE is, is that fiber optics? I'm not even really sure what fiber optics are--we live so far out in the sticks that satellite internet or dial-up are our only options, and our satellite receiver has to be up a 50 foot pole lol. We can also do cellular internet (bonus points to me for knowing what that is), but it's VERY limited, even more so than satellite. To use it for internet, our tower would have to be at least 75 feet. To make a good cell call, we have to go outside in the middle of an open yard, hold the phone in the air, and shout at it.
PVR...we were supposed to get pvr with our t.v thingy package...I kept trying over and over to "set" the pvr to record (buttons were right there on the remote!), until I realized we didn't have a PVR thingy...because Shaw accidentally didn't send one to me...
Give me a broken-down old POS car, I'll tell you what's wrong with it, and fix it. Give me a new cable box, and apparently I'm dickered.
But, as for seeing chickens in your neighbours' back yard and choosing it as a hobby, my next door neighbours (about 1/3 my age and still have children at home) to the east of me, now in the past three years, have a chicken coop for a few layers. And then a second one for a few breeders and a rooster. And now, I'm pretty sure I hear quacking over there.

[Killerbunny]

Escape to the Country always amuses me. I don't know who they have doing their camera work but they are a genius, Managing to make pokey properties look large and tiny lots too. Laughter once when someone said they wanted 2 acres and the host said they wouldn't know what to do with it. Britain is so crowded and the country is filled with small pockets of housing. Villages (we used to live in one) are very close to the next one. When we went back to visit my Mother, the only time back in 30 years, I couldn't wait to come home. It felt so cramped and crowded. We visited the farm my Aunt and Uncle used to work on in the Scottish "wilds" and it's still the same and beautiful but somehow very civilised compared to the North Country I love here. I think that's where I started to be interested in farm animals and my childhood times there were where all my happiest memories come from.
I hope with our change in Council, assuming it stands after the recount, that they might stop hassling people over their chickens etc. I mentioned in another post they are wrongly calling backyard chickens a "Livestock Operation" and you need 10 acres.
Enough of the rant. Our neighbours kids and grandkids love to come and see the birds and pick their own eggs at Easter. Maybe it will start something?

[ross]

Planting the seed KB

[TomK]

It seems to me that although the backyard poultry thing has grown a tad over the last while it is still something the urban transplants think of as cute and quaint but better done by the neighbours...and those that try it, buy one of those 400$ coopy things at TSC and lose their birds withing a few weeks because it's a POS, using one of Jan's fave expressions...and then throw their hands in the air and give up...having said that, I still get a nice feeling when I drive around my neck of the woods and see some birds out on the lawn or ditch doing their thing...all rather pastoral and just sooooo real somehow...and I am sure the local fox knows about this...lol...I am always amazed at the number of people I meet that are pining to ditch the urban scene and move out to their own little piece of paradise...I'm glad that 90% never make it because if they all made it, paradise would be gone...anyone hear Joni Mitchell in that comment?..lol...and I wonder what all those folks in England on their postage stamp lot would do with my 75 acres...hell, I barely know what to do with it...lol...there's never enough time....

[Ontario Chick]

I don't know what FIBE is, is that fiber optics? I'm not even really sure what fiber optics are--

Being a Ludite, I steadfastly refused any technical explanations offered by my sons, reasoning that since I still didn't know how the picture gets in to the TV I wouldn't be able to grasp anything else, BUT with fiber optics I finally get it, the picture gets squeezed in to the cable, runs over to my house and opens, similar to a peony bloom on my screen.
Never had cable TV, since I am familiar with the "500 hundred Chanel universe and nothing on" but the PVR is a godsend.

[Ontario Chick]

Escape to the Country always amuses me. I don't know who they have doing their camera work but they are a genius, Managing to make pokey properties look large

That actually made get out my Weights and measures book, coz I was convinced that an acre must be different size in Britain, nope, just like KB said, great camera work

[Shnookie]

I grew up in the city. There were no chickens in town. My mother's parents were pioneers, and lived on the farm. Almost all her family members farmed as well. We often went to the farms to visit and most of the chickens were running loose in the yard. I preferred it to visiting relatives in the city. I don't know where my interest in chickens came from. I like all kinds of animals. I did really like Rusty the Rooster - a puppet on The Friendly Giant show, when I was a kid.

I like to watch a lot of shows from the UK. I often see flowers I like, and wonder what they are.