Backyard poultry grows in popularity

Photo by Susan Holland The chicken tractor in the Wallace yard is a cozy home for the family’s small flock. Lise Wentz calls it their “poultry palace.” Attractively painted in red and white, it contains roosts and nesting boxes for the hens and is mounted on wheels so it can be easily moved from one location to another.
Photo by Susan Holland The chicken tractor in the Wallace yard is a cozy home for the family’s small flock. Lise Wentz calls it their “poultry palace.” Attractively painted in red and white, it contains roosts and nesting boxes for the hens and is mounted on wheels so it can be easily moved from one location to another.

GRAVETTE -- Keeping chickens in town is becoming more popular all the time. Some townsfolk who grew up on farms miss the country life and want to hark back to their rural roots. Others who may never have lived in the country enjoy eating eggs and use many in cooking, so they choose to keep chickens for a ready supply of eggs.

In the good old days, of course, most people did have chickens in town. It makes sense to have some hens in the backyard. A free range flock rids your property of ticks and other insect pests. They also scratch weeds out of the garden. They may eventually discover and peck holes in some of the choice vegetables; then you may have to fence them out of the garden or at least cover the most tempting specimens with a cage of poultry wire.

Chickens eat your household food waste, up to nine pounds per chicken per month. There's no need to waste your food scraps if you have a home flock. Chickens eat stale bread products, fruit and vegetable peelings and leftovers from your meals. Some dairy farmers even give their chickens milk and the whey left after making cheese.

Eggs from the home flock are more flavorful and nutritious than those from the supermarket. First of all, they're fresher as you may use them the same day they're laid. Some eggs on store shelves may be weeks or even months old. Free range hens that eat greens, flowers, bugs and a variety of grasses lay eggs with a darker yolk, a good indicator of flavor. Fresh eggs taste better and they're healthier. They contain less cholesterol, more vitamin A, D and E and more omega-3s than eggs produced in the traditional processing plant.

Lise Wentz and her husband Frank Wallace, who live on Boston Street, N.E., in Gravette, are two of those who didn't raise chickens in the past. They chose to begin because, Lise says, they eat a lot of eggs and they use them in cooking. The couple have four children. Two of them, Kyle Sands, who graduated from Gravette High School last year, and Kaitlyn Sands, who is a junior at GHS, live at home. Both Kyle and Kaitlyn help eat the eggs. And, when the family has extras, they share them with friends.

Lise, Frank and their family moved to Gravette in 2004 from Bella Vista. They decided just last year to start their home flock. Lise is the one who cares for the chickens. She attended P. Allen Smith's poultry workshop in September, 2014, at Moss Mountain Farm in Roland, near Little Rock. Smith is very involved in promoting and preserving heritage breeds of poultry and Lise bought her chickens from him.

The Wallace family's small flock is composed of only a half dozen birds. The rooster and two hens are barred Plymouth Rocks. One hen is a Buff Orpington, one a silver-laced Wyandotte and another, the largest, is a blue Jersey Giant.

The chickens live in a chicken tractor, on wheels so it can be easily moved from place to place in the yard. Frank got the structure, which Lise calls their "poultry palace," in Missouri. It is an attractive unit painted white with red trim and a black rooster design. It has a metal roof and contains roosts and nest boxes for the hens.

Lise likes to let the flock be as free range as possible. In good weather they are out roaming the yard, busily scratching in the dust, pecking at insects and clucking contentedly. She knows that the more exercise and sun the chickens receive, the happier and healthier they'll be. Lise supplements their diet with a non-GMO scratch feed and some table scraps. She has built a shelter from hay bales for protection on colder days.

The backyard flock is from the 2014 spring hatch and, since they are free range chickens, they are not "forced" to grow like the chickens in a commercial chicken house. The hens just began laying around the first of February and Lise has collected only a few dozen eggs so far, but the family is looking forward to warmer weather and an increase in eggs in the near future.

Persons wanting to join the Wallace family in raising chickens in the backyard should check their city's laws. Some restrict the number of birds you can keep and some prohibit roosters. Gravette's animal control regulations state only that poultry "shall be maintained in suitable pens or other enclosures by the owner or person having responsibility for the care and maintenance of the poultry." Another section of the ordinance says, "Every poultry house maintained within the city shall be kept in a clean, sanitary condition." And poultry are not allowed to run at large or, in other words, off the owner's property.

General News on 02/25/2015