Goodbye, Chickens

Well, the day has come. We are no longer going to keep our chickens. Not because we don't want them, but because we can't keep them.

This spring we saw that Des Moines allows up to 30 chickens in town, so we thought that if our state's capital allows them, surely our town would. I guess we were wrong. We got a call today that we would have to get rid of them. All of our neighbors, at least the ones left (a lot of houses are empty around us) have known about our chickens and have thought they were great, especially after they were given eggs. We aren't really sure who would have called about them since they are behind our house and somewhat out of sight, but we do have a lot of people that walk on our street and maybe got a glimpse of their silhouettes through the plastic sheeting. I guess it doesn't matter though since it is a law in our town, and we don't want to knowingly break the law - not that we have a choice now.

The chickens will be joining the farm where our cows are at. I guess we can consider this another part of our experimenting with them. Instead of being in their sun room, they will be inside a building. It will be interesting to see how the change of light effects their egg laying. The weather conditions are pretty much the same at the farm as they are here, so if we keep their food consistent, the amount of sunlight will probably be the main variable. So here's to experimenting.

With the chickens going, we are now left with a tank of aquarium fish and our dog. An encouraging note is that last night the church board voted in favor of selling the parsonage we are living in. The congregation will vote on it in a little over a month. We are pretty confident that it will pass, and then we can start looking for an acreage that will be welcoming to chickens and cows, as well as any other farm animal we would like to work with.