Black Stars, Black Rocks, or Rock Reds, are crosses between a Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire rooster and a Barred Rock hen. Both sexes hatch out black, but a cockerel will have a white dot on his head. Pullets feather out black with a hint of red on their necks; cockerels have Barred Rock-type plumage accented with a few red feathers.
Red sex-links are produced by a number of different crosses. White Plymouth Rock hens with the silver factor are crossed with New Hampshire roosters to produce Golden Comets. Silver Laced Wyandotte hens are crossed with New Hampshire roosters to produce Cinnamon Queens. Additional red sex-link combinations are Rhode Island White hens with Rhode Island Red roosters or Delaware hens with Rhode Island Red roosters. Cockerels hatch out white and then feather out pure white or with a hint of black feathering mixed in, depending on the cross. Pullets hatch out buff or red, depending on the cross, and they feather out buff or red with flecks of white throughout.
Both sex-link colors are calm, cold hardy, quiet, and friendly birds with an unusually efficient feed-conversion ratio. They work well in confinement or free-range situations. Hens weigh about 5 pounds each, begin laying earlier than most breeds, and lay a lot of brown eggs. Sex-links are outstanding city chickens.
A Home for Your City Chicks
We’ll discuss coops and runs for your chickens in the next chapter, but keep the following thoughts in mind.
•Most city statutes spell out how big your coop and outdoor exercise area should be and which amenities you must provide. What they often don’t stipulate—and this is vitally important—is that city chicken-keeping facilities must be attractive. Your neighbors won’t be pleased if you create an eyesore in your backyard.
•Buy or build the best coop and fencing you can afford. Sturdy prefabricated units are especially appealing in urban situations because they’re engineered to combine safety, convenience, and beauty. If you are going to build your own coop, collect ideas by surfing the Internet or visiting other chicken keepers, buying plans, or perusing a copy of Judy Pangman’s Chicken Coops: 45 Building Plans for Housing Your Flock.
•Obey your municipality’s setback laws. Measure to be certain. In fact, to preserve your neighbors’ good will, build your facilities as far away from property lines as possible.
•Opt for a generously sized coop, based on the number of hens you plan to house. More space means less crowding and happier hens, along with less-concentrated waste and less smell.
•While some urban chicken keepers go for cute- or quaint-looking coops, in many cases, natural camouflage is more in order. A privacy fence or shrubs planted around your chicken facilities make them less obtrusive and also serve to help deaden sounds.
•Plan outdoor facilities for your hens. An exercise pen attached to their coop, a well-fenced backyard (providing your hens aren’t flyers), or a chicken tractor all work well. Otherwise, plan to stay outdoors with your hens while they free-range on bugs and grass. They need you to protect them from predators (particularly dogs and humans) and prevent them from wandering into neighbors’ yards or the road.
Keep It Clean
A single full-size chicken can produce up to 50 pounds of solid waste per year. If you don’t keep your facilities ultra-clean, they will smell. Nothing turns off picky neighbors faster than eau de barnyard wafting over the property line. While we usually advocate deep litter bedding for chickens, in a city setting, it’s better to pick up messes daily and completely strip and re-bed your henhouse once a week.
Store waste in covered trash receptacles and find a place to dispose of it on an ongoing basis. If you garden, compost it. If you don’t garden, compost it anyway and present finished compost to gardening neighbors and friends. Otherwise, take waste to a farming friend in the country so that he or she can dispose of it. Don’t let it accumulate, uncovered, on your property for very long.
Be prepared to deal with flies and rodents. Earth-friendly fly sprays and fly traps are the way to go. Rodents are a bigger problem, but one you must face, because chicken feed is ambrosia to mice and rats. Store feed in covered metal containers. Trash cans work exceptionally well. Don’t use plastic containers; rats chew through them without a twitch of a whisker.
Eradicating existing rodents is tricky. Don’t use poisons that your neighbor’s cat or a wandering toddler might find. Traps work well, but, better yet, adopt a friendly cat or a Parson Russell or Rat Terrier that needs a good home; they are natural vermin control at its finest.
Keeping City Chickens Is a Privilege
It’s important, both for you and for fellow municipal chicken keepers, to comply with chicken laws to the letter and not let your birds create a disturbance. It’s also important to get along with your neighbors: their complaints could bring animal control to your front door. If enough neighbors complain on a citywide basis, residents’ rights to keep chickens could be revoked.
Consider sharing eggs with your neighbors. Be considerate; even if noisy roosters are legal, don’t keep one. Invite neighborhood children to meet your hens and distribute chicken feed. Happy neighbors = happy you.
Finally, consider joining or creating a local chicken keepers’ association. Encourage members to teach community classes in urban chicken keeping. Take programs to schools and local events. Show naysayers that city chickens aren’t the smelly, noisy barnyard fowl that they expect. Maybe they’ll take up the banner and get some chickens, too.
There are not many things cuter than fluffy yellow chicks.
Heritage Breeds
Fortunately, growing legions of poultry fanciers and small-scale chicken raisers are stepping forth to reclaim our forebears’ poultry breeds. This rare-breed renaissance is occurring throughout the world for numerous reasons.
Some conservators long for the mouthwatering fried chicken Grandma used to serve for Sunday dinner or for yummy, orange-yolked eggs with divine flavor. Some yearn to preserve living remnants of our distant past. Others do it in the name of biodiversity—they feel that if disease or genetic malady should strike down America’s beleaguered battery hens and broilers, there must be hardy Heritage breeds ready to take up the slack. Some simply prefer breeds created for specific environments and needs, such as Buckeyes and Hollands for free-range eggs, Chanteclers for winter laying in the far North, or heat-tolerant Cubalayas for the steamy South.
Before you join the rare-breed contingent, get to know The Livestock Conservancy (formerly the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy). This is a nonprofit membership organization devoted to the promotion and protection of more than 150 breeds of livestock and poultry. In service since 1977, it’s the primary organization in the United States working to conserve rare breeds and genetic diversity in Heritage livestock. In 2009, The Livestock Conservancy launched its Heritage-chicken promotion, and it’s eager to provide new Heritage-breed producers, large and small, with materials to help get started and, later, to promote and market eggs and meat from their Heritage chickens.
Endangered Breeds
If you join The Livestock Conservancy, you’ll receive the organization’s bimonthly print newsletter and an annual directory full of contacts. Livestock Conservancy breeders make up an active network of people who participate in hands-on conservation, marketing, and public education; if you are getting into chicken keeping, particularly if you plan on raising, showing, or breeding endangered breeds, they are definitely people you want to know.
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