Words and Light

Chickens are really funny animals. And they are, surprisingly, pretty fun to photograph.

The way they strut around and interact with each other (there’s a reason why it’s called “pecking order”) is totally erratic and unpredictable. At least, that’s how it seemed to me — your everyday girl from suburbia — when I visited the chickens owned by the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture.

Columbia recently passed a city ordinance that allows residents to keep up to six hens in their backyards, with some restrictions on coops, waste management and etc. CCUA and its members currently keep six hens — three Rhode Island Reds, one Buff Orpington, one Australorp-Rhode Island Red mix and one Dominic — in a greenhouse across the street from its office/house, at least until they finish constructing the coop in the backyard.

Flight of the... chicken.

I’ve been in touch with Daniel, one of the CCUA directors, for a while now, and today was my first visit to the greenhouse. I also attended tonight’s workshop wherein Mary Stilwell discussed the basics of starting and caring for backyard broods. I’ll be going to Saturday’s workshop as well.

So today, I’ve learned a lot about chickens. They’re pretty neat animals, actually. Daniel compared them to cats in terms of how little maintenance they require — and they eat table scraps and bugs, provide compost material via their manure and, of course, produce eggs. And, doubly of course, meat.

Eggs produced by CCUA's chickens.

All of this is for my one-day/five-points-of-view story for capstone.