Tour de Coop

On Saturday Poopsie and I attended the Tour de Coop. It's an event sponsored by Wasatch Community Gardens to promote awareness of backyard chicken coops. The event is a great opportunity to learn more about raising urban chickens.
And of course, you can't have the birds without the bees. One of the families on the tour has a company bring in a couple of hives for the purpose of pollinating their vegetable garden.
The children on the tour seemed to really enjoy viewing the coops.

It was interesting to see the variety of coops. I think poking around other people's yard is fun, too.
This is the coop of Melissa and Bernard. I was impressed by their bountiful waterwise garden. Their backyard is a little food factory urban homestead. Bernard said their motivation for raising chickens is the manure. He has quite the impressive composting set up.
Now here is a man who is "into" manure!
Their raised vegetable gardens were a real inspiration.

Here is one of their Buff Orpingtons working hard on an egg right now. They have named their chickens after Jane Austin characters. So clever.
The lesson learned from the Tour de Coop is that you don't have to have a fancy and elaborate coop to raise backyard chickens. Christy has a flock of hens that free ranges her back yard during the day.

They spend the night in this simple yet sturdy hutch.
The coop of Sam and Bogart was the highlight of the tour for me. Their coop has a very modern sensibility which reflects the Asian look of their yard and bungalow. Their backyard was surrounded by the most fabulous bamboo fencing. I told Poopsie we need one of these.
...As well as the only "turkin" on the tour!
They have a large enclosed area for the birds to roam freely and three nesting boxes.

Poopsie and I learned so much on the tour this year. We spent the rest of the weekend working on our coop.
Love, Kelly