There are many things they don’t tell you:

About chickens …

No one tells you that if you get chooks it will start a mini craze in the neighbourhood. Suddenly neighbours in every direction are inspired to emulate your green credentials. Call it new green, new frugalism, sustainability, who cares?  Within two months we went from zero to 28 chooks (including one juvenile rooster)spread between five houses.

Two people at my work got chooks too. We are definitely trend setters.

No one tells you that if the neighbours get chickens then yours will be the yard in which the chickens decide to congregate. There’s a certain permeability between our places in my neighbourhood. Dogs, chooks and children pass easily between backyards that are either unfenced or haphazardly marked by easily climbed  strings of wire.

For some reason, half the neighbourhood chooks have decided that ours is the place to be. It’s  a bit like being the house where the kids all want to hang (which ours isn’t, which may explain why the chooks like to come here for the relative peace away from dogs and kids.)

It’s the same deal, though, your yard is trashed, and lots of hopeful hungry mouths follow you about whenever you step outside.