Chickens can give trouble in the city. They are noisy, smell and often escape. But chickens are fun to watch from the window and can be so cute! The answer is Bantam chickens they are big in staying tiny.. You can see that the right chicken in the picture is tiny next to the normal sized chickens. They fly less, less noisy, less manure and don't attack/scratch little children.
Many breeds have a bantam version like the sebright, serama's and chabo's. They can be a bit pricy and are useless for meat. The animal still give great fresh eggs and that's worth enough to try it out! You need roughly 2m2 and you need to cage them or fence the whole garden. They are tiny so they won't fly very high like bigger chickens. Don't go below the 2m2 (20 square ft) of walking space per chicken. Chickens with less space have more diseases, more fights and need more feed.
Before you take chickens you need to look if the local government allows it in the city. In some places it's not allowed of the noisy cock is not allowed. Avoid having a cock to keep the neighbours happy. They are noisy and often on the wrong times. Neighbours that are fine with a little bit of noise are awesome and should be rewarded with a box of eggs. A box of eggs keeps them happy and can even make them enjoy hearing sometimes a little bit of noise. Chickens are great in eating scraps, meat, rice, bread and egg shells it doesn't really matter. Your own local food production is always good for the environment and your health.
Chickens eet very varied. Insects, plant material, old meat, worms, snails, fruit and ofcourse grain. They are perfect in processing your household waste. The issue is that this can become to smelly in the city. The best way to avoid this is to feed the chickens little. If they don't directly attack new food you give them to much. You can also make a compost pile of chicken wire. Don't add meat or cooked food to the pile to avoid smell.
Remove poisonous plants. If you let the chickens freerange in your own garden you should avoid poisonous plants. Especially colorfull flowers can be tricky with chickens.
Small bantams only need half a square meter (5 square feet) of inside space. The most important is that the cage is out of the wind and protects them against rats, dogs, cats and snakes. Especially nearby a small forest or with many cats you will lose some chickens. A chicken tractor can fix this problem. A chicken tractor is the same as a Rabbit tractor perfect on a lawn. You can even combine chickens and rabbits in one tractor as long as its big enough!
Eggs
The eggs are as healthy as the chickens are. The Bantams will lay most of the year around 5 eggs a week. In the winter they often stop laying depending on the climate. The eggs are a bit smaller so you need 1 or 2 bantams per person to have enough eggs. Feed them in the winter a bit more that can help with production.
Chickens are not the smartest chickens. The street, cars, ponds, waterwells, motoroil, chloride and rat poison. White wash the cage with lime. Lime avoid chicken diseases like ticks and mold. Read a book about how to keep chickens. The last danger is the boss. Read about chicken diseases, weird egg problems etc!
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