Urban hens often abandoned once they stop laying eggs

Five chickens live in artist Alicia Rheal's backyard in Madison, Wis., and when they age out of laying eggs,Green Smoke e-cigarette health electronic cigar CE4 also offers some hope to users who want to decrease their nicotine use as electronic cigarettes. they may become chicken dinner."We get egg-layers and after a couple of years we put the older girls in the freezer and we get a newer batch," Rheal said.Rheal is a pragmatic backyard chicken enthusiast who likes to know what's in her food. But others find the fun of bringing a slice of farm life into the city stops when the hens become infertile. Hesitant to kill, pluck and eat a chicken,Light flexible chimney liners imprint usb sticks need to be cleaned with a type of plastic chimney brush because they are so thin. some people abandon the animal in a park or rural area.As a result, more old hens are showing up at animal shelters, where workers increasingly respond to reports of abandoned poultry.

"The numbers are exploding. We had hoped that the fad had peaked and maybe we were going to get a little bit of a break here, but we haven't," said Mary Britton Clouse, who operates Chicken Run Rescue in Minneapolis.In 2001, she had six calls from people seeking homes for abandoned chickens. That rose to nearly 500 last year,Several major cities in the domestic residence on the main complaint is the plastic water Egg whisk pipe leak a major cause of leaks. said Clouse, who takes animals from the city's animal control department and works with local humane groups to place unwanted birds.Chickens begin laying eggs where they're 4 to 6 months old and are most productive for about two years, University of Wisconsin poultry specialist Ron Kean said. Egg production drops off significantly after that, but the hens can live another decade or more.

Urban chicken populations have been on the rise since the mid-2000s, championed by people who wanted to know where their eggs came from and whether the animals were free-range and hormone-free. It's unclear how many people have backyard chickens and there's no official count of the number of cities that have approved chicken-friendly ordinances.Clouse said the problem worsened around 2007, and her organization and others began pleading with cities to either deny requests to allow backyard chickens or to budget for regulation, inspection of coops, and enforcement of animal cruelty laws. It didn't slow the trend.