As more and more chickens scratch and peck their way into suburban back yards, their handlers are getting increasingly sophisticated about making the digs for these favorite new family pets more attractive to their owners and their wary neighbors. In fact, some of the fancy new coops and tidy mini-barns are beginning to show up in front yards across the Lower Hudson Valley.

And thats just what the Zander family of Somers had in mind when they created a handsome new moveable chicken house and named it the Front Yard Coop. Theyve been showing it off at local venues like Hilltop Hanover Farm in Yorktown Heights and the John Jay Homestead Farm Market in Katonah, and now theyre ready to go big-time with a manufacturing partner in China.

Peter, a professional photographer, is the builder and inventor in the family, and his wife, Nan, is a great gardener and advocate of living and eating sustainably. Their daughter, Clara, has won a steady stream of prizes at county fairs for the chickens and ducks that she breeds and shows.

Clara, who first began raising chickens when she was 8, will be a junior at Rye Country Day School in the fall and has spent the last two summers working with livestock at the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills. Clara and Peter are now on the advisory board of InterGenerate, which runs a community garden in Mount Kisco and this year is hosting a heritage egg co-op at the Jay Homestead.

 

This is an evolution of all weve learned with Claras raising chickens, Peter explains. I wanted to build something that would engage children, the way Clara has gotten involved.

This has become a full-time job, and I have a full-time job, he adds with a laugh. Little did I know what this would turn into.

Business is good, Nan says. People are piling onto this chicken thing.

Raising your own chickens is part of the whole local food movement and push toward greener living. Why feed your family possibly tainted eggs from Iowa when you can grow your own?

And with your own chickens, you get entertaining, no-fuss pets, fresh eggs and a constant source of nitrogen-rich fertilizer for your yard. Chickens are great weeders, too they love dandelions and Japanese stilt grass and theyre always on the hunt for bugs and slugs.

The Front Yard Coop, which has an attached 4-by-8-foot pen, allows them to range about freely. And they dont ruin your yard this way everybodys happy, Peter says.

OK, heres the really cool part if youre not sure this whole chicken thing is for you and your family, you can rent one of the coops for two weeks to see how you like it. That costs $250, which you can apply toward the purchase of a coop.

The coop is intended for people who dont know anything about chickens, Peter says. All you need to do is give them food and water, gather the eggs and clean it out once in a while.

The deluxe model of the Front Yard Coop has a solar-powered electric-fenced pen that keeps out predators and a motor that slowly moves the wheeled cage around your yard. The movement is barely perceptible to your eye, he says, and the coop will move about 16 feet an hour.

It has a bumper system and switches so the coop reverses when it touches something solid. You can set two stakes and keep it going back and forth all day, Peter says. It really does what chickens want to do. They want to move around they dont want to sit in their own poop all day.

The coop, which has an automatic food and water system, will hold up to six birds, he says. I tell people three is a good number to start with. That way, you get two eggs a day, maybe three, depending on the breed and their age.

 

The coop stops moving at night and you dont need to heat it in winter. Just keep it close to the house and out of the wind. They dont like snow theyd rather be in Florida, just like us, Peter says.

Heat in winter is bad for them it would be like us wearing a down coat all the time, indoors and out. Nan adds. Its better for them to acclimate to the weather.

Prices for the Front Yard coops range from $1,450 for a basic stationary model to $3,225 for the deluxe model the Zanders call The Full Monty. That may seem a tad high, but theyre beautifully built certainly worthy of front-yard display.


 

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