Someone started a chicken-babysitting business

[The Chicken Lady]

http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/23/smallbusiness/urban_chickens/index.htm

Very creative entrepreneurs!

 

[redhen]

Wonder if they are members here??

 

[theoldchick]

Check that out! Very interesting for sure!

 

[MysticScorpio82]

Hmmmm..... I think I may have to look into this somemore. Very creative!

 

[ChooksChick]

I did that, too- even have a website. I don't have any takers, yet, but one regular client. It will happen- I expect this Thanksgiving and Christmas will bring a lot of clients.

 

[NellaBean]

My regular petsitter "watches" my chickens for me. I try to keep it as easy as possible. Just let them out in the morning and lock them up at night....i put out extra feed and water so they won't run out before I get back. Last trip, I accidently confused the lady and she opened the wrong coops up. Major rooster rumble....sigh.....but if they had an actual chicken sitter around here, I would add her on just to lighten the load a bit.

Good idea, although probably pretty location-specific.

 

[PineappleMama]

Well, why not? Not the first, like they seem to think, but still no different then a dog-sitter.

I find it a little weird though that they mentioned their flock numbers... IE "The business partners, who each boast a full roost of laying hens (four for Piasenki; eight for Rowland), " Four and Eight....

"One of Just Us Hens' first customers was Renee Wrede, a nurse in Southwest Portland who worried about what would become of her new flock when she and her family took a beach vacation. Rowland signed on to watch "the girls": two barred Plymouth Rock hens, one Ameraucana, one Blue Laced Red Wyandotte and one Welsumer." That is a flock of four...

When in the same article it says outright "Chickens are all the rage in Portland, where longstanding city regulations allow residents to keep up to three of them -- but no roosters -- without a permit. "

Surely they have crankypants snootie snoots who cause grief just like elsewhere... why would they give them ammo? Granted maybe all of these folks have applied for and gotten the special permit (is the permit for more than three or for a Roo?), but still having a call put in, having to prove you're legal is a pain. I'd have just stuck with saying "I have a -legal- flock" wouldn't have listed my exact numbers.

But then, we all know I'm a paranoid nut, particularly when it comes to code rangers...

 

[chickerdoodle]

I live in the Portland metro area (and I have used Just Us Hens to watch my chickens!) and the permit is for more than 3 hens--no roosters allowed. The city's vector control comes out and inspects your coop and area you keep the food, etc. and gives you a permit for how many hens you can have or makes recommendations of what you need to do to have more.

Personally, I live in unincorporated Washington County (Portland is in neighboring Multnomah County) and can have as many hens as I want. Since we are in the suburbs and have a good sized yard we have 5 pullets. The Portland area is renowned for sustainability and a "green" conscious.

However, we really like to go on vacation and not worry about our girls. Its a great help to have professional chicken sitters if no one who knows about chickens can watch them. If we couldn't use the sitters we really couldn't go away as often as we do.

 

[b.hromada]

I love this idea!!

More people should do this too!

 

[Mattemma]

I saw that.Nice idea.If that was around here(and affordable) I could be on a 3 week vacation on the other side of the world with dh and dd,but instead I am home tending to the animals,lol. For some reason family and friends don't want to deal with chickens,and especially not a hormonal teen rooster.