One of my all-time favorite money-saving family projects of the past year is our cute backyard chickens. Ok, ok, we also wanted some outdoor pets, since my hubby is allergic to the standard indoor stuff (cats, dogs, rabbits, gerbils, etc.). But seriously, now that organic, free-range eggs are getting so spendy, our girls are definitely earning their keep!

Each of our girls lays an egg a day–fewer during the shorter days of winter. If you’ve never had a really fresh egg, it’s a real treat. The yolks are so rich they’re almost orange. And they come from very happy, doted-upon chickens.

You don’t need to have a farm to have chickens. We’re in a typical, urban neighborhood (50 x 100 lot) and we can have ’em. In fact, two other neighbors within 5 blocks have chickens. As someone said (I forget who), “chickens are the new pug”!

This cracked me up–Manhattanites with chickens. But we actually kept ours (these folks gave up on having a coop in their co-op). And our girls seem to be putting up with us pretty well. 🙂