Omnivore Atlanta

We live in Grant Park. For several years, we were awakened every morning by the crowing of a rooster. I never figured out if he was someone’s pet or a fugitive from the zoo or the victim of a rural kidnapping — kicked out of the backseat of a limo like a Mafia abductee.

Understand, I’m not talking a hidden-away rooster. This huge bird strutted up and down the cobblestone alley behind our house. On several occasions I opened the front door and found myself staring directly at him, perched on the railing of our wrap-around porch. The sight always took both of us by surprise, causing us to scream simultaneously. He’s been gone for a few years.

I thought this was an anomaly. Who knew there are chicken coops all over the city?

This Saturday, 1-4 p.m., you can tour nine urban chicken coops. The tour is sponsored by Georgia Organics and Oakhurst Community Garden, which is also hosting a class, “Chicks in the City,” that morning.

I particularly like this description of the coop d’tour in my ‘hood:

Grant Park: Last summer, four hens came home to roost in this walk-in hoophouse coop complete with disco mirror ball. Their shelter, easily constructed from scrap lumber and fencing panels, can be moved throughout the yard that the birds — a Buff Orpington, Jersey Black Giant, Auracana, and Rhode Island Red — share with two beehives. Plans available for this farm-tested, low-cost coop. Suzanne & Tom Welander.

For details on the tour (prices vary), click here, or call 678-702-0400.

(Image of Edith “The Egg Lady” Massey, from John Waters’ film Pink Flamingos. Image of disco chicken from ringtones-direct.)

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Tags: chicken-coop-tour, Georgia-Organics, Oakhurst-Community-Garden, urban-chickens.