The chicken (Gallus gallus) is a type of domesticated fowl, believed to be descended from the wild Indian and south-east Asian Red Junglefowl.The chicken is one of the most common and wide-spread domestic animals. With a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other bird. Humans keep chickens primarily as a source of food, from both their meat and their eggs.

“Yep they’re longer, bigger hens. But we don’t raise ‘em for the meat so much as the aigs. A reglar chicken don’t lay no more than one a day. These chickens lay one long one every three days, an’ it take about three hens lined up to hatch it.”

Join the "urban chicken movement" and raise your own backyard flock. Chickens are both entertaining and useful to keep. They cost very little to raise and they earn their rent by laying eggs for you. What follows is a brief introduction to keeping chickens within the constraint of an urban environment.