All her life Donna Ward has wanted to live on a farm.
Growing up in suburban Tukwila in the 1950s wasn’t exactly the city, but Ward pined to work the soil and tend animals. To Ward, farming seems a path back to nature and the basics. The solitude and self-sufficiency of farm life appeal to her.
“I think there’s something essentially calming to our souls when we get closer to the earth,” she said.
But Ward, 54, built a life in a suburban home, not the farm. She raised four children and works part time in her husband’s insurance office. Despite that, this self-described “frustrated farm girl” found a way to bring a bit of the country life to her Woodinville backyard.
Ward keeps chickens.
“I thought no way could I have chickens because I live in suburbia and your vision of chickens is always these big, nasty coops that are sort of smelly and there’s flies,” she said. “I never wanted to commit a whole part of my yard to something like that.”
Then Ward discovered a solution: small, moveable coops functional enough to house a handful of chickens yet attractive enough not to raise eyebrows in this small neighborhood of neatly trimmed lawns and three-car garage homes.
She bought a coop 21/2 years ago and liked it so much she became the major U.S. distributor of the hen houses and coops, created by a company in England, Forsham Cottage Arks. The motto of her business is “Stylish Coops for Suburban Chicks.”
Ward’s coop looks more like a chicken condo than a farmyard hen house. The model she owns is a chalet with its A-frame roof and stained-wood exterior. Coops are hen houses and a run together, while hen houses are the places chickens rest and roost, she explained.
Grasping the toggles on the side of the coop, Ward pulled off one side of the hen house roof and revealed wood-chip lined nesting boxes where the chickens lay their eggs and a perch. All the doors lift off for easier access and cleaning.
A wood ramp allows chickens to move down to the bottom level. A grit box and feed box are mounted inside a bottom door below, along with a water bowl that refills itself – a modification she invented.
Wheels are attached to the bottom of the coop. Ward grasped two curved handles and pushed the coop like a wheelbarrow to another spot on the lawn.
The bottom of the coop is lined with wire mesh to keep the chickens from digging into Ward’s trimmed green lawn. She said the chickens’ droppings dissolve into the lawn in a few days; none is visible.
Ward’s neighborhood covenant allows her to have three chickens and no roosters. Without a rooster, Ward’s backyard birds are quiet enough no one would know she had them.
“I just like the self-sufficiency of it,” she said, describing why she keeps chickens. “But that’s a myth I guess because three chickens doesn’t mean I don’t need the stores anymore.
“But something in me likes to know that I can take care of the chickens. I can stock grain up. All they need is feed and water and I get eggs.”
In the warm months, each chicken produced about an egg a day and about half that amount in the winter. The eggs are warm, malleable and slightly sticky when they first arrive and then harden quickly. Some are blue-green, others brown.
The chickens provide more than a good omelet; she put them to work in her yard and they’ve proven to be apt helpers. The chickens fertilize and till the soil, eat pests, and clear dead vegetation from the garden.
Ward’s hen house attaches to a run covered with wire mesh. She keeps a large vegetable garden and during the winter she moves the run around her garden and lets the chickens do the dirty work.
The coops come in different designs and sizes, and they’re not cheap. The smallest model runs about $800, while the largest is more than $1,700.
Extras such as wheels, a feed box, a draughtboard to protect the birds from bad weather and an automatic water system can push the price up several hundred dollars.
The coops are expensive to ship overseas and well built, she explained. The coops are more like yard art than birdhouses with tongue and groove construction and craftsman designs.
“It’s the best made and prettiest thing out there. You don’t want something ugly in your yard.”
The price is often a deterrent for serious farmers. Ward set up a booth during the Evergreen State Fair and didn’t get much interest from rural folk, who prefer to get by with a homemade coop.
“This appeals to people who aren’t truly rural – they’re semi-rural or suburban,” she said. “It makes it possible for people with a regular yard to have chickens.”
The price is likely more tolerable for city dwellers because for most chickens are pets, not a product.
“Because it’s an active part of their yard, they want it to look nice,” Ward said.
City dwellers don’t have the option to devote a large part of a tiny yard to a chicken flop house.
Judy Nicholson, 57, owns a hen house and a coop and keeps seven chickens at her Monroe home. The mobility and aesthetics of the coops appeal to Nicholson, an architect who is interested in landscape design.
“They fit in beautifully with our property,” she said.
She likes that she can wheel the coop around the property, rather than building a coop in one spot. She also admires the construction; the sides of the coop open and interior pieces remove easily so the coop can be cleaned.
“I do appreciate the way the coops are made. The convenience is not something you could duplicate inexpensively. It’s not cheap but well worth it,” she said.
She mounted her hen house on stilts so her grandkids could easily access the bins where the hens lay.
Both Ward’s and Nicholson’s families are attached to the chickens.
“They’re funny and soothing in a way,” Ward said, explaining her affection for chickens. “They make these funny little clucking sounds when I go out there. All I have to do is step out the backdoor and they hear me or see me and they start talking to me.”
“Waaaahhhhh.” Ward put her hand to her throat and perfectly imitated the chicken’s soft warble.
“They’re friendly little creatures and if you spend a lot of time with them, they’ll crawl up and be like little pets.”
Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.
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