It started with an email in early January that went something like this. "Jeremy, we are trying to put together a workshop to talk about raising chickens in the city. Would you be interested in speaking at it?" From there it grew into an adventure that culminated on March 26 in Oshkosh.

To me personally the idea made sense; after all, many cities are currently considering ordinance changes that would allow individuals to keep some birds for personal use. Add to that the number of people who are starting to raise poultry for fun, home use, and to make a little extra cash. Not to mention the idea of knowing where your food is coming from, and the growing movement to go green. Put this all together and you have the perfect situation to share knowledge, and make some money.

Author Jeremy Trost speaks to audience about keeping birds in an urban environment.

Once the decision was made to proceed, and there were speakers willing to participate, it started coming together. Purely Poultry, Buck Creek Chickens, UW Extension, and Glacierland Resource Conservation & Development decided to sponsor the event. Glacierland was key as they provided the group with a coordinator, Greg Hines, to help with the logistics. It was also decided that the speakers would be myself, Tyler Danke, Paula Lehrer, and Nick Schneider. I had the experience of already having birds in the city; Tyler has been running a poultry business since he was in 4-H, Paula has been raising birds for many years, and Nick works with farmers on manure handling.

The next major step came on February 8. Greg met with the speakers to start getting the pieces put together. We brainstormed barriers that may be encountered by urban and new poultry keepers as well as the topics that must be covered. We knew that we needed to have a minimum attendance requirement, and we had to choose a date that we would need this number by. We decided that the minimum participants would be 20, and that they needed to be registered by March 18. Anyone registered by that date would pay $10 per person to attend. Anyone that registered after that date would pay a late registration fee of $15 per person. We also discussed children and decided that very small children should not attend and there would not be a reduced fee based on age. During this meeting we gave each of our presenters topic details. From there it was up to them to develop their presentation. We also decided that we would speak for a predetermined time that varied by topic, but ranged from 30 to 60 minutes. The topics that would be covered included where to get birds, how to house birds, manure handling, and personal experiences raising poultry in the city. Greg also had brought some flyers and posters to the meeting to use in promoting the workshop. Initial thoughts were that we would post these where poultry people would frequent. We quickly realized that this was the wrong approach since we were targeting people that wanted to get started with poultry. Instead we needed to determine where these types of people might visit. We decided that pet stores, wellness shops, and community gathering places would be better. It was also decided that posting on the internet, and getting the information into other publications would help. This meant using craigslist, facebook, and other networking sites and resources. We then decided that we should meet again on March 15 to get a feel for how we were doing and to pull together the final details.

Guest speaker Paula Lehrer shows the audience her Mille Fleur Cochin bantam hen. Paula used this hen to discuss a color project that she is working on. The hen was a big hit with those in attendance. Live birds are an excellent part of a presentation for an audience that has not been around chickens before.

Each of us then spent the next six weeks putting together the details for our presentations. We kept in contact via email and as the weeks passed we started hearing the results of the preregistration. It wasn't long before we learned that we had the minimum 20 that we agreed on. From there it moved to 30 and then 40. By the time we met on March 15, the estimate was that we would have more than 50 participants registered, plus some walk-ins. By the following Monday we were anticipating about 70 total participants. And then it happened, on March 23 the city of Oshkosh passed their city ordinance allowing individuals to keep up to four hens. Within a day or so the number quickly grew to 100, and then it was estimated there might be as many as 150 people in attendance! That is when it became real to me. I thought, "You know, we might have something here. There appears to be a real demand for this." By the morning of March 26th, workshop day, we had 94 pre-registered paid attendees, and there were 23 or so walk-ins; making the final count right around 120 people.

To make this all come together we needed sponsors and vendors. Each person involved in bringing this together had different personal contacts and we each agreed to reach out and ask how they could support the workshop. We wanted vendors that were directly related to the keeping of poultry, and we ended up with vendors who sold baby chicks, poultry books, and poultry feed. We also had various UW and Glacierland departments set up displays as well.

We knew that attendee's would expect some materials for the event. As a group we decided that the presentations should be printed for each person. They would also receive a folder and pencil, as well as some miscellaneous materials such as related websites and a list of known ordinances for cities in the area. They also would receive a free copy of Backyard Poultry magazine, and everyone would wear a name tag.

When it came to the venue, we used the Sunny View Expo building at the Winnebago County Fairgrounds. We set up tables and chairs for all participants, as well as a public address system and an overhead projector and a screen to display the presentations on. Each speaker had to use a microphone simply so everyone could easily hear. The day before the workshop those that could help set up the building did. The speakers and coordinators then planned to arrive Saturday morning by 8:00 a.m. to finalize the set up and make sure we were ready. Unfortunately, we didn't account for registration time before the 9:00 a.m. start time. This was our first mistake as the participants starting arriving shortly after we did. This then meant that although we were there, we were not ready to start registration, and participants began lining up.

One-week-old Lavender and Partridge Silkie chicks were brought by speaker Paula Lehrer. Chicks can win the hearts of even the most doubtful participant!

Shortly after we realized having the participants pick up their own handouts and supplies was slowing down the registration process because everyone was trying to go through the line and get all the materials. Next we realized that the 9:00 a.m. start was quickly approaching and people were still registering. This was because we did not plan for a "networking" opportunity which meant people were still trying to register as we were trying to get started. Starting before everyone was registered meant that there was the commotion of registration still happening, as well as the inevitable late arrivers. This also meant that some attendees missed, or could not easily hear the beginning of the workshop. We also realized at the same time that there was a shortage of seating. We had not accounted for that good old human nature of not wanting to sit right next to people you don't know. That led to the commotion of trying to find more chairs and pulling empty chairs out from between the attendees. The final high commotion time came once we tried to bring everyone back from the planned break. Everything else went pretty well, with just a few more lessons to learn.

Some things that we noted to do differently should have probably been obvious, but nonetheless we missed them. First was that our topics were not defined clearly enough back in February. Tyler, Paula, and I overlapped each other on the topics of breeds and housing. When it came to breeds we each spoke about them in relation to our portion of the workshop, but we probably should have combined them all into one topic of their own. Regarding the housing we each talked about housing at different ages, and from different points of view (utility vs. aesthetic). The only topic that was clearly and perfectly defined was the manure handling. As each of us presented we noted that there were some things we didn't entirely agree with, and we thought that maybe we should have done more of a panel type presentation instead of individually. Many, many things went well including the question and answer portion. During this part each speaker was at the front of the group and we answered each of their questions.

The topics that we covered in the workshop were very appropriate for the audience, and they included buying, feeding and raising chicks; keeping birds for eggs, meat or pets; health and care; predators; building coops and ordinances.

The one thing that we needed to keep in mind was the audience was interested in keeping poultry and learning from our experiences. We shared our experiences, but at times this was possibly scary to the attendees, especially when it came to disease and predators. When talking about diseases we should have focused on the most common and told them to contact an experienced poultry keeper if other issues came up. We also needed to remember that urban poultry flocks don't have the same predation issues as a rural flock. They are much more likely to encounter a neighborhood dog instead of a coyote or fox, and we needed to approach this in a positive manner.

Guest speaker Nick Schneider discusses waste management and using chickens for composting to a large audience of potential urban chicken flocksters.

My final thoughts are to plan ahead and really think through the presentation. Personally my favorite statement made at the workshop was made in a whisper from Tyler to me. He said, "You know, if we can get 100 people at these things, we could both quit our day jobs!"

All in all I would say the workshop was a huge success and I have already had attendees ask when the next one will be. At this time we do not have one planned, but be on the lookout, we may be coming to a city near you!

Jeremy Trost has been raising poultry for nearly 20 years, 10 of which have been in an urban setting. He strongly supports getting ordinances changed to clearly define the keeping of poultry in urban settings. In his free time Jeremy volunteers as a 4-H leader, shows poultry, and gardens. Currently he is searching for a rural home to move his flock to. You can contact Jeremy via e-mail at JTrost [at] new.rr.com.