Most of us don’t have to grapple with whether we’ll ever eat our pets. Govanni McCall doesn’t have that luxury. “I would like to one day get to the point where I could eat my own, but if I raise them as pets, I don’t think I could do that,” she says, referring to the four chickens she’s raising in her backyard in Bucktown.
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McCall’s three Barred Rocks are named after phrases in the east African language of Kiswahili. The Golden Laced Wyandotte got its name from a Game of Thrones character (Khalessi). Both breeds are cold hardy, meaning they’ll make it through the winter with a bit of weatherproofing.
The Chick-Ens are offering a kind of chicken run this weekend by opening the backyard coops of 20 or so members on Saturday and Sunday from 10 AM to 2 PM. A list of participating houses is available at chicagochickens.org.
