CU Social Entre Builds Urban Chicken Coops

A group of Colorado University engineering students has built a better chicken coop that is targeted to the growing number of urban chicken farmers in the U.S.  From the article by Melanie Asmar of the Colorado Daily.

But the idea behind University of Colorado senior Jeff Troutman’s coop is decidedly down-to-earth. The architecture student set out to build a chicken-house that could be manufactured easily and inexpensively — and sold at an affordable price to Boulder’s burgeoning set of urban hen-keepers.

“I would love to see it become a functional coop in people’s backyards,” he said.

Keeping a flock of chickens next to the lawnmower shed is a practice that’s taking off across the country and across Colorado, as more and more cities make allowances for backyard birds. Boulder allows them, as do Superior and Longmont.

For proponents like Troutman, who, as a renter, has never had a flock of his own, backyard chicken-keeping is partly about knowing where your food comes from — and where your waste goes.

“That’s the idea behind this — to create a cycle, instead of this throw-out culture,” he said.