Urban Chicken Farming

In my class, the User Experience, we are learning all about the importance of research within design. We as designers problem solve for other people. In order to do that to the best of our abilities we have to understand the people or the target audience and their needs.

Our first assignment is to tackle a subculture and learn it inside out. My subculture: Urban Chicken Farming.

What it is?
 Urban chicken framing is when chickens are raised in the urban environment.

Who participates in urban chicken farming?
Residents of any non-rural city.

Why do people participate in urban chicken farming?
To be confident in the proper care and treatment of the chicken providing eggs. Some consider it to be an act of green living. Others find chicken raising a good hobby. One man even considered this hobby a great lesson for his children, educating them in where their food comes from, as well as the circle of life.

"The most common culinary reason people keep chickens in the city, though, is their eggs. Depending on the hens’ diets, eggs from home-raised chickens can have stronger shells, brighter, richer yolks and higher levels of nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids than their commercially-raised counterparts." - NYTimes

Where is this happening?
Urban Chicken Farming is booming in large cities such as New York, Portland, and Austin. Even here in Kansas City there are residents who have chicken coops in their back yard. Unfortunately, Kansas does not allow any form of urban chicken farms, but Missouri indeed does allow it.

Although the ability to have an urban chicken farm varies from county to county the chart shows that the majority of urban Kansas does not allow it. The only place a chicken farm is legal in the great state of Kansas is on agriculturally zoned land or on an area larger than 1 acre.

OUr next move would be to conact Theo Bunch, a past graduate from KCAI who runs a local urban farm, who we are hoping leads us to some urban chicken farmers.