UC's Backyard Chicken Census

Advice from the Help Desk of the
UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County

Besides editing this portion of the MGCC's HOrT COCO blog, I'm something of a blog junkie. I probably subscribe to about a dozen of the UCANR blogs as well as others either directly and indirectly. Luckily, most don't publish that often. I used to be an avid book reader, but I'm finding that I'm now using my former “reading” time indulging in web blogs.

One blog I follow on the UCANR server is the IGIS blog. GIS basically being information gained from aerial and satellite mapping has always fascinated me. GIS came too late in my work career to really indulge, but the IGIS blogs on the various uses of GIS I find fascinating and informative.

A recent IGIS blog was about their work providing data analysis for the UC Davis “Backyard Chicken Survey”. While I don't raise backyard chickens, I know that more than a few neighbors do based upon several run-ins during early morning puppy walks, discussions with other Master Gardeners (you know who you are), local newspaper articles (see 1 and 2), the informative presentations by John Kiefer of Lafayette (see 2), the cackling from the houses backing up to Markham Arboretum in Concord where I often volunteer, and faint memories when my daughters were in Pacheco 4H although we were rabbit people.

I'd also recently heard anecdotal concerns that some backyard chicken raising wasn't quite as well-done due to lack of knowledge, and that shortfall could potentially impact the whole poultry community. Apparently from similar concerns, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and the UC Cooperative Extension want to assess and remedy this concern and have embarked on a census of the California backyard poultry community. Quoting from their opening statements about the census on http://ucanr.edu/sites/poultry/California_Poultry_Census/

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In California, backyard poultry ownership is increasing like never before. A recent National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) study predicted a 4.6% increase in chicken ownership in Los Angeles alone. At the same time, California resources available to this growing group are limited. Little is known about backyard poultry communities.  To address these issues, the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and Cooperative Extension have made a short survey designed for backyard poultry enthusiasts.  Results will help us get an idea of the number of backyard poultry farms in California, the trends among them, and, more importantly, help bridge the communication gap between poultry experts and backyard poultry enthusiasts. For this reason, we sincerely hope you consider participating in this survey.

Note: As veterinarians at UC Davis our interest is in working with Backyard poultry and their owners to improve poultry health.  The data in this survey is strictly for outreach purposes.  We want to work with you.  We are a university, not a regulatory agency and, therefore, our focus is on outreach and education and not regulation and enforcement. 
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If you are part of the backyard poultry/chicken community, you are strongly encouraged to participate in the UCD census. It's only 2 minutes of your time and the benefits for you and you poultry/chickens are significant… cluck… cluck

Help Desk of the UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County (SIM)

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Note: The  UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa's Help Desk is available year-round to answer your gardening questions.  Except for a few holidays, we're open every week, Monday through Thursday for walk-ins from 9:00 am to Noon at 75 Santa Barbara Road, 2d Floor, Pleasant Hill, CA  94523. We can also be reached via telephone:  (925) 646-6586, email: ccmg@ucanr.edu, or on the web at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/Ask_Us/ MGCC Blogs can be found at http://ccmg.ucanr.edu/HortCoCo/ You can also subscribe to the Blog (//ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/blogroll.cfm).