from friends and family represents a significant shift from experiential and social learning to book learning. The internet has certainly had a huge effect on the proliferation and accessibility of information, and I would guess that it has largely encouraged the Do-It-Yourself movement because anyone with an internet connection can learn just about anything they want to know by using Google, Wikipedia, or similar search engines. But simply reading about something does not ensure that a person will get it right when it. There is a fear that new backyard chicken doing owners will not know what to do when something goes wrong, that they are a threat to public health and sanitation. But the numerous backyard chicken resources online do address these issues, and many areas support their backyard chicken community by providing workshops and veterinary advice. If it takes one generation of book learning to produce many future generations of experiential learning, the risks could well be worth it. The second greatest influence over a person’s decision to get chickens is spending time with them; 31% of respondents reported that this was very important and 18% reported that this was important. This seems fairly obvious. Spending time with the birds makes them all the more endearing and appealing, and of course one should get to know an animal before adding it to the household. Chickens are just addicting to watch, like a fascinating television show—but better. My neighbor calls his flock his TV.” “chicken always admired a sustainable way of living and chickens are a good source of “I eggs and meat. All the times that you're going to collect eggs are times that you don't have to go to the grocery store. It makes sense.” Geiling, interview —Matt People keep chickens for many reasons, but eggs rank number one. Ninety-six percent of chickens owners rank fresh eggs as being important to their decision to keep chickens, with 77% reporting important (see fig. 1). The second most important reason is control over very
from friends and family represents a significant shift from experiential and social learning to book learning. The internet has certainly had a huge effect on the proliferation and accessibility of information, and I would guess that it has largely encouraged the Do-It-Yourself movement because anyone with an internet connection can learn just about anything they want to know by using Google, Wikipedia, or similar search engines. But simply reading about something does not ensure that a person will get it right when doing it. There is a fear that new backyard chicken owners will not know what to do when something goes wrong, that they are a threat to public health and sanitation. But the numerous backyard chicken resources online do address these issues, and many areas support their backyard chicken community by providing workshops and veterinary advice. If it takes one generation of book learning to produce many future generations of experiential learning, the risks could well be worth it. The second greatest influence over a person’s decision to get chickens is spending time with them; 31% of respondents reported that this was very important and 18% reported that this was important. This seems fairly obvious. Spending time with the birds makes them all the more endearing and appealing, and of course one should get to know an animal before adding it to the household. Chickens are just addicting to watch, like a fascinating television show—but better. My neighbor calls his flock his “chicken TV.” “I always admired a sustainable way of living and chickens are a good source of eggs and meat. All the times that you're going to collect eggs are times that you don't have to go to the grocery store. It makes sense.” —Matt Geiling, interview People keep chickens for many reasons, but eggs rank number one. Ninety-six percent of chickens owners rank fresh eggs as being important to their decision to keep chickens, with 77% reporting very important (see fig. 1). The second most important reason is control over