As with all poultry, just follow the recipe

Like that revelatory moment when martinis start to taste good or summer turns with one chill breeze to fall, that's how chicken farming entered my synapses — synap, crackle, pop.

Our friends Mitch and Teresa were taking the kids on vacation for a few weeks, leaving their pre-pubescent hens in the hands of several neighbors, who tag-teamed the task. One neighbor one week, another the next. I found our stint with the chickens just long enough to fall in love with the whole concept.

"I want chickens too," said the little guy. So there you go.

Reminds me of disco, the senseless way raising your own chickens has swept the country, except that I think there is something deeper to it, more symptomatic of our current neuroses over the economy. Being self-sustaining seems suddenly very appealing.

All I know for sure is that organic is good, but nonorganic is far cheaper. And a chicken is really a beautiful and impressive bird, particularly when properly seasoned and roasted.

In Mitch and Teresa's case, they were simply seeking some fresh eggs in the morning, along with a little hobby for their two boys.

When I first visited, I'd expected something like that yard in "The Wizard of Oz," with chickens running everywhere and gingham-wearing movie stars falling into hog pens, but Teresa and Mitch's backyard was remarkably normal. Nice pool. Cabana. Chicken hut.

There were tomatoes reddening in the garden, and loads of lettuce, which we were told we could feed to the chickens because they love greens. There was also a tub of chicken feed.

Basically, like me, a chicken will eat anything.

Mitch had built the 10-foot-by-10-foot coop. Before the California real estate crash, it alone would've fetched $450,000. Now far less. Because the schools are decent, probably in the $200,000-$300,000 range. Like I said, they have a pool.

Anyway, the first thing a backyard chicken farmer does is acquire some chicks, which apparently — like Canadian Viagra — can be bought through the mail.

"As long as the birds are properly packaged and can reach their destination within 72 hours of hatching, the U.S. Postal Service will accept live birds for delivery," a National Geographic article explains.

Foolishly obsessive over all new activities, I picked up a copy of "Recipe for Raising Chickens" by Minnie Rose Lovgreen, who is to chickens what Shakespeare was to broken hearts.

"You can test a hen to see if she's laying," Lovgreen writes. "There are two bones [on] either side of a hen's rectum. You see, a hen only has one vent for everything. If you can fit two of your folded knuckles … ."

OK, let's move on.

Lovgreen advises that it's good to clean the henhouse once a year with lime, and the thought of all these suburban moms and dads spending a Saturday brushing lime paste onto nesting boxes makes me think this chicken-raising phenomenon might last about one more week.

"Another kind of mite gets on the chickens' legs, and their legs get scaly," Lovgreen writes. "Rubbing carbolated Vaseline on their legs at night should help this problem."

There's another activity that will be hugely popular with our suburb's Chardonnay Moms.

Meanwhile, Lovgreen says roosters are necessary if you want fertile eggs, and "it's perfectly all right to eat fertile eggs, or non-fertile eggs. They taste the same. Sometimes people wonder about that."